The "Andy Cutting" of the Anglo!

[TomB-R]

It's a good few years now since Andy Cutting changed the world of "diatonic button accordion" players (in Britain at least) by stretching the limits of what was perceived as possible, harmonically and (dare one say it) aesthetically!

 

Even listening to the mighty "Anglo International" compilation I'm not sure that I hear anyone taking the Anglo in a similar direction. Is this because of tuning issues (as discussed recently in the "Anglo - Discord" thread) or is it because those who favour this approach tend to play duet or english, (which might challenge the tuning hypothesis, Rob Harbron, for one, comes to mind on english,) or are there other reasons?

 

Any examples or thoughts come to mind?

[hjcjones]

I'm not sure what "direction" you mean. If you have in mind things like Andy Cutting's use of cross-rowed basses to produce more exotic chords, he was by no means the first to do so - Roger Watson for one was teaching this before Andy had come to public notice. He's a great player of course, and he's certainly pushed the instrument towards its limits, but whilst he's been an inspiration to many players I don't believe he's unique or mould-breaking in what he does, and I don't think he's solely responsible for "changing the world".

 

Similarly, I'm not sure why you pick out Rob Harbron as an example on the English - another very fine player, don't get me wrong, but not (at least from what I've heard) mould-breaking.

 

In terms of pushing the anglo into musical genres and keys most other players avoid, I'd have to nominate Harry Scurfield. However I think he's more admired than imitated. If you're thinking in terms of wider influence, my choice would be John Kirkpatrick, who arguably created the "duet anglo" style from scratch, beside setting the benchmark (imo) for song accompaniment.

[Dan Worrall]

 

 

In terms of pushing the anglo into musical genres and keys most other players avoid, I'd have to nominate Harry Scurfield. However I think he's more admired than imitated. If you're thinking in terms of wider influence, my choice would be John Kirkpatrick, who arguably created the "duet anglo" style from scratch, beside setting the benchmark (imo) for song accompaniment.

 

I'd certainly agree that Harry and John are pushing the envelope in England--especially Harry in his choice of Cajun/Zydeco material. Great stuff.

 

For all-round pushing the envelope, however, imho no one can top the Boers...in terms of adding modern chromatic material, employing lots of complex, non-3-chord-trick, chords, and achieving complete mastery of the 40+ button Anglo. They have been Anglo-German concertina fanatics for over 150 years now; many of the old documents I quoted in my book show how fanatic they really were in their music and dance. And then in the early 20th century, when most players in England and Ireland were trading in their concertinas for guitars or gramophones, they were just hitting their stride, with a myriad of concertina-led dance bands. The records show that they, more than anyone else, kept Wheatstone & Co. going in the 1920s to 1940s, with their many purchases of 42 button Anglos from Wheatstone. Unlike most other places, they never quit playing those instruments, so the degree of refinement in their playing has roots that go back for generations.

 

For good examples, listen to the playing of--for example--Neels Mattheus and Nico van Rensberg. Each of them uses a lot of 20th century material, complex chords, and so fluid a playing style that they make the instrument sound almost like a piano accordion. May not be your cup of tea, but they have pushed the Anglo way beyond diatonic folk music, which presumably what Tom is asking about. Their young folks used concertinas in the 60s for R&R music. Some of them today play C&W. There are dozens of CDs available by a large group of players (I noted some of the resources in my book).

 

At the same time, their concertina scene has enough depth to also maintain a strong traditionalist contingent. Here they are not content to play Anglos in old diatonic styles, but even build and play replicas of the old two row German concertinas, looking for pure authenticity. Amazing stuff, really.

 

Dan

 

ps. Howard, I think Kimber had a bit to do with the 'duet' style on the Anglo! ...as did his father before him. That style came directly out of octave playing, which --from my research--was endemic amongst players for house dances in England, Ireland, Australia, and South Africa.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Dan Worrall

[hjcjones]

Dan, what I meant by "duet anglo" was not simply the "right-hand melody/left hand chords" which appears to me to make up most of Kimber's playing, and which I believe was fairly well established by the time John Kirkpatrick appeared on the scene, but the rather more complex playing using bass runs, arpeggios and counter-melodies which is typical of John K - more like a duet concertina.

 

A player who certainly had the talent and who might have pushed the envelope in his own way had he not died tragically young was Andrew Blakeney-Edwards.

[Dan Worrall]

Dan, what I meant by "duet anglo" was not simply the "right-hand melody/left hand chords" which appears to me to make up most of Kimber's playing, and which I believe was fairly well established by the time John Kirkpatrick appeared on the scene, but the rather more complex playing using bass runs, arpeggios and counter-melodies which is typical of John K - more like a duet concertina.

 

A player who certainly had the talent and who might have pushed the envelope in his own way had he not died tragically young was Andrew Blakeney-Edwards.

 

Howard, it all depends on the definition, then. I certainly agree that JK has gone far beyond Kimber in complexity, mainly in completely detaching the left hand's activites from the right--I guess that is what you meant by 'duet' style (Kimbers hands tended to move in parallel, in the old octave way, which might under another definition also be thought of as "duet-like"). JK himself, on his website, attributes his style--or at least the beginnings of it--to mimicking the bass-led oompahs of the melodeon. Roger Digby has also remarked on how the revival era players in the UK picked up a lot from melodeon players, as there were few to no old Anglo proponents around by the heady days of the 1970s, and lots of good English melodeon players to learn from.

 

I agree on Andrew Blakeney-Edwards....the tapes I have heard are masterful, and he never shirked from complicated material. And lets not forget Fred Kilroy...some of his playing is quite chromatic. The pity in England is that there was no critical mass of players to continue those modernist experiments...just a very few individuals, like Harry S. The South African modernist-style 42 button Anglo players are a good example of what might have been in England had the Anglo continued to be played (in larger numbers) for more modern music than the morris. Not that there is anything wrong with the morris!

Edited March 4, 2010 by Dan Worrall

[m3838]

If one to take deeper look into Anglo Concertina, which is essentially two row push/pull free reed bellows driven instrument with the diatonic harmonica tuning, one can easily see that Anglo-German concertina has developed into very complicated, widely popular instrument under funny name - "Bandoneon". There used to be another widely popular concertina, Chemnitzer, but it's not as popular now.

Whether we like the look or sound of a Bandoneon, we can clearly see the development of the school.

It could well be that more modern and more developed musical styles sprung from more modern and developed instrument. And we are left in the dark ages with our under-developed 30 button Honkers.

As for Andy Cutting on Button Accordion, pushing it further somewhere, I'm sure you all are familiar with

And while we are at it, here

. Not pushing anywhere, still...

[hjcjones]

Even during the 1970s revival, there still weren't that many anglo players around and we were often working in isolation. There was no network like we now have with cnet, and little information about other players, or the concertina generally. When I first started playing seriously in the mid-70s I knew only two other anglo players in my area (Colin Cater and Paul McCann, before he switched to duet) - at that time I lived probably no more than 20 miles from Roger Digby, but our circles never overlapped. William Kimber's recordings had been issued on LP, but I don't think Scan Tester's recordings were available - if they were I never came across them. I never even heard of Fred Kilroy until many years later. I learned to play on my own, picking up snippets of ideas from other players whenever I came across them at festivals or concerts. I don't think I was unusual in this. I think this is the reason there are so many individual variations on the "English" style - many of them based around the oom-pah approach, it is true.

 

Not only did the idea of the oom-pah approach clearly come from melodeon, but in the revival we were often playing alongside other instruments including melodeons and had to fit in with their ideas of harmony - unlike Kimber, who as a soloist in a tradition with no previous experience of harmony could play what he liked.

 

Another player with a totally unique style who comes to mind is Peter Bellamy, also sadly no longer with us. His style of song accompaniment was (to my mind) extraordinarily effective, and also extraordinarily difficult to imitate (and only partly because he used special clips to permanently hold down certain buttons while playing). It sounds as if he's just grabbing fistfuls of notes and pumping the bellows, but there's a lot more to it than that. It shouldn't work, but it does.

 

I do wonder where the next generation of English anglo players is coming from. There seem to be plenty of young hot-shot melodeon and fiddle players emerging, especially from the Newcastle degree course, but there seem to be fewer anglo players. Who are the new names to look out for?

[Steve Mansfield]

I do wonder where the next generation of English anglo players is coming from. There seem to be plenty of young hot-shot melodeon and fiddle players emerging, especially from the Newcastle degree course, but there seem to be fewer anglo players. Who are the new names to look out for?

 

I've been wondering the same about the EC, and indeed other instruments: I'm primarily a woodwind player, and can count the new young English flute players I could name on considerably less than the fingers of one hand. There was an EC player named Michael Jary who was in The Pack and various associated enterprises like Ola, but he seems to have dropped off the radar - but there doesn't seem to be anyone coming up behind him ...

 

I guess instruments go in waves and fashions, and there's a certain amount of 'playing what your heroes and mentors play', but I'd agree with the observation that the entire English folk scene at the moment does seem to be standardised on fiddles and melodeons!

Edited March 4, 2010 by Steve Mansfield

[michael sam wild]

I hesitated to get into this as I only know what I listen to, so my response can't be comprehensive.

 

I agree that Andy Cutting pushed the melodeon with tunes from various traditions. I'm sure there were lots of French and Scandinavian and French Canadian players etc etc doing it too , in fact I began to get fed up with franglonavian type tunes when we ran a pub popular with folky students. and yearned for good old fashioned English fiddle style tunes with less chords. Even Morris sides were going more for fancy chords than some bollix.

In the 70s Tony Hall and others paved the way on more complex meldodeon styles that didn't dominate.

 

I agree with the choices of John Kirkpatrick and Harry Scurfield and would strongly argue for Brian Peters and Anahata. A Blakeney- Edwards was great but sadly will not push things any more. Jody Kruskal is an inspiration and his American tunes cross the continents. ( Cross incontinents would be a great name for a world music band! )

 

I agree with Dan about Boer music , what I've heard of it, and wish the music of native South African players in their tradition keeps moving on. I also look forward to more of Bertram Levy on Anglo

 

Micheal O' Raighellagh (O'Reily?) is quite an inspiration whilst remaining within the Irish tradition. I haven't gone into that tradition as I remain inspired by older players and aspire more to fully embrace 'the pure drop' If I want 'new routes from folk roots' I can listen to any number of 'Celtic' bands and players on the box, like Sharon Shannon, Luke Daniels, Tim Edey et al , and I'm sure they will influence my interpreation of Anglo concertina

 

 

The thing for me is that the tradition keeps alive but is open to new influences within its framework.

 

As we don't know much about concertina players who were in England , despite its massive popularity as Dan's book shows, I draw my inspiration from the body of traditional players on various instrumenst in Britain and Ireland and other related traditions like the US, Australia and Canada who were recorded or who I have heard , as well as old manuscripts and their interpretation and any historical research.

 

Al that will go into the pot if English style Anglo playing in the traditional style, is to flourish..

 

At the moment I haven't heard too many young Anglo players taking things forward but maybe I don't get around enough or haven't heard any CDs with them on. Any links would be appreciated , I have loads of young Irish Anglo players to listen to.

 

 

If we are talking about a revival of concertina bands and virtuoso classical style then English and Duet concertinas may become the 'new' craze but whether that will remain linked to the traditional dance and song music will be another story.

 

Haven't the people named taken the Anglo as far as it can go?

 

 

.

Edited March 4, 2010 by michael sam wild

[TomB-R]

I'm not sure what "direction" you mean. If you have in mind things like Andy Cutting's use of cross-rowed basses to produce more exotic chords, he was by no means the first to do so - Roger Watson for one was teaching this before Andy had come to public notice. He's a great player of course, and he's certainly pushed the instrument towards its limits, but whilst he's been an inspiration to many players I don't believe he's unique or mould-breaking in what he does, and I don't think he's solely responsible for "changing the world".

 

You're right, I meant to put Andy Cutting "and others," but forgot when typing. Rob Harbron was just a name that came to mind as an example of EC harmony playing.

 

Thanks for all responses, food for thought and for follow up. I need to relisten to some of the names mentioned on cd.

 

This clip from John Townley was one of the things that inspired the question, the first minute or so.

 

http://www.astrococktail.com/mp3/Sailor%20-%20Track%209.mp3

 

which is on this page

 

http://www.astrococktail.com/sailor.html

[Steve Mansfield]

franglonavian

 

Oooh, thanks Michael, that's my new word of the day Guilty as charged I'm afraid ....

[m3838]

Every time I read about Melodeon and Concertina in conjunction with English and Irish tradition I am lost.

Help me out, I'm feeling like a few people look at the world with 1.5 eyes closed. I'm sure it's not true, but I can't get a sense of it.

What exactly do you mean when saying "pushed the melodeon"?

Bringing melodies from "other traditions" in itself has nothing to do with pushing an instrument musically. In cosmopolitan Europe it is more difficult to stay in one's tradition than to bring bits of other traditions without noticing it.

Harmonically what can be done on simple instrument in post-jazz age?

Many people modify left hand to use more variety of accompaniment and don't forget that early, as you call them, melodeons were with 12 basses, providing more accompaniment than is accepted today with only 8 basses.

Andy is great player, Renato is way better player and musician ( highly payed professional, a star).

Anglo Concertina is not a unique instrument, considering that it shares it's system with many other diatonics.

Oompa Anglo playing is in no way influenced by accordions, it's European standard at least, and goes back 100s of years.

What are you talking about?

Thanks.

[marshall]

Talking of the "duet anglo" style, wasn't it Geoff Crabb who described the 40 key anglo as the "poor man's duet"? Chas

 

 

I'm not sure what "direction" you mean. If you have in mind things like Andy Cutting's use of cross-rowed basses to produce more exotic chords, he was by no means the first to do so - Roger Watson for one was teaching this before Andy had come to public notice. He's a great player of course, and he's certainly pushed the instrument towards its limits, but whilst he's been an inspiration to many players I don't believe he's unique or mould-breaking in what he does, and I don't think he's solely responsible for "changing the world".

 

Similarly, I'm not sure why you pick out Rob Harbron as an example on the English - another very fine player, don't get me wrong, but not (at least from what I've heard) mould-breaking.

 

In terms of pushing the anglo into musical genres and keys most other players avoid, I'd have to nominate Harry Scurfield. However I think he's more admired than imitated. If you're thinking in terms of wider influence, my choice would be John Kirkpatrick, who arguably created the "duet anglo" style from scratch, beside setting the benchmark (imo) for song accompaniment.

[Dan Worrall]

 

Haven't the people named taken the Anglo as far as it can go?

 

Not even close. Just keeping moving around to different concertina cultures besides Irish and English ones, and there are tons of new ideas to be had. Beyond the modernist Boers already mentioned (whose "big idea" seems to be to use all 42 buttons to smooth out the flow and then add plenty of chromaticity--if that is a word), then there are the black South Africans, who totally turned the instrument on its head, not using it as a European melody instrument, but as an African rhythmic instrument. There are lots of ideas in there for anyone wanting to bridge into R&R or rhythm and blues....riff patterns and strange chords that most of us--born of the folk revival--have not even begun to think about. Once you get into the African cultures, then move about from the Zulu/Sotho squashbox to the Ghanaians playing palmwine tunes, and then head to the Malagasy concertina playing in east Africa, in small groups with their bamboo harps. All sorts of unique sounds that no one who I know in Europe/North America has fully integrated into their playing (Harry S. comes closest, of course).

[hjcjones]

m3838, you are quite right that in the UK we tend to be focussed on our own music with little knowledge of what happens elsewhere - and it is probably true to say, little interest. This is difficult to defend, but the simple fact is that until the internet and Youtube it was very difficult to obtain music from overseas, even in specialist shops.

 

The accordion and concertina fell out of use in popular music rather earlier in the UK than elsewhere in Europe. The melodeon was exclusively a folk instrument, with a fairly simple technique, unlike other countries where the instrument was taken more seriously and more sophisticated techniques were developed. Even today, it is far more difficult in the UK to find lessons on any of the accordion family, and certainly on diatonic accordion, than is the case elsewhere in Europe.

 

The other thing to remember is that in the UK most people were attracted to melodeon and anglo concertina via folk music, rather than starting with the instruments and then looking for music to play. Most players were more interested in exploring what still survived of our own tradition rather than looking elsewhere to see how other musicians were using the instrument. Very few thought of studying the instrument in its own right, separate from folk music, and there would have been very few resources to allow them to do so.

 

Another constraint on English melodeon playing is the adoption of the D/G instrument, to play in the keys favoured by folk fiddlers (which of course has helped to consolidate these keys as the ones for folk music). This is very high-pitched compared with the instruments preferred in most other countries, and as a result most English musicians play in the lower octave, whereas European players typically play in the upper octave. This results in a different style of playing.

 

So far as the anglo concertina is concerned, it is quite true that the harmonic style was being played from a very early date, as this early German tutor illustrates. However this style seems to have been largely unknown in England, apart from the Kimbers who seem to have developed their own style. From what little we know, most players seem to have played in octaves or simple single-note melodies. The "oom-pah" anglo style seems to have emerged during the UK revival quite independently from anything happening elsewhere, and as a deliberate attempt to mimic the accompaniment style of melodeon.

[Jake Middleton-Metcalfe]

 

I guess instruments go in waves and fashions, and there's a certain amount of 'playing what your heroes and mentors play', but I'd agree with the observation that the entire English folk scene at the moment does seem to be standardised on fiddles and melodeons!

 

 

It does. Perhapse leaning slightly more towards melodeons in my experiance, I know an accordion player and a fiddle player who boath want melodeons. Aparently they are "the sex" at the moment. Though as a young player and a uni student I do feel one of the main things that effects the choices of would be young players is the price and waiting lists ect

 

One of the things that atracted me to the anglo (by no means the only thing) was that everyone seems to play melodeon. Even me.

[m3838]

Thanks for a great explanation bordering on lecture about English Folk music scene in the 70es.

All sounds very interesting to me and eye opening.

Back in the USSR we were of the opinion that Iron Curtain obscured much of what's going on in the so called "West", of which UK was dominant example. We were very hungry for snippets of information making their way to us and one of the leading causes for us to leave SU was "freedom" of movement and information.

It appears though that our brutal and poorly educated "leaders" did rather good job of supplying us with this snippets. With surprise I found that Russians generally are much better educated about the West then other way around. Much of English language literature was known and some widely popular in USSR. Many film directors were also very popular. Folk music from around the World was promoted (as opposed to pop) and propagated. There were (and still are) many song books of English, French, Spanish, American folk music, professionally arranged with notation and chords, lyrics translated, in music stores. Weird, isn't it?

I guess there was this notion of all proletarians are friends.

Now it is astonishing for me to see the lack of interest among those, who were subject of our envy. How far is France from the UK? Could a folky with interest of learning ins and outs of his instrument drive to border town in France and come back with trunk load of french accordion tutors and tapes? Scandinavian, German, Italian, Spanish - all are clustered together, not far from each other. I think it's not the impossibility but disinterest that lead to lack of "stagnation" of melodeon culture in the UK, (I think that's what you imply). The disaster that has befallen Eastern Block has little to do with economy or politics, but largely with stupidity of Russian leadership. If we lived like Czecks or East Germans, we'd still be behind that "Curtain".

Anyways, Internet changed it all and brought Mountain of international music to British "Mohammeds".

Now we can see that Andy Cuttings of Anglo do exist, and even Andy himself is not alone on the pedestal.

"Anglo International" however, represents only point of view of British amateur and, as been noted when it was still in production, has little to do with been "International". It's heavily UK oriented. Don' t make your judgement based on this compilation, as interesting as it is.

May be this feeling that I have, of UK folks been self-centered and disinterested in anybody else, is what's prompting my overly sharp responses to some topics. I'll keep up with it.

[Alan Day]

The Internationals are really a compilation of demonstrations of various styles of playing the instrument. Anglo International was a classic example of certain players having to be left out because of the UK domination. It is a reasonable reflection of World Anglo playing as it exists today, I am not sure what more could have been done to provide a World picture that is any different than what is on those three CDs. Certain artists were missing, but their style of playing is there. Australia could have been featured and a few have pointed this out to me, but I have heard no Australians, as good as some are, that offer a style much different to the UK style of playing. There is music by players from UK, Canada, USA, South Africa, Ireland, and Spain surely that is International. There are archives from some UK players which pushes up the UK domination.Twenty Six players in total

In a compilation such as this we can really only provide what is available at the time of investigation. Other players will always be found on any of the three systems that many would think should have been included and were not.As has been stated there is a very deep mine of South African players out there and probably in other countries, but from my little office in Surrey I have no way of detecting all of them.What I can do is offer a set of compilations that comes as near to what we want and up to somebody else to do a better job , if they have the time and inclination.

What we have achieved is to give you many players that you have never heard of with interesting styles, provided rare archive recordings of many of the artists we have heard of, but never heard their playing.

This is not a swipe back at you M3838 you make some very fair and interesting thoughts , but the Anglo compilation is 3CDs long it represents playing at the time of its construction and like it or not a few talented recordings will not change the playing standards over night.

Al

Edited March 4, 2010 by Alan Day