In 2/4 Time: The Polka and the Accordion in North America

Volume 27
Spring-Summer
2001

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The accordion is, for all practical purposes, a portable piano, powered by air driven over tuned reeds. And hence its popularity: it is easier to carry an accordion than a piano down to a church basement wedding reception.

Mark Kohan is editor-in-chief of the national monthly newspaper Polish-American Journal and leader of Steel City Brass; he plays both accordion and concertina. With the permission of the publisher, this article was adapted from "Squeezebox Jam," a publication of the Polish-American Festival held in August 1992 in Cheektowaga, New York. The annual event is sponsored by the Town of Cheektowaga and made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.

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In 2/4 Time: The Polka and the Accordion in North America

There are two universal truths about accordions. The first is that the accordion is almost always associated with polka music. The second: a concertina is the same thing.

To what do we owe the association of the accordion with Polish dance music? The accordion is not exclusive to the polka. Its sweet, reedy sound has been the musical backdrop for scenarios of lonely cowboys in the Texas Panhandle, romantic interludes under the Eifel Tower, and Cajun house parties deep in Louisiana’s swamps. Surely accordions are not played just by Polish Americans.

There is a mystique about the accordion, albeit often a negative one. When Madison Avenue wants to demonstrate "cool" versus "uncool," it sometimes calls upon the accordion to demonstrate the latter. But the accordion was a respectable instrument until the advent of rock 'n' roll. Songs of love and devotion were then sung over the electrified strains of guitars, and teen idols who played the six-stringed talisman of rebellion created a charisma for themselves equal to that of guys who drove fast cars.

In 1927, when this photo was taken, polka music had already been captured on record. The photo is apparently the oldest surviving image of polka dancing in the New World. Photo: Joseph E. Koperski

Beginning in the mid-1980s, accordions regained some lost ground. Credit is due a counterculture movement in the rock 'n' roll industry. Seeking an alternative to the guitar, bands incorporated the accordion into some of their music. Among the bands and musicians not afraid to let the instrument demonstrate its versatility were the Talking Heads, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, David Lindley, Los Lobos, even the Grateful Dead.

And it is the Irish who can lay claim to the first recordings of accordion and concertina. Traditional Irish dance music played on fiddle, uilleann pipes, concertina, accordion, flute, tin whistle, tenor banjo, pianos, and combinations thereof was captured on cylinder recordings before the portable piano was heard playing polkas on record.

Still, if only by association, the accordion belongs to the polka.

References

Breathnach, B. 1971. Folk Music and Dances of Ireland. Dublin: Talbot Press.

Camp, T. 1992. Weird Al finds a vein of fun in rock parodies. Milwaukee Journal, July 7.

Ethnic Recordings in America. 1982. Washington, D.C.: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Spottswood, R. 1982. "The Sajewski Story" in Ethnic Recordings in America: A Neglected Heritage. Washington, D.C.: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Treasured Polish Folk Songs with Translation. 1953. Minneapolis: Polanie Publishing Co.

The excerpts above are from an article published in Voices Vol. 27, Spring-Summer, 2001, the membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society. For more examples of lullabys and the full article, join the New York Folklore Society now.