A local newspaper reviewed the band's first recorded album as "world beat music of the Kennedy era".ĭan searched the rich jazz, bluegrass and folk scenes in the Twin Cities to find the most versatile musicians available. The idea was to create the ambiance of a French or European Cafe or to leave the listener feeling like they were in a silent film or a Fellini flick. A year later Dan grew anxious to play some of these tunes with other musicians and formed a loose combo he called the Cafe Accordion Orchestra, and their first public performance was on January 1, 1995. That became the name of the tune and Dan's first solo album. A friend commented that one of the tunes in particular sounded like "cafe accordion" music. He began writing his own tunes based on the style, which he referred to as "faux Parisian elevator music". Dan had been introduced to "Musette" or "Valse Swing", the Parisian sidewalk cafe accordion sound, while teaching at a music camp in northern California in the 1980s. It all started with a tune composed in 1992 by the band's accordionist Dan "Daddy Squeeze" Newton. It's certainly been an interesting journey for Dan Newton's Cafe Accordion Orchestra, (CAO) a band whose repertoire cannot be described neatly with one word like "Blues" or "Swing". One might wonder how a group of musicians in Minnesota end up forming a band that plays French Musette, Gypsy Jazz, Tin Pan Alley, Latin music and cinematic themes. They have appeared in New York at the Lincoln Center's Midsummer Night Swing series, the International Akkordeon Festival in Vienna, Austria, the Minnesota State Fair, as well as festivals, theaters and dance halls across the United States. CAO has been delighting audiences and dancers alike since 1995. Their high level of musicianship and passion for performance makes them an entertaining concert act as well as a great dance band.ĬAO is led by DAN NEWTON on accordion and vocals, with ERIC MOHRING on mandolin, violin and vocals, BRIAN BARNES on guitar and vocals, ERIK LILLESTOL on bass and vocals and JOE STEINGER on percussion. They inject their music with good humor and expressive abandon. The group complements the musettes with swing, ballads, tangos, cha chas, rumbas, and cumbias to create a wonderfully varied show. The heart of the CAO repertoire is the romantic, gypsy-influenced valse-musette.
#Type of accordion in french cafe music full#
There is a moveable bridge, a variable number of drone strings and hidden sympathetic strings, all of which can also effect the sound, which sounds something like bagpipes.Dan Newton's Café Accordion Orchestra (CAO) performs an eclectic mix full of French flare, Latin heat and Bohemian attitude. It is made up of a curved, oval body, a set of keys and a curved handle that is turned and connected to a wheel that bows the strings that are stopped by the keys. Hurdy Gurdy The hurdy gurdy or vielle-a-roue (fiddle with a wheel) is a cross between a violin and a piano accordion.
It was traditionally used in a duet with the biniou ( Bagpipes) for Breton Folk Dancing, but requires so much breath that it cannot be used for very long periods by the (talabarder) bombard player. It produces a strident, powerful tone and is used in most Bagads, the Breton version of British pipe bands. Typically pitched in B flat, it plays a diatonic scale over two octaves. The bombarde is blown by the mouth with the reed is held between the lips. The Bombarde A folk musical instrument from Brittany and Cornwall in the UK, that is a cross between an oboe and a conical- bored pipe chanter (the part of the bagpipe upon which the player creates the melody).
Other instruments from the same family are the Concertina, the Bandeoneon and the Flutina, which are all squeezeboxes. In addition the bass systems are a real science in themselves, with many configurations.
#Type of accordion in french cafe music plus#
There are several different types of button accordions - the Diatonic, the Chromatic, plus the many complex hybrids, and curiosities. In the USA it was an instrument that was widely used during their 'Vaudeville' period, in Holland it is played as an accompaniment to 'Clog dancing', and also enjoyed a certain popularity in Russia at the turn of the century. French folk instruments Accordion The Accordion is the main instrument of the musette style of ballroom music in France (a style largely now out of fashion) and of the fifties chanson singing.Īlthough rarely seen in the cities, the accordion is still very popular in many country regions, and is often used by the local Orchestre du bal.