Re: Cajun Accordion - OT

[Joel Bresler <jbresler...>]

There was a fascinating PBS special that aired over the weekend in Boston. 
It traced, among other things, how Tejano Conjunto musicians adopted and 
adapted the button accordion from Central European immigrant musicians with 
whom they had come in contact in urban Texas centers...

J

At 01:56 PM 2/8/00 -0400, you wrote:
>"Peter Rushefsky" <rushefsky_p (at) univerahealthcare(dot)org> wrote:
> >
> > A couple of books on Cajun music history made reference to German Jewish
> > settlers in Louisiana in the mid 1800's introducing the accordion to 
> the Cajuns.
> >  Also Jewish distributors in New York actively sold the instrument to 
> Louisiana.
> >  However, the early German diatonic instruments tuned to C/F (I may 
> have gotten
> > the specific tuning wrong) did not work will with the fiddle-based 
> repertoire,
> > and so it was not until the G/D-tuned English diatonic instruments were
> > introduced in Louisiana that the instrument really took off.
> >
>I wonder how well documented, or at least what the sources are, for
>these statements. Just from general knowledge or research, I know
>that the accordion was a common trade item in music stores starting
>in the 1840s and that the first U.S. method (at least on OCLC) dates
>from that decade. Daguerreotype portraits from the 1840s and 1850s
>showing people (both men and women, but especially women, it seems)
>with early accordions are relatively common---I must have noticed ten
>or so in the last year on E-bay---and recall seeing one, in fact, at
>the Historic New Orleans Collection. This gives me the idea that when
>it was first introduced in the U.S., it may have appealed to the
>class of people who could afford to have daguerreotypes made (they
>cost $5, cheaper than painted portraits, but still expensive). I
>don't know what classes of people in Europe first bought the accordion
>when it was first introduced, but I'll bet it was similar (middle-
>class, urban?).
>
>There were of course lots of German Jewish peddlers active in the
>South in the 1840s and 1850s, and some could have sold musical items.
>Newspaper ads from New Orleans and Lafayette, etc., would show who
>was selling accordions (there was a German newspaper in New Orleans).
>But there is a common fallacy of thinking that somehow the button
>accordion did not catch on in the U.S., except among Cajuns
>and certain immigrant groups, like Germans and Czechs, but this is
>certainly not true. Around 1900 it was a commonly played amateur's
>instrument. Cajuns mostly use a single-row accordion, and they could
>have been introduced to it through the standard music trade before
>the Civil War (which could have involved German Jewish peddlers or
>merchants) and then bought imported models from Sears & Roebuck after
>1879, when parcel post began. Of course, I'm just speculating, but
>maybe what you read was also speculation. But newspaper ads would
>easily show who was selling accordions in that area.
>
>Paul Gifford
>



Joel Bresler
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