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Date Posted: 04/ 9/08 9:10am
Author: Bill Glauber
Subject: Milwaukee Accordion Club







Still squeezing by
Club preserves a beloved but waning musical tradition
By BILL GLAUBER
bglauber@journalsentinel.com
Posted: April 5, 2008

This is where the polka is still king, where 1950s Milwaukee still lives and where Lawrence Welk never died.

This is the monthly meeting of the Milwaukee Accordion Club, where players and lovers of a classic, yet classically misunderstood, instrument gather to listen to old songs and make new music.

For 17 years, the club has kept the grand old instrument - and the old standards - alive.

And on this night, at the Root River Center in Franklin, in a banquet room down the hall from the bowling alley, about 100 members assemble for music and memories.

They sip drinks and munch slices of sheet cake, and all join in and sing the "Beer Barrel Polka," played by the club's ensemble, which features not one, not two, but seven - count 'em, seven - accordion players, whose combined playing experience runs around two centuries, give or take some decades.

And, like a roomful of surrogate grandparents and, in some cases, great-grandparents, they swoon a little bit as 10-year-old Cole Cheever takes the stage, takes out a junior-sized accordion, and belts out "Golden Slippers."

"I'm probably the only person in my school that plays," says Cheever, a fourth-grader at Elm Dale Elementary School in Greenfield.

And there's the problem, at least for this crowd.

It's not 1950 anymore in Milwaukee.

Scads of school kids bearing oversized instrument cases no longer hop buses for weekly lessons at accordion schools that dotted the city. They no longer show up en masse for recitals that could really fill a hall.

The schools shut. The kids grew up, grew old.

And a few of the hardier ones, the ones who never lost the music, ended up here.

Playing the old songs, and playing some new ones, too.

"Listen, when I was growing up there were thousands of kids playing," says the club's president, Shirl Barry of Greenfield. "If you didn't have enough money for a piano, you played the accordion."

The instrument was portable, rentable and very playable. Barry says she started playing when she was 12. She still practices an hour a day.

"The misconception is that it's only good for the polka," Barry says. "You can play wonderful French waltzes, Argentine tangos and classical pieces."

Dave Martinsek, 73, of Caledonia remembers those old days. His father ran a school.

"Polkas were hot starting in 1948," he says. "The biggest years were the 1950s. I'd say there were 20 accordion schools around."

He ticks off the names of accordion stars: Frankie Yankovic, nicknamed "America's Polka King." Lawrence Welk, the bandleader who hit it big on television when TV was in its infancy. Dick Contino, "The World's Greatest Accordionist," who is still going strong at 78.

"I think the accordion will always go on," Martinsek says.

He's a true believer, able to push aside 50, 60 years of American musical history with the wave of his hand.

"It is amazing that kids haven't gotten bored with the guitar," he says. "The big bands will come back."

Not likely.

But accordion-driven conjunto music is popular among Mexican-American audiences. And young indie bands show up in local bars playing beat-up, thrift-store squeezeboxes.

"The accordion is a secret handshake," says Don Turner, 43, a board member for the club. "If you play accordion, and someone else plays, well, you'll help one another."

On this night, love for the accordion and accordion music runs strong. The ensemble is in its groove.

Barry is up front, 73 going on 12, playing the melody. Martinsek is on standup bass.

The other members are in full swing.

For an hour, they all play and remember.

And it all ends with Irving Berlin's "God Bless America."

The crowd stands and sings.

What a great party.

The club's next meeting is at 6 p.m. April 28 at Root River Center, 7220 W. Rawson Ave., Franklin.




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From the April 6, 2008 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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