Don’t even know how else to describe it. It’s French. And played on accordion. Like they used on the soundtrack for Amelie. Surely you know what I’m talking about.
Technically, it’s played on a concertina.
Excellent! Thanks.
Yann Tiersen composed much of the Amelie soundtrack.
I was once very impressed by a drunk young man simultaneously playing the accordion and glockenspiel parts to the main theme of the movie. Very impressed indeed.
You’ll probably have better luck finding music if you search for valse musette instead of the more generic bal musette.
Hi all,
The French accordion style is referred to as “musette accordion” and also just “musette” alone.
The “Bal Musette” is where musette accordion music is played and where people dance to musette accordion music.
The musette style is an “urban folklore” since it was created in the center of Paris. I know of only 3 urban folklores: musette from Paris, tango from Buenos Aires and bossa nova from Bahia in Brazil.
The musette accordion style was created between 1880 and 1920 in Paris by the French Auvergnats that came from the center of France and the Italians that came from the Abbruzze in Italy. They both went to the 11th arrondissement in Paris and those two communities elaborated the musette accordion style.
More information on CyberMusette.com
Mario Bruneau
Merci, Mario.
Zydeco is the best French Accordion music. I love it and listen to it frequently.
Seconded. Awesomeness.
Weird. I was trying to remember a few nights ago the lyrics (which are incomprehensible to anyone, almost) of CEline’s “Je tre trouverais charogne, un vilain soir. Je te ferai dans tes mires, deux grands trous noirs. Ton a^mes de vache dans le transpe’, prendra du champ, je te… something something.”
Famous recording – I wish I could remember or have a better filing system for the book where I found out what the words meant (not the above, but there’s some pretty odd stuff throughout). It was a French language crib to the slang Ce’line was invoking in his accordian music.
Zydeco might qualify as “urban folklore”–as beautifully explained in a previous post. It sprang from the Creole music of Louisiana’s rural blacks. Here’s Canray Fontenot & Bois Sec Ardoin. (Their white neighbors played Cajun Music; listen to The Balfa Brothers.) When Creoles moved to Big Houston to find work, the music evolved. Clifton Chenier (who lived here for years) added R&B sounds to the backyard lala music–just the thing for the big city clubs. So the sound evolved along the route from Lafayette to Houston. (And a Cajun made the first frottoir–as collected by the Smithsonian!) Mr Chenier could even get us hippies off our asses & dancing when he played music like this. (Was the first use of “zydeco” to describe this hybrid music found on a record by Lightnin’ Hopkins–the Houston bluesman who was cousin by marriage to Clifton Chenier? Back to the Annals of Texas Music; Doug Sahm would have known.)
OK. Next fall I *will *make it to the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio. It’s free & features regional styles like Polka, Cajun, Creole, Zydeco & Conjunto. Plus international styles–like Tango & (of course) Parisian Musette.
(Rooting around on YouTube isn’t a bad day to spend Christmas morning. Here’s an example of Swamp Pop–Doug Sahm playing “Wasted Days & Wasted Nights” by Freddie Fender. That Wikipedia article is much better than the one on Zydeco; for one thing, it explains how a Mexican kid from Corpus became a recognized artist in a Louisiana genre. Freddie opened for Doctor John at a Houston club back in the 70’s; the Doctor played Junco Partner for him–as a fellow “alumnus” of Angola. And The Good Doctor takes us to New Orleans music–a whole other story. Or stories.)
What a great post. Thanks.
You can hear a lot of it in the Pixar movie Ratatouille, too.
Great info all around (I love zydeco, but musette is what I was looking for). Thanks, all!
Here’s the CEline link – good accordian, weird tune.
Never knew what that style was called either – good thread.
I hear now that CEline did say correctly “dans les mires,” not the barbarism I misremembered it as.
One of my faves - The Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band.
I love the reference to “seedy hangouts frequented by low-lifes.” My kinda’ place.