I grew up playing Western classical music on the accordion. After many years of lessons, contests, and pieces that were far beyond my ability to understand them, I took a 10-year “break.” During this time I picked up the drums and played throughout the Boston area in several jazz and rock groups. Gradually my musical tastes turned toward “world” genres, and I kept hearing the accordion in new and unexpected contexts. In 2003 I took up the squeezebox again, inspired by a klezmer band I heard at a friend’s wedding. Since then I’ve played in a diverse range of projects, including klezmer, Balkan, Latin, and rock groups.
I studied the piano a little bit in college and soon after graduation, but I became more serious about it in 2008, when I decided to make it a more prominent part of my band, Gumbo Diablo. I play a Nord Electro 2 and love the vintage Rhodes and B3 sounds.
In the player to the right, I’ve added tracks from 3 of the groups I’ve played with seriously in recent years.
Tracks 1 – 6: Gumbo Diablo, my primary musical project. We play zydeco, cumbia, forro, and whatever else strikes our fancy. Wendy Kinal on lead vocals, Dave Langhoff on drums, Keith Lewis on bass, Mike Crutcher on guitar (although our recording and mixing engineer, Doug Batchelder, is playing on these particular tracks). I play accordion on tracks 1-4 here and keyboards on tracks 5-6.
Tracks 7-11: Skordalia, a Greek folk band specializing in the music of the Greek islands and Asia Minor. Dean Lampros on sandouri, JoeTeja on oud and guitar, Mike Davis on percussion, Liz Kereakoglow on violin. I played with them from 2005-2008. I am on accordion here for all of these tracks.
Tracks 12 – 15: Squagmyre, a VT-based indie rock band that’s been around since 1989. I was happy to help Jim Wiegand, Squag’s singer-songwriter-guitarist, with some keyboard tracks for his latest album, Psychosis. These are working mixes from those sessions in the spring and summer of 2011. With Dave Langhoff on drums and Jesse Howes on bass. I play keyboards on tracks 12-14 and accordion on track 15.