Musette is where Django got his start, playing banjo to accompany the French Waltz Accordionists. And so Django has taken so much from Musette to create his oeuvre.

Players like Baro Ferret and Jo Privat continued this expansion of the Gypsification of the swing waltz.

And Musette Project is moving ahead influenced by all of that plus plus…

In honor of all that I will be playing for the Djangoary Festival just outside of Richmond, VA on Jan. 21st.

BTW: I found this Django hand stenciled on a public mailbox in West Philadelphia over the summer.

This content is from Dallas Vietty Jazz and Musette accordionist based in Brooklyn, NY.

Here are two tracks from my recent project to turn Musette Project into a Pop-Musette project. We took a bunch of pop tunes including Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, David Bowie, The Beatles, and gave them the Musette Project treatment. I really enjoy this project, and I hope to do more performing with this set up.

John, I’m Only Dancing by Dallas Vietty

Billie Jean by Dallas Vietty

This content is from Dallas Vietty Jazz and Musette accordionist based in Brooklyn, NY.

I had my week playing solo accordion in Bryant Park last week from Aug. 1st through the 5th. I met alot of accordion fans and saw some friends. I played from 12:30-2:30 every day. It was a wonderful experience and it got plugged on WNYC. You can hear the radio spot here:
WNYC Musette Radio Spot by Dallas Vietty

This content is from Dallas Vietty Jazz and Musette accordionist based in Brooklyn, NY.

WDVR Radio Interview by Dallas Vietty

I was on the radio show “Swing Time with Art & Deb” Monday the 24th. The show is out of a small town in east central New Jersey. I played some and talked alot about musette check out some of the interview and my playing above. WDVR Radio from Sergentsville, NJ.

It was announced that the Decemberists accordionist Jenny Conlee has breast cancer. The Decemberists are a great band, I saw them in 2009 at Philadelphia Folk Fest. Their sound has relied heavily on the accordion artistry of Jenny and it is sad news to hear she is afflicted with this disease. I wish her the best luck and strength. The Decemberists web store has a nifty T shirt featuring the pink ribbon and an accordion (top of the page), which is to raise money for Susan Komen Race for a Cure.

This content is from Dallas Vietty Jazz and Musette accordionist based in Brooklyn, NY.

I went to the American Accordion Musicological Society Festival over the weekend. I competed on accordion and I won the Free Bass competition with my performance of Bach’s Invention 13 from the Two Part Inventions.

There were some very fantastic players young and old at the Festival. I met all kinds of great folks, and I got geared up for the small event I am organizing on May 7th for World Accordion Day.

Check out this video I made while warming up in a stairwell of the hotel before the performance.

This content is from Dallas Vietty Jazz and Musette accordionist based in Brooklyn, NY.

This content is from Dallas Vietty Jazz and Musette accordionist based in Brooklyn, NY.

I hadn’t looked around Youtube for Galliano in a few months, wow what I found!

Galliano with Strings:

World Accordion Trio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx3UF8Kw7Bo

Galliano with Gonzalo Rubalcaba:

Galliano with Gypsies:

This content is from Dallas Vietty Jazz and Musette accordionist based in Brooklyn, NY.

Of american swing/jazz accordionists I must say that I am most taken today by Joe Mooney. A native of Patterson, NJ, blind at age 10. I will let the FANTASTIC blog JazzWax handle the biographical details of Joe Mooney. To me he is the top of American swing accordion. Joe Mooney plays right from the heart.

His playing and his singing is what gets me. I LOVE his version of Prelude to a Kiss.

Prelude to a Kiss

Here are some videos of Joe Mooney:

A great documentary of Jazz in the town of Paterson, NJ in which you can hear the reverence for Joe Mooney from people like Bucky Pizzarelli.

And his clever and joyful arrangement of Tea for Two

This content is from Dallas Vietty Jazz and Musette accordionist based in Brooklyn, NY.

I started this out thinking it was going to be a top 10 posts list. But the more I look back, most of them are about me, and thats cool it is called dallasvietty.com. But as I look back I see alot of things I did or experiences I had as a performer or listener that I was really appreciative of. So here is a list culled from my year’s worth of posts.

10. Mazurka Clandestina – The Mazurka, Europe’s tango, in public off the cuff dance parties. So elegant. So connected. So not America. : (

9. Great video from Hot Club at Pastorius Park – Halfway through the year I hooked up with The Hot Club of Philadelphia and blazing guitar leader Barry Wahrhaftig. So far its been 6 months of playing Gypsy Jazz and I’m going strong.

8. Ludovic Beier and Sansom Schmitt – Virtuosity personified. WOW. What a show.

7. Success and Failure at Tedx Philly – My drama of instrument mishap and coping at the Philadelphia Ted Talks.

6. Thriller on Accordion – The fulfillment of a dream. My ultimate plan of remaking Thriller in a graveyard up here in Bucks County with Chris and I replacing MJ et al. However we got close as we performed it trio: accordion, trumpet and iPhone drumbeat.

5. World Accordion Day in the Mojave Desert – It was quite a year for the desert. World accordion day this year was spent in mourning. My mother passed away and so I returned to the homeland. But music is a healing and expressing vehicle for me. And so it was on that day too.

4. Playing duos with Alex Meixner at Musikfest – I wrote two arrangements for Polka Prince Alex Meixner. He’s a force of nature that guy.

3. RIP Art Van Damme – Virtuoso and foremost idol of American jazz accordion style. Art Van Damme passed away this year. I recently learned he was a giant, literally. Super tall. And beloved, in fact at least one festival this year featured an entire hour was taken up by a speaker musing about Art’s greatness, career, recordings and other such fawnings.

2. Selling Accordions for Liberty Bellows – I shall repeat here: I am no Natasha Enquist, although I own her underwear.  And I think I will be doing some more vids coming up!

1. Galliano and Kurt Elling at Lincoln Center – I first posted in January about this upcoming concert. Which happened in May. So I was definitely anticipating for at least five months. What a thrill to see a man sooooo thoroughly musical. THE Richard Galliano.

This content is from Dallas Vietty Jazz and Musette accordionist based in Brooklyn, NY.

• I’ll be playing my New Year’s Eve gig at the historic Black Bass in Bucks County, PA. This year with “The Sound of the Delaware River”, The New Impressionists. And I’ll be playing New Year’s Day for a free show with The Hot Club of Philly down at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.
• Swedish-American accordion technician holds down Accordion shrine in central Oregon. (Hidden lead is prodigal return to accordion after he meets hot girl into tango!)
• I love it when I come across blogs that do lists of some small genre from some corner of the world. Here is a great list of Norweigan Fiddle music, complete with pictures. Also check out my postings of French Pop music lists, and retrospective of Norweigan pop music.
• Also, officially as of me declaring it…Myspace fucking sucks. They redid their interface about a month or so ago. And now at the end of listening to a track, you are likely to get an audio ad for some ebay ripoff store that sells electronics!!! ITs crap. BTW I found this out while I was enjoying the work of Frøholm Tillung and Tindra.
• iPhone apps which are cool: NPR Addict (Free) gives you direct access to tons of NPR shows you never knew existed. And TuneIn Radio (.99) you can search say “Django” and come up with American, Australian, and English radio shows all related to Django. Very Very cool! It works on the road as you drive too!
• And another thing. If you are brave and have time. Search using Google in other languages, like French. You may get better results. : )
• SF Gate gets to know Accordion babe Renee de la Prade.

Happy New Year!

I could not be more into this! (Unless I decided to transcribe it, which I have not yet.):

This content is from Dallas Vietty Jazz and Musette accordionist based in Brooklyn, NY.