Bocsa,
Your mention of Jacqueline Waltz takes me back to the 50s and 60s when it was a very popular tune in Scotland. Will Starr was born about 10 miles away from where I lived in North Lanarkshire. I don't know how he did the trills on his B,C,C# box, but very few people indeed have managed to "nail" the tune on any other kind of accordion. Most Scottish players who attempt it slow it down a tad so that they have more control, but Will played it slightly up tempo. He had been playing (and recording) various French musette standards about the time he composed the tune. When he played "Continental" music his style was similar to that of the revered French player, Emile Vacher, who played a "mixte" accordion that was similar in configuration to the British Chromatic.
The "mixte" accordion was rather quickly superseded in France by the CBA, whereas in Scotland the British Chromatic is still in use to this day.
Most of us who have heard the tune will attempt to play the Jacqueline Waltz, but I can honestly say that I've never heard anybody who can quite pull it off like Will Starr did. I can play it after a fashion, but after 1000 or so attempts I finally decided I'd just rather listen to Will Starr. The tune is not particularly difficult, even the button trills, but stringing it all together is nigh on impossible if Scottish accordion is not your mainstream genre. It is a Continental style waltz, but the chord progressions and phrasing have more than a dash of tartan about them. .
The French player, Aimable Pluchard, was one of the most famous of all the French accordionists, yet played everything (he recorded over 10,000 titles) with only three fingers of his right hand. He was criticised for lack of technique by everybody from street musicians to professors in the conservatories, but his bank balance would probably have added up to more than those of all his critics added together. He broke every rule in the accordion book, but his style of delivery won him audiences of thousands. I once viewed a video of some top French players "having a go" at some of his tunes in a testimonial, and not one of them could get the tunes across like Aimable could. A lot of his material was indeed "Europop" aimed at the older generations, but as I say nobody else could touch him for his unique playing technique. If you ever see him playing his right hand jumps all over the keyboard with no real flow to it, but the accuracy he acquired by playing with only three fingers was second to none. Not for him "What fingering will I use?" Even when he played what would be considered more technically advanced material, it was three fingers only, with the other two presumably raised at the accordion professors! His style was appropriate for the French musette genre, but perhaps not much else, as if he cared!
The interesting thing was he did actually receive accordion lessons from Emile Larchanché (father of Maurice Larcange), and it seems that accordionists in the Valenciennes area were also exponents of the "three finger trick". Maurice Larcange tutored dozens of youngsters, including Eric Bouvelle, and in the old videos you could see that most of his pupils played mainly using three fingers, with the little finger (and less commonly the thumb), being used as auxiliaries only. Since French musette has fallen from grace the old fashioned fingering has suffered the same fate. Most people would say it was for the better, but when young players give renditions of the classics these days, the style of delivery often lacks the punch it had in days gone by. Then again, a fair number of French musette renditions these days tend to be a bit tongue in cheek.
