This is a fun and informative site that shares great stories about accordion music in regional and ethnic contexts. Please check it out, like or friend them.

And please, feel free to share your accordion stories with me on this site! Email me your story, or post it on my wall at http://www.facebook.com/dan.newton.77

On January 7 Cafe Accordion Orchestra presented our 7th annual concert at the Cedar Cultural Center, and this was our first sell-out! The show was titled “Midnight in Paris”  and featured sultry sounds from the city of light with guests Diane Jarvi and Tony Balluff. Highlights of the evening were Diane’s stunning rendition of “C’est si bon”, and Tony’s presentation of Sidney Bechet’s “Si Tu Vois Ma Mere”. (The latter being the theme heard in the Woody Allen film also titled Midnight in Paris) Thanks again to all our fans and friends who packed the Cedar on a January night. We’ll find chance to reprise this show soon.

More thanks are due to all the presenters and fans who helped make my 2012 solo tour in California a great success! Packed houses (literally houses) were the rule from Eureka to Palo Alto, Sacramento to Mendocino. Special thanks to all the hosts, Stephen and Lorna, Andrea and Mike, Ellie, Robin and Paul, Daniel, Catherine and Anthony, Debra, Patty, Frannie and Peter. A big thank you to Alan Keith, Gary Breitbart and Daniel Steinberg for playing with me in Palo Alto. Also to the Larkies, Debra, Penny, Geoff, Chad, Peter and Frannie who helped close the tour with sets of traditional French and hot cumbia dancing!  See some photos here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2851922371385.132889.1059291970&type=3

CAO Pesents “Cinema” March 23
CAO will reprise it’s popular Cinema show on March 23 at the Wildwood Artists Series in Mahtomedi, MN. This show features sounds from the movies, and film clips to go with the music. Check out some of the sounds on CAO’s CD “Cinema”. Music from movies and film clips will make for a delightful evening.
Chautauqua Fine Arts Center 651-269-9888
(adjacent to Mahtomedi High School, 800 75th St N, Mahtomedi)

http://www.wildwoodartistseries.com/

Looking for venues….
I am currently searching for venues near/in Iowa City. This could be for the whole band or a solo (house concert?) in early May. Also looking for solo-appropriate venues near Philadelphia, DC, Boston, and in the Seattle-Portland region. Please let me know if you have any leads, thanks!

New Book from Daddy Squeeze

Just in time for the holidays….More Cafe Accordion! That’s right, my latest book with Mel Bay Publications is now available. 20 “cafe-style” tunes including waltzes, tangoes, polkas, cumbias and swing, with a full-length CD included. Order from http://www.melbay.com/product.asp?productid=22200BCD or ask for it at your favorite music store.

Cafe Accordion Orchestra @ the Cedar

January 7 is CAO’s annual concert at the fabulous Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. This year’s theme is “Midnight in Paris”. We’ll be joined by sultry songstress Diane Jarvi, and clarinet king Tony Balluff for an evening of dark sounds from the City of Lights. Tickets available now at http://www.thecedar.org

Daddy Squeeze’s 2012 Left Coast Domination Tour

January 2012 brings me and Elizabeth back to California for another tour. We have shows and workshops from the 13th to the 21st in Eureka, Palo Alto, Sacramento and Mendocino, with a possible additional date in Santa Cruz. Visit my calendar page for all the details.

Cinema Concert at Wildwood Artists Series

On March 23, 2012 CAO will present Cinema: Sounds and Sights from the Movies for the Wildwood Artists Series in Mahtomedi, MN. This reprise of our highly successful 2007 performance at the Fitzgerald Theater features clips from some of our favorite films, and tunes from flicks such as Charade, A Shot in the Dark, Exodus, Horse Feathers, Singin’ in the Rain, Kill Bill, From Russia with Love, Amelie, and many more. Chautauqua Fine Arts Center 651-269-9888   http://www.wildwoodartistseries.com/

The 14th annual Northeast Accordion Festival is set for November 11-12, in Minneapolis. Details to follow. Performers include Patrick Harrison, Dee Langley, Daddy Squeeze, and many, many more!

Had a great weekend tour to Lincoln, Ne, and Kansas City, Mo! Mark Walker’s Kenwood Maison du Musique is a tremendous new house concert venue in KCMO. LAFTA sponsored a fine house concert for me in Lincoln, and the PlainSong Folk festival in tiny Martell, NE was a real treat as well!

GIGS:

CAO is still playing the Loring Pasta Bar everyTuesday from 6-9. Some fun shows in November include solo appearances at the Sail Away Cafe in Afton (11th), St Barney’s Legends series in Plymouth (19th) and a trio gig at the Grand Kaberet in New Ulm (18th) . I will  be playing every Thursday in December at the new Crooked Pint pub in Minneapolis. Music runs 8-10, and I’ll have a different band every week. There’s also the annual CAO concert at the Cedar on January 7. My California solo tour has shaped up with house concerts in Eureka on Jan 13 and 14,  Palo Alto on the 19th, Sacramento the 20th, and the Mendocino Music and Stories series on the 21st. Would sure love to find a couple more places to play on the 17th or 18th!

Dan will be in California this January, performing in a series of house concerts, accordion clubs, and community centers. The solo tour  runs from Jan 15-24, and includes dates in Berkeley, San Francisco, Petaluma, Eureka, Oakland, Santa Barbara, and San Diego. All the details can be found on my calendar page: http://www.daddysqueeze.com/calendar.html

Hope to see you and/or some of your Califoria Dreamin’ friends at one of these gigs!

First things first. Although an accordion is definitely involved, the Cafe Accordion Orchestra is oh-so much more! The Cafe Accordion Orchestra (CAO) consists of five talented guys playing, yes, the accordion (Dan Newton), and a whole host of (largely) string instruments and percussion. Newton and Brian Barnes contribute the occasional vocal (on perhaps 1/3 of the tracks), and their singing is inspired and inspiring. The CAO’s self-described style is Bal-Musette, a style of French music particularly popular in the 1940s. Think of it as gypsy music, culturally rich and enthusiastically diverse. As a result, CAO’s Cafe Christmas exudes international pizzazz; the traditional holiday pieces are creatively reconfigured as waltzes, polkas, and cha-chas, to name a few. This may sound crazy, but the formula works exceedingly well.

The opening Christmas Waltz put me at a Paris sidewalk cafe along the Seine, all moonlight and stars, wine glass in hand, a huge smile on my mug. The “Paso Doble” Jingle Bells takes the traditional number to an entirely fresh dimension, with minor chord changes and castanets. Too cool! A Holly Jolly Christmas is a brilliant Burl Ives imitation in the “Greek Style.” The intensely beautiful instrumental Christmas Time Is Here reveals CAO’s softer side. And I could go on and on–every track is a gem!

Now I have lived in Minnesota since the mid-80s, and CAO is based in Minneapolis. As a result, some jaded readers might say that I have a chauvinistic bias towards these boys. Absolutely not! CAO’s eclectic Cafe Christmas is indisputably the real deal. Charged with exquisite creativity and world-wide flair, it’s my favorite CD so far this holiday reviewing season. Hip, Hip, HURRAY!

–Carol Swanson, 2008, christmasreviews.com

From the land of sky blue waters came an accordionist refreshing to the Chicago Accordion Club. As summer turned to fall, he portaged a finely bejeweled Planet Squeezebox instrument into the hall and instantly gained the close attention of the crowd. Dan Newton had come without his well known Cafe Accordion Orchestra, but he was ready to cast a solo autumnal spell.

Throughout his performance Dan delivered an entertaining and instructional monologue in introduction to his songs. He cared to begin with “Indifference” from the French cafe musette scene of the 1930′s. He then explained that Duke Ellington incorporated the accordion into such jazz compositions as “Accordion Joe,” before singing and playing the swinging number.

Dan related his journey from Lincoln, Nebraska to St. Paul, Minnesota and the founding of the Cafe Accordion Orchestra. He continued to sing “Downtown Strut” in a Memphis jug hand style in which the “old folks started it, the young folks got it.” What else could he finely grind out next but a strong “Cuppa Java the Size of My Head,” a tune about coffee with a calypso beat.

Explaining that he did not get his first accordion until he was thirty, Dan offered to take everyone to the swamp for marshmallows with the “Cherokee Waltz” and its lilting Cajun French lyrics. He continued to amaze the members and guests by crooning in zydeco Creole manner “Jete sa Bal.” Everyone stayed alert when the talented accordionist singer moved “Under the Table Again” and up country for the drinking song.

Dan changed up the tempo with a TexMex vocal of Augie Meyer’s “Velma from Selma,” before dancing through New Mexico to Arizona for “Yaquicita,” a cumbia folk tune from Columbia with some German influence. Combining Latin airs with the French musette, Dan composed a terrific Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont homage. The salute to the pair’s movie tangos called “Julius et Margaret” brought many smiles and had some recall the line: “I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thought, I’d rather dance with the cows until you came home.”

The clever mind of Dan Newton kept stirring as he wondered what would have happened had Chuck Berry been raised in Minnesota instead of Mississippi. The resulting Norwegian tinged “Yohnny B Goode Polka” was absolutely hilarious! The splendid accordionist storyteller concluded with a song from his own heart, “La Vie Musette.” It was played on a 72 bass instrument with “real” diamonds and rubies that reflected the sparkling eyes of the standing and cheering audience.

- Chicago Accordion Club News 2008