“HOW IS AN ACCORDION LIKE AN ARTILLERY SHELL?” THE OLD JOKE GOES. “ONCE YOU HEAR IT, IT’S ALREADY TOO LATE.”
OK, that’s funny, but it also implies a problem. People who dismiss the accordion as soon as they hear it, as soon as it triggers associations with bad wedding bands, are not really listening to it. If they really listened to this contraption with the bellows and buttons, they’d recognize its tremendous technical versatility and emotional capacity.
They’d begin to understand why it’s so central to such folk traditions as Cajun, zydeco, conjunto, tango, forró, choro, klezmer, vallenato, township jive, and Celtic—and why it’s becoming ever more visible in the jazz world in the hands of artists such as Gil Goldstein, Gary Versace, Andrea Parkins, Richard Galliano, Ben Thomas, Dino Saluzzi, and Vitor Gonçalves.
“I enjoy the humor about accordion,” confesses Gonçalves, Anat Cohen’s regular sideman. “All instruments have their jokes and it’s nice to laugh about yourself and your instrument. But I also feel it’s important that we spread the word about all the wonderful and diverse music being played on the accordion. After my performances, I often hear people say, ‘Wow, I never knew the accordion could do all these things.’”
Saluzzi, who has released 14 albums on ECM as a bandoneon-playing leader, is less amused. “In these difficult times, I don’t know why someone would make jokes about a culture or a music or an instrument,” he says. “All I know is the bandoneon is an instrument which works very well in various styles,
