Description
Book SynopsisAn invention of the Industrial Revolution, the accordion provided the less affluent with an inexpensive, loud, portable, and durable 'one-man-orchestra' capable of producing melody, harmony, and bass all at once. Imported from Europe into the Americas, the accordion with its distinctive sound became a part of the aural landscape for millions of people but proved to be divisive: while the accordion formed an integral part of working-class musical expression, bourgeois commentators often derided it as vulgar and tasteless.
This rich collection considers the accordion and its myriad forms, from the concertina, button accordion, and piano accordion familiar in European and North American music to the exotic-sounding South American bandoneon and the sanfoninha. Capturing the instrument''s spread and adaptation to many different cultures in North and South America, contributors illuminate how the accordion factored into power struggles over aesthetic values between elites a
Trade Review
"An excellent collection of ethnomusicology scholarship that will be of interest to those who like world music, ethnography, or unusual instruments."--Library Journal
"This book should help lift the accordion's reputation to the place it deserves for its role in music history. Highly recommended."--Choice
"The Accordion in the Americas offers a history rich in insights drawn from the complex intertwining of society, race and culture in American music-making."--Times Literary Supplement
"The Accordion in the Americas tells of the symbolism of the accordion and the role the instrument and its genres play in a variety of cultures. Few world instruments are as pervasive as the accordion and few are as under-represented in scholarly literature."--Journal of Folklore Research
"Ridiculed as the old-world instrument of minority ethnic groups, the accordion has also been largely dismissed as a topic of historical or folkloristic inquiry. This edited volume rights this wrong and traces the accordion from its central European roots to 11 regional forms in the Americas. In this volume, the accordion has received its due recognition and respect as a folk instrument."--Journal of American Folklore
"An in-depth introduction to the mechanical, musical, and social workings of free-reed instruments in the New World."--Journal of the Society for American Music
"This cultural study of the accordion makes a major contribution to understanding the instrument's important social function within different ethnic cultures. The impressive group of contributors illuminates the importance of studying mass culture and indicates the accordion's enduring significance to many cultural and personal identities."--Victor R. Greene, author of A Singing Ambivalence: American Immigrants between Old World and New, 1830–1930
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
HELENA SIMONETT
Chapter 1 From Old World to New Shores 19
HELENA SIMONETT
Chapter 2 Accordion Jokes: A Folklorist's View 39
RICHARD MARCH
Chapter 3 From Chanky-Chank to Yankee Chanks: The Cajun Accordion as Identity Symbol 44
MARK F. DeWITT
Chapter 4 'Garde ici et 'garde la-bas: Creole Accordion in Louisiana 66
JARED SNYDER
Chapter 5 "Tejano and Proud": Regional Accordion Traditions of South Texas and the Border Region 87
CATHY RAGLAND
Chapter 6 Preserving Territory: The Changing Language of the Accordion in Tohono O'odham Waila Music 112
JANET L. STURMAN
Chapter 7 Accordions and Working-Class Culture along Lake Superior's South Shore 136
JAMES P. LEARY
Chapter 8 Play Me a Tarantella, a Polka, or Jazz: Italian Americans and the Currency of Piano-Accordion Music 156
CHRISTINE F. ZINNI
Chapter 9 The Klezmer Accordion: An Outsider among Outsiders 178
JOSHUA HOROWITZ
Chapter 10 Beyond Vallenato: The Accordion Traditions in Colombia 199
EGBERTO BERMUDEZ
Chapter 11 "A Hellish Instrument": The Story of the Tango Bandoneon 233
MARIA SUSANA AZZI
Chapter 12 No ma'se oye el fuinfuan: The Noisy Accordion in the Dominican Republic 249
SYDNEY HUTCHINSON
Chapter 13 Between the Folds of Luiz Gonzaga's Sanfona: Forro Music in Brazil 268
MEGWEN LOVELESS
Chapter 14 The Accordion in New Scores: Paradigms of Authorship and Identity in William Schimmel's Musical "Realities" 295
MARION S. JACOBSON
Glossary 315
Contributors 319
Index 323
