Richard Galliano?

Darryl G. Thomas · November-10th-2005, 04:16 PM

I've been hearing good things about this guy and caught an excerpt of his latest, "Ruby, My Dear" on the radio. But jazz accordian? has anyone here listened to this cat? And if so, what are your opinions? I admit, I'm kind of intrigued.

Squaredancecalling Steve · November-10th-2005, 04:29 PM

Galliano's not a trailblazer on instrument, like Guy Klucevsek or Evelyn Petrova, but more in the traditions, jazz and tango.

I'll recommend these:

Michel Portal/ Richard Galliano -- Concerts (Very enjoyable album of duets with Portal on reeds that Sand was justifiably touting a while back.)

Richard Galliano Septet -- Piazzaolla Forever (Galliano on accordion and bandoneon, the main instrument of the tango, doing 11 Piazzolla compositions plus one tribute by Galliano. Five strings and a piano. Quite nice, but lacks the bite and fire of Piazzola's originals.)

And if you haven't heard Astor Piazzolla himself, get thyself a copy of "Tango Zero" immediately!!

Pete C · November-10th-2005, 04:31 PM

I highly recommend this, if you can find it:

Paul B · November-10th-2005, 04:46 PM

I'll second SDCS on the Galliano/Portal disc. I'm not a huge Portal fan, but this is a gem. Agree that Klucevsek is the more interesting player; I have several of his discs.

Bye-ya

Ralf Wacker · November-10th-2005, 05:04 PM

I have (in order of the date of recording):

Capon / Galliano / Perrin: Blue Rondo A La Turk - La Lichere / Fremeaux & Ass... 1982
* *

Richard Galliano, Ron Carter: Panamanhattan - Dreyfus Jazz / SONY 1990
* * * a good balance between jazz and musette

Richard Galliano: Laurita - Dreyfus Jazz 1994
* * ( * ) nice, but not outstanding (for ME, Penguin Guide says ****)

Richard Galliano: New York Tango - Dreyfus Jazz / SONY 1996
* *

Galliano / Portal: Blow up - Dreyfus Jazz / SONY 1996
* * * ( * ) more tango, both are great

Richard Galliano: Concerts Inédits - Dreyfus Jazz 1996
* * ( * * ) for collectors (3 different recordings, one solo, one duo, one trio)

Richard Galliano: french touch - Dreyfus Jazz/Sony Music France 1998
* *

Richard Galliano & i solisti dell' orchestra ...: passatori - Dreyfus Jazz/Sony
Music France 1998
* * ( * ) more classic style

Michel Portal / Richard Galliano: Concerts - Dreyfus Jazz 1998
* * * * hear the difference to Blow Up, the same thing, but 2 years of live concerts (and training) later

Richard Galliano Septet: Piazzolla Forever - Dreyfus Jazz/Sony Music France 2002
* * * Piazzolla, very close to the original, not so much own ideas

Richard Galliano: Ruby, My Dear - Dreyfus Jazz / SONY 2004
* * * * Very powerfull - my recommendation to start, if you want more jazz than tango

edit:
If someone perhaps wants to see the cover:
My CDs; click G, then Richard Galliano
(The number of pictures here is limited)

Ralf Wacker
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

today at the player:
Rabih Abou-Khalil / Joachim Kühn / Jarrod Cagwin:
Journey to the Centre of an Egg - enja 2004

Charles Mingus:
80th Birthday Celebration - Fantasy / ZYX Music 1951 - ...

LeMo · November-10th-2005, 05:32 PM

It's out of print but it's maybe possible to find it somewhere on the web.

- Steve Potts 4: "Pearl" (CC Production/ Caravan 25018-2)
(Richard Galliano/ Jean-Jacques Avenel/ Bertrand Renaudin)

Dennis Gonzalez · November-10th-2005, 05:37 PM

I usually go with the trailblazers, but with Galliano, it doesn't matter. he's excellent.

Tom Marcello · November-10th-2005, 06:17 PM

He sounds wonderful on Rosario Giuliani's More Than Ever

Gordon B · November-10th-2005, 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul B

I'll second SDCS on the Galliano/Portal disc. I'm not a huge Portal fan, but this is a gem.
Bye-ya

I agree as well.

jazzfiend · November-10th-2005, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Marcello

He sounds wonderful on Rosario Giuliani's More Than Ever

I am in total agreement! Was going to mention this session, which I heard for the first time yesterday. And check out Rosario on ALTO! Smokin'!!!

Fred K · November-10th-2005, 10:43 PM

I have "Blow Up" by Galliano/Portal and highly recommend it. I also like "Laurita" as well (Galliano with a Palle Danielsson/Joey Baron rhythm section, with special guests Portal, Didier Lockwood and Toots Thielemans on 2 tracks each). I had a chance to see Galliano's Piazzolla group in Monteal 3 years ago and it was a great experience.

Tom K · November-11th-2005, 04:29 AM

Aaah, Galliano ... If anybody grows on you, then him. And those duets with Portal - they had me in tears more than once. Get to see him live too if you can!

Ron Thorne · November-11th-2005, 05:12 AM

I just received this one today (as a gift) . . . my first.

Based upon some of what I'm reading above, should I sell it on eBay?

Ron Thorne · November-11th-2005, 05:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

But jazz accordian?

Ummm . . . does anyone remember Art Van Damme?

gnhrtg · November-11th-2005, 05:18 AM

Another vote for the duets with Michel Portal (which I was turned on to by Sand), and I prefer the more recent "Concerts". "Pizzolla Forever" is not bad either but less to my taste.

Pete C · November-11th-2005, 05:50 AM

Ron, I love Art Van Damme, but I love all sorts of accordion music. The guy everybody needs to check out is Gus Viseur, who played musette swing--sort of the Django of the accordion.

Ron Thorne · November-11th-2005, 05:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete C

Ron, I love Art Van Damme, but I love all sorts of accordion music. The guy everybody needs to check out is Gus Viseur, who played musette swing--sort of the Django of the accordion.

Cool. I'll definitely check him out. I'm just amazed that a pioneer such as Art Van Damme seems to be ignored . . . or worse.

Pete C · November-11th-2005, 05:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

Cool. I'll definitely check him out. I'm just amazed that a pioneer such as Art Van Damme seems to be ignored . . . or worse.

I think Van Damme may be more noticed these days by "lounge" fans than jazz fans.

Ron Thorne · November-11th-2005, 06:03 AM

Sadly, you're probably correct, Pete.

And, at last notice, Art's also still alive and playing at 85+.

Pete C · November-11th-2005, 06:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

And, at last notice, Art's also still alive and playing at 85+.

I had no idea.

Ron Thorne · November-11th-2005, 06:12 AM

Pete, I may be stretching things a bit, owing to a lack of recent communication with another huge fan of Art. However, even if that's so, here's something of recent interest:

Although a number of other accordionists ventured into jazz territory after Van Damme broke the trail, he remains the acknowledged master. As one reviewer recently wrote, he dispatches "Right-hand runs with a velocity and lightness of touch that defied the presumed limitations of the instrument," while at the same time, "Consistently emphasizing the lyric contours of a melodic phrase rather than the lightning technical flourishes that led up to it."

He eventually retired to Florida. He announced at his 75th birthday party that he intended to hang up his squeezebox for good, telling one interview that he felt like he'd played enough for one lifetime, but he continues to perform occasionally, appearing in Los Vegas and Chicago during 2002.

Even if 2002 is his most recent gig, that's good enough for me. I hope to be breathing twenty years from now!

VIBEr · November-11th-2005, 08:23 AM

Galliano is incredibly innovative in several areas. Where most jazz accordion players tend to not use the left hand (leaving accompaniment to the guitar player), Galliano actually plays counterpoint on the button side of the instrument. So in that regard, I think he's the best trio-format player I've ever heard (in the accordion/bass/drums lineup). Galliano is the only accordion player I've heard who really uses mussette tuning on the instrument (that slightly detuned ethnic sound), a setting that most jazz accordion players prefer to avoid. He plays a chromatic accordion as opposed to the piano accordion, so his right hand is all buttons rather than piano keys. Whereas most accordion players have to play up-and-down the keyboard to ascend/descend a scale, he can play scales like a guitar player can - length as well as width of the keyboard. As a result, he can play a lot of lines that are technically impossible to play on a standard piano accordion.

And he swings.

Darryl G. Thomas · November-11th-2005, 12:51 PM

Thank you all for your responses. I'm kind of embarressed, feeling kind of out of touch. I've never thought of the accordian as a jazz instrument. Anyway, I've ordered "Ruby, My Dear" as an intro (based on the little I heard on the radio).

Ron Thorne · November-11th-2005, 03:58 PM

Don't feel embarrassed, Darryl. I never thought of bagpipes as a jazz instrument . . . until I heard Rufus Harley.

Darryl G. Thomas · November-11th-2005, 04:34 PM

Ron,

I hate to say this, but Harley's name leapt into my mind when I heard the radio excerpt on Galliano.

Ron Thorne · November-11th-2005, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

Ron,

I hate to say this, but Harley's name leapt into my mind when I heard the radio excerpt on Galliano.

There you have it, Darryl.

And, I'm embarrassed to say that Ruby My Dear is not the 1st Galliano recording I have, as I erroneously stated earlier in this thread. With each passing birthday, more brain cells are deleted.

I also have (thanks to the same generous JC poster) the duo recording, Concerts, with Michel Portal.

Wonderful.

bluenoter · November-11th-2005, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

I hope to be breathing twenty years from now!

From your mouth to G-d's ear, birthday boychik!*

*The Yiddish rough equivalent of "dude."

Sand · November-11th-2005, 05:49 PM

In the early 70'ies friends used to bad-mouth the accordion whenever the occation arouse. I've always found that strange.

Dino Saluzzi has been around for awhile. The second most impressive version of "Waltz For Debbie" was preformed by him in some Theaterhaus in some German town in 1988.

Then I think highly of ECM artist Frode Haltli who is mostly into new music, but who is also member of a folk music trio I love (Rusk), as well as working with avantgarde jazz musicians and vocalist Phil Minton.

From an interview with an Italian online magazine:

By the way how you explain yourself the rediscovery of the accordion after years in which the most respected genre in which it was used was tango, and nothing more.

The accordion has always been used a lot in folkloristic and popular music, without actually beeing a typical folk music instrument nor a instrument in classical music (it is to modern for both, invented around 1840). I think the typically classical accordion music (like you also have in Italy with composers such as Pietro Frosini and Pietro Deiro, Italian emigrants to America around 1900) got hung up in a boring virtuoso style without much musical content. It was only natural that the instrument sooner or later would be discovered by composers, but it took some time - but actually not so much more time then it did with other "modern" instruments such as the saxophone or classical percussion.

Pete C · November-12th-2005, 12:17 AM

I started an accordion thread in Other Music.

chuckyd4 · November-12th-2005, 03:08 AM

The only poster who mentioned his album French Touch only gave it 2 stars in relation to his other albums. I think that's too bad. That was my first introduction to Galliano and it still holds a special place in my heart. The version of Pascoal's "Bebe" on there is absolutely killer. Not his most virtuosic disc, but just a great set of tunes from a really solid group. I would put it near the top of my list.

The Concerts Inédits box on Dreyfus is probably my personal favorite, if I exclude sentimental attachment.