If things have seemed a little slow around here lately, we (for once) have a good reason. Last Friday night, Anna gave birth to the newest member of the Let’s Polka team — a bouncing baby girl named Sarah Rose. Weighing in at 8 pounds, 14 ounces, she’s everything we dreamed and more. And we’re already planning a trip to the local accordion shops so she can pick out her first box. Gotta start ’em young, I always say.

As you can imagine, our updates (and email response times) will be inconsistent over the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you have any recommendations for soothing accordion music that a baby might enjoy during a feeding or changing, leave us a comment.

Okay, I promise this will be the last Grammy post (at least until next year). No big surprises, but here’s a quick rundown of the accordion-related winners from tonight’s ceremony:

• Best Polka Album: Come Share the Wine by Jimmy Sturr
  Surprise, surprise. This gives Sturr 17 wins in the 23 years that the polka category has existed. Maybe the Grammys need a system like some county fairs I know, where if you win for several years in a row, you’re taken off the ballot and given permanent “hall of fame” status.
• Best Zydeco or Cajun Album: Live! Worldwide by Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience
  It’s fitting that the person who campaigned for this category’s creation would win its first-ever award. There were a lot of deserving albums nominated, though, and I’m sorry I didn’t finish my Cajun/Zydeco Grammy preview in time. (I’ll explain why very soon!)
• Best Norteño Album: Detalles Y Emociones by Los Tigres del Norte
  Already recipients of a lifetime achievement award at the Latin Grammys, the Norteño legends collect this particular award for the second year in a row.

Check the full list of winners and let me know if there’s anyone (carrying an accordion) I missed.

With so many Grammy categories, it’s no surprise that what you see on TV is only a tiny fraction of the awards presented (usually about 12 out of 110 total). Most awards are given out during a ceremony before the televised show.

This year, for the first time, you can watch those pre-televised awards — including Best Polka Album and Best Cajun/Zydeco Album — live online at Grammy.com. It starts at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern today and, while there are a lot of awards to get through, things move pretty fast.

With Super Tuesday behind us, it’s time to focus on a contest that really matters: the Grammy award for Best Polka Album, to be handed out this Sunday in Los Angeles. This year’s nominees include some polka freaks from Texas, a pair of Canadian polka greats, and a 16-time winner who shows no signs of slowing down. Let’s take a closer look at the nominees:

Brave Combo, Polka’s Revenge

Eclectic polka-rockers Brave Combo are no strangers to the Grammy scene, having won in 1999 for their album Polkasonic and in 2005 for their album Let’s Kiss. For more than twenty five years, they’ve relentlessly busted genres and boldly taken polkas where they’ve never gone before. On Polka’s Revenge, the band fuses rock and Tex-Mex-inspired polkas with old-world waltzes, schottisches, and obereks. Originals like “The Denton Polka” mingle freely with updated renditions of classics by the Connecticut Twins and Ampol Aires.

Brave Combo: The Denton Polka (MP3 download)

John Gora & Gorale, Bulletproof Polkas

Born in Poland, now living in Ontario, Canada, saxophonist John Gora and his band earned their fourth Grammy nomination this year. The repertoire on Bulletproof Polkas runs the gamut from traditional polkas sung in Polish to polka-fied covers of rock songs. In the latter category, Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon” survives the transition well, but the same cannot be said for John Lennon’s “Woman.”

John Gora & Gorale: Karma Chameleon (MP3 download)

Bubba Hernandez and Alex Meixner, Polka Freak Out

When Bubba Hernandez (former bassist for Brave Combo) first heard accordionist Alex Meixner, he asked himself, “What would this guy sound like on a Tex-Mex tuned accordion with some Tejano players?” The result is Polka Freak Out, an unlikely collaboration that places Alex’s technical mastery of the accordion over a Tex-Mex rhythm section, with dollops of Tejano, pop, and rock thrown in for good measure. Think Brave Combo, but with more accordion (and a heck of an accordion player at that).

Bubba Hernandez and Alex Meixner: A Heart’s Grand Opening (MP3 download)

Walter Ostanek and Brian Sklar, Dueling Polkas

“Canada’s Polka King” Walter Ostanek matches up with Saskatchewan fiddler Brian Sklar and his band, the Western Senators, for an old-fashioned double album. It’s an apt pairing: Sklar is a Canadian country music legend and Ostanek has been bringing country and western stylings to Cleveland-style polkas for years. The two styles merge effortlessly on Dueling Polkas and, fifty years after starting his first band, Ostanek is still one of polka’s greatest accordionists.

Walter Ostanek and His Band: Iron Mike’s Polka (MP3 download)

Jimmy Sturr and his Orchestra, Come Share the Wine

Having won 16 out of the 22 awards given for Best Polka Album, Jimmy Sturr has earned his share of both respect and enmity from his polka colleagues. But few can deny that he’s one of polka’s hardest-working promoters, cranking out an album a year and following a relentless tour schedule that ranges from the Bayway Polish Home to Farm-Aid. Come Share the Wine may lack the star power of his most recent releases (no Willie Nelson cameo this time), but that’s actually a good thing; this time, the focus rests squarely on his top-notch band.

Jimmy Sturr and his Orchestra: Red Wing (MP3 download)

It’s a diverse set of contenders for the polka field and it’s anyone’s guess as to who will bring home the Grammy. Will Jimmy Sturr add another trophy to his collection? Will the Texas polka mafia power either Brave Combo or Polka Freak Out to victory? Or will one of Canada’s polka heroes swoop in from the Great White North? We’ll find out on Sunday!

What would happen if the king of Chicago-style polka met the king of champagne music? It actually happened back in 1966 when Lil’ Wally Jagiello performed “Johnny’s Knocking Polka” on the Lawrence Welk Show. I could watch that chemnitzer concertina shake for hours…

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.

Set your Tivos, ‘Weird’ Al is making a cameo appearance on The Simpsons this Sunday night (8/7c), January 27th, 2008. This will be his second appearance on the show, putting him in an elite club of multi-time guests such as Stephen Hawking and Thomas Pynchon! For more information (warning: spoilers!) check out Al’s Myspace blog.

The accordion has always seemed like the perfect movie subject. Its story features a glamorous past, an unceremonious fall from grace, and now a lively renaissance. What audience wouldn’t love that story?

Thankfully, Steve Mobia agrees and is putting the finishing touches on Behind the Bellows, his documentary chronicling the accordion’s “variety, history and rise and fall in popularity.” It includes interviews and performances by Anthony Galla Rini, Stefan Hussong, Guy Klucevsek, Carmen Carrozza, and more. In the trailer below, you can see clips of Those Darn Accordions, Henry Doktorski, the Great Morgani, and Jason Webley, among others.

On Mobia’s site, the documentary is listed as “unfinished”, but I’ll post an update as soon as we hear it’s ready for public consumption.

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.