The Music

The Daddy Squeeze Trio is a fun and adventuresome group that believes having a good time makes great music even better. They can swing the standards, generate Latin and rock grooves, and surprise their audience with slightly twisted covers of forgotten pop tunes.

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Imagine, if you can, a banjo and accordion treatment of “Cat Scratch Fever” or “Smoke on the Water”, a bewigged rendition of Frank and Nancy Sinatra’s “Something Stupid”, a Tango/Klezmer treatment of Cher’s “Bang Bang”, or a Tom Waits-influenced beat poetry reading of “Takin’ Care of Business”. The Trio also offers Louisiana-style dance music, Tex-Mex, Brazilian Forro, Cumbia, French Musette, Gypsy Swing, and has become a showcase for Dan “Daddy Squeeze” Newton’s original songs.

The Trio

Dan “Daddy Squeeze” Newton - accordion and vocals.
Dan has been entertaining audiences and changing popular opinions about the accordion since 1978. He is an innovative musician, bandleader, composer, arranger and producer who is in great demand for all his talents. He appears regularly as a guest on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion radio show, and can even be seen in the Robert Altman directed film of the same title. Dan has performed, by invitation, at the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts (New York City), KennedyCenter (Washington, D.C.), Winnipeg Folk Festival, and festivals in Vienna, Austria, Kaustinnen, Finland, San Antonio TX, and many others. His music has been featured in films, theater productions, TV shows, commercials, and radio spots. Dan has produced nearly two dozen cds, and has appeared on recordings by Son Volt, The Proclaimers, Garrison Keillor, Pat Donohue, Prudence Johnson, Peter Ostroushko, Ann Reed, Neal and Leandra, Peter Mayer, Diane Jarvi, Dakota Dave Hull, among others.

Bob Ekstrand - guitars, banjo and vocal
Guitarist and composer Bob began playing the guitar at age ten. His eclectic tastes and myriad influences have inspired him to create extremely stylistically diverse music. Over the past 25 years his original work has won songwriting contests, and has been featured in a National Public Radio broadcast that was later issued as an accompanying compact disc with the book, Remembering Jim Crow (The New Press). He has produced almost twenty CD's, ranging from the eccentric "One Continuous Wiping Motion"(a collaboration with poet Kelly Green) to his most accessible and latest CD, The Guitar. The magazine 20th Century Guitar calls Bob "A virtuoso on both electric and acoustic guitars." You can learn more about Bob by visiting: www.bobby-e.com

Tom Lewis - upright and electric bass
Tom is a dynamic and creative musician who is as adept at using the bass as a solo voice as well as its more customary roll as a supporting instrument. He is an excellent jazz bass player who plays in some of the best ensembles in the Twin Cities. Tom was a long-standing member of the Jazz All Stars (local bebop icon Eddie Berger's last band). He was also a member of the very popular band Rio Nido and works occasionally with jazz legends Mose Allison, Lou Tabakin, Irv Williams and many others. Currently he works with the well respected Phil Hey Quartet, Out to Lunch Quintet and backing many of the best jazz vocalists around the Twin Cities. Tom has a longtime love of Brazilian and Latin rhythms, and is in demand with area Salsa and Samba bands. Jazz Police web magazine says, “Tom can play it all. He is a free-bop, straight-ahead, hard bop and bebop bassist and he swings like anything. He is a frequent sideman at gigs around town and on some of the best local artists' CDs.”

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