Accordion enters musical mainstream

By Nico Colombant

JAKARTA (JP): For the city's jazz music lovers who have developed a craving following last week's three-day JakJazz festival, Richard Galliano has just the fix. The French accordionist extraodinaire will be at the Neo Fabrice world music bar and restaurant Tuesday night to perform his very own brand of jazz: new musette.

Galliano's music has effectively broken through traditional barriers of repertoire, turning the "poor man's piano" into an instrument of serendipitous improvisation.

"Jazz is a language. New musette is jazz with historical Parisian content," Galliano said last year on the release of his last album, New York Tango. "Fusion means you can go into blues, the tango, musette. But to be authentic, it's always important to keep whatever sticks to your own skin."

The accordionist is in the middle of a 13-city, eight-country tour of Southeast Asia that has already taken him to Malaysia, Brunei, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Surabaya. The performances are coordinated by the region's network of French cultural centers.

In France, the accordion reached its peak of popularity in the 1930s. It brings back images of proletarian "musette" balls in Paris, berets, red wine, and of course, the voice of Edith Piaf.

Galliano, 47, comes from a long-line of Italian immigrants in the south of France for whom the accordion is a way of life. His father put an accordion in his hands at the age of 10 and together they did the rounds of local dance halls.

But Galliano grew up listening to Charlie Parker and John Coltrane and he found little satisfaction in rehashing the old stuff. He decided to reinvent the accordion to fit the jazz form.

For 15 years, Galliano did just that, gaining fame in Paris as an accompanist to French jazz singers. He started playing the synthesizer and the electronic accordion to make good in the changing times.

But Galliano still felt frustrated. He got the kick in the derriere he needed when he met the late Astor Piazolla, who was to become his mentor. Argentinean Piazolla had reached back to his own roots to recreate the tango through new art forms, and he told Galliano that he should do the same with musette.

And so Galliano took front stage with his acoustic accordion, and new musette was born. It has sparked a new generation of French rockers who use the accordion to give their music a made in France touch. But the king of new musette is definitely Richard Galliano.

"Musette is now to France what the blues are to the States and the tango is to Argentina. It is our carte de visite abroad. It is going back in time, with new inspiration to go forward. My music blends the tradition of the accordion with the energy of Jimi Hendrix, the romanticism of Bill Evans and the mysticism of John Coltrane," according to the burly Galliano.

His first album was New Musette released by Label Bleu in 1991. Critics throughout Europe hailed Galliano as a creator on the horizon of a new genre. Once the first album was made, anything was possible. In the five years that followed, Galliano recorded a dozen or so albums with illustrious artists such as David Dexter D., Enrico Rava and Didier Lockwood, branching out into classical, pop and tango, but always with the sounds of the accordion, the rhythm of jazz and the feeling of musette at the forefront.

The album to be featured in the Neo Fabrice performance is New York Tango, released by Dreyfus Jazz. His most polished album yet is the result of an impromptu visit to New York, Galliano's first to the Big Apple. It was recorded at the Clinton Studio, on the corner of 10th Avenue and 46th Street. In 11 titles, the tango is played as never before, with Bireli Lagrene on guitar, George Mraz on bass and Al Foster on drums.

In Sertao, a short two-minute intro takes the listener back to Brazil and to its African roots. Blue Day runs the gamut of imaginary musical comedies from Broadway in New York to Pigalle in Paris. Vuelto a Sur is a return to the South of France, after twenty years of exile. To Django takes the tango where it has never gone before.

For the performance at Neo Fabrice, Galliano will be accompanied by Manu Roche on drums and Furio di Castri on bass. Attached around his neck will be his trusted 30-year-old accordion, bought for US$40,000 in the town of Castel Fidardo in Italy, where accordions have been made for the past century.