Re: button accordion

[Owen Davidson <owend...>]

At 10:18 AM 2/6/98 EDT, Paul Gifford wrote:
>Max Yankowitz recorded first in 1913.  It sounds to me like a button 
>accordion, or "garmonika" in Russian.  There were many different 
>varieties of garmon or garmonika made in Russia at the turn of the
>century, including "oriental" tunings used in the Northern Caucasus.
>Maybe there was a "Jewish" tuning.  In Belarus today, the garmonika
>is regarded as an "old-time" instrument.  The ones I saw there had
>one or two rows, but I don't know the tuning.

I'd be interested in any information you may have on these instruments.

>  And check out a
>> photograph of Mishka Tsiganoff with his instrument that appears briefly at
>> the very end of a film called "Angelo My Love."  It's hard to see it, but I
>> didn't think it was a piano keyboard...  Anybody got the dope on 
>this?
>
>Saw the movie, but don't remember the scene.  Probably a bayan?

I didn't think it was a bayan.  It seems to have two rows, but as I say,
it's hard to see.  By the way, the interesting thing in that movie, among
many interesting things, is that Patalay (Steve) and Millie Tsiganoff, who
play themselves, seem to be Mishka's own children.  The clues pop up
throughout the film, but the clincher comes at the end, during the credits,
when we see Millie talking to a photograph on the wall, and then see the
photo of Mishka with his accordion.  The credit reads "In Appreciation to
the Tsiganoff Family."  
>

Owen
_________________________________________________________________________
        Owen Davidson, Amherst, Mass.
        The Wholesale Klezmer Band

        The Angel that presided o'er my birth
        Said Little creature formd of Joy and Mirth,
        Go love without the help of any King on Earth. 

                                Wm. Blake