Legendary Cleveland-style polka band leader and accordionist Johnny Vadnal passed away yesterday at the age of 84. Vadnal was the first polka band leader to have his own major market television show, performing every Sunday afternoon on WEWS Channel 5 in Cleveland from 1949 to 1961. In 1949, Vadnal won the title of “Cleveland’s Polka King” in a vote held by a local radio station.
A prolific songwriter, Vadnal penned such polka classics as “Yes, My Dear”, “No Beer on Sunday”, “Wayside Polka” and many others. Here’s Johnny and his band performing one of his later hits — written for his wife — “My Alice Waltz”:
Guy Klucevsek and Alan Bern have long been in the vanguard of contemporary accordion music; Klucevsek with his background in classical and (often whimsical) avant-garde music and Bern with his work in world music, particularly the jazz/klezmer ensemble Brave Old World. Last year, the pair released their second album together, Notefalls; I don’t have it yet, but I’ve long been a fan of their 2001 release, Accordance. In a recent interview, Klucevsek explains his attraction to the sound of accordions playing together:
“The accordions are never exactly in tune with each other. It’s a little raw and — I don’t know if ugly’s the right word — a little dirty… It’s always going to have a little bit of dirt on it when you have more than one accordion, and the dirt in music is what I really find interesting.”
Klucevsek and Bern will be playing a handful of shows together on the East Coast over the next two weeks, starting with a performance in Philadelphia on Friday night. Check our calendar for more information.
Maybe it’s a testament to the joy they spread, but newspapers love talking about accordion players. It seems like I stumble across a glowing feature on a local accordionist almost every day. Here are a few I found this week:
Steve Albini and the Accordion: That’s Amoré The Marin Independent Journal profiles Steve Albini, a singer/accordionist with a penchant for Italian tunes. After a brief career detour (he joined the priesthood), Albini now plays clubs and restaurants throughout the Bay Area.
Musician Played for a Hungry Crowd Unfortunately, some of the profiles are obituaries, as is the case with this tribute to Barto Ungaretti, a popular strolling accordionist at the Italian Village restaurant in Chicago. Regulars would often request him to come in and play even on his nights off. “We’d always rev him up, give him a little more amaretto… Especially on those cold nights.”
It’s Happy Music Elba, Nebraska, recently held it’s annual “Kolache Shoot-Out” and where there are kolaches, there’s polka music. The soundtrack was provided by the Friends Czech Band, featuring 75-year-old Eddie Stepanek on accordion.
Today’s Toronto Star has a feature on saxophonist John Gora and accordionist Walter Ostanek, the two Canadian artists nominated for Best Polka Album at this year’s Grammys. The article plays up the good-natured rivalry between the pair — Gora has been nominated four times but never won, Ostanek has been nominated 20 times and won three times — but also suggests that polka won’t be part of the Grammys much longer. According to Ostanek:
“Everyone in the polka business is wondering how long (the Grammy polka category) can last… Polka will never die, but no one makes a living at it. It’s music you play for the love of it. It’s for parties and good times, and it will always have a place in people’s lives. But it’s for weekend warriors now.”
While it’d be sad to see the category go — and I don’t think it will; the Grammys seem more preoccupied with adding rather than removing categories at this point — I agree that polka will survive just fine without it. As long as there are parties, beer, and accordions in close proximity, there will be polkas.
Bulgaria seems to have no shortage of great accordionists and Milen Slavov is one of the brightest lights in Balkan traditional and contemporary music. He moved to America in 1997 and currently performs, composes, produces, and teaches throughout the United States and Canada. I know a few of our readers saw him perform with the Yuri Yunakov Ensemble at the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio last year.
We’ve seen some online accordion lesson courses before, but nothing quite like the ones that Milen is currently offering through his website. He offers both custom audio (he’ll send you an MP3) and custom video lessons based around one of four subjects: ornaments in Bulgarian music, Bulgarian/Balkan piano accordion music, phrases and techniques, or improvisation. Even cooler, though, you can schedule face-to-face lessons to be conducted via webcam.
Normally, I’m a little skeptical of online video lessons because there’s no substitute for the feedback you get from a real teacher. But I’ll admit I’m intrigued by the possibility of taking lessons (even long-distance ones) from one of the world’s top accordionists. If anyone out there takes a lesson from Milen, let us know. I’d be really curious to hear how it goes.
Few artists challenge notions of what the accordion can or can’t do quite like Poland’s Motion Trio. Since 1996, Motion Trio has been taking its unorthodox playing techniques (bellows scraping, accentuated vibrato) and eclectic repertoire (jazz, rock, avant garde) from the streets where they first honed their skills to the concert hall. According to trio founder, Janusz Wojtarowicz:
“Our idea is to take this instrument, which is only thought about for weddings or polka or tango, and to make it as serious as any other classical instrument… We want to show the world that this is a versatile instrument that can play everything from contemporary classical music to folk or even avant garde music.”
Last Sunday, the trio played at Carnegie Hall in New York and I found an excellent clip of their performance online. It cuts off abruptly at the end, but you’ll get the idea — their playing is inspired, quirky, and totally captivating.
Last week, the Chicago Tribune had a fun piece on Chicago punk/polka band The Polkaholics. Fortified with Old Style and Old Spice, The Polkaholics recently celebrated their 10th anniversary and continue their quest to bring polkas rocking and screaming into the 21st century. Guitarist “Dandy” Don Hedeker (day job: professor of biostatistics!) describes the reaction of older polka fans who sometimes stumble upon their shows:
“Sometimes they’re excited to see what we’re doing with the music… Other times they think we’re the devil.”
The band’s latest CD, Ten Years to the Floor, is a live album highlighting the band’s unique brand of polka madness. As with anything punk, it’s more about the spirit and raw energy than musicianship — “we may miss a note, but we never miss a party” — and you can practically hear the beergarden and mosh pit coming together. This is a Polkaholics original from that album:
A tireless promoter of Slovenian culture and button accordion music, Frank Vidergar passed away late last month. Vidergar started the Far West Button Accordion Jamboree, an event that drew hundreds of button accordionists to Fontana, CA, every year for a weekend of spirited music and dancing. The Jamboree recently evolved into the National Button Accordion Festival, now held on Memorial Day weekend in Yukon, OK.
In the Fontana Herald-News, Philip Rue remembers a past Jamboree where Vidergar “directed a patriotic program as 30 accordions and button boxes en masse played ‘God Bless America’ with the audience singing along.”
The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin has an excellent article on Vidergar’s life, focusing on his Slovenian roots and dedication to the community
Honoring Zydeco’s King Remembering the King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier, on the 20th anniversary of his death. “Sometimes, if I’m stuck on one of his songs and I can’t figure it out, I’ll go out there [to Chenier's tomb] and just kind of play it,” said Corey Ledet. “In about 30 minutes, I’ll be playing it.”
Mr. Accordion Man At age five, Walter Lawrence received an accordion for Christmas. More than fifty years later, he’s still playing — now serenading customers four nights a week at a local restaurant. “By day, he shuffles paper at an office job. ‘But this is what I am,’ he says. ‘This is my love.’”
As Americans remember those who served their country on this Veterans Day, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has a feature on World War II veterans sharing their stories for a collection of oral histories called An Honor to Serve. One of the stories comes from John Martino, a veteran who brought his accordion while landing on Omaha Beach, fought his way across Europe, and eventually captured Hitler’s accordion:
“Martino ‘captured’ Hitler’s Hohner accordion when the Nazi Reich was defeated in 1945. ‘I had about 21 accordions over there… A lot of them got shot up, and this is the only one that made it home with me. This thing is history. It has to be 85, 90 years old.’”
Martino still has the accordion — a Hohner Verdi IIIB that he found in Hitler’s mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden, Germany — which will be donated to the military museum at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.
