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Marcel Azzola

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Stephen pid=63475 dateline=1548170212 said:
Legendary French accordionist Marcel Azzola passed away at the age of 91.

http://en.rfi.fr/culture/20190122-marcel-azzola-french-accordionist-who-played-brel-dies-age-91-0

http://www.lefigaro.fr/musique/2019...-de-frehel-piaf-brel-greco-tati-mouloudji.php
Click to expand...

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for that. A very sad loss to the accordion world indeed. 

It was players like Azzola who proved that the accordion could be put to other uses, away from its traditional role as being an accompaniment for dancers in the bals. 

The link in Le Figaro to Andre Verchurens death, when Marcel refers to him as the roi du son désaccordé, brought a smile to my face. They had been friends for a very long time, but Marcel never cared for musette tuned accordions, and made no secret of it. He had used them earlier in his career, but a whole load of ritales turned their backs on musette pur over the years. 

When I first took an interest in French accordion I thought there were two Marcel Azzolas. The old record covers showed him as prematurely balding, but later covers showed a guy with a really thick head of hair. I thought they were maybe father and son, until I realised he had joined Loulou Legrand, and others, in the Toupee club. 

He was a true legend, with or without the toupee, which magically changed colour in keeping with is age!
 
Stephen pid=63480 dateline=1548185200 said:
Did you know he also was a member of the mini accordion club?
See video from the rfi.fr article.

Here info on the mini Crosio from 1936.
http://www.marcelazzola.com/index_galerie_show_moderne.php?id=79
Click to expand...

Hi Stephen,

Havent found the video yet, but I knew he had a collection of old accordions and his favourite was a really ancient small accordion. I saw a French TV documentary a few years ago when he discussed some of the instruments, but my French isnt good enough to follow exactly what he was saying. 

I believe he finally stopped playing musette in the early 80s to concentrate on jazz and classical music. 

I suppose he and various others tired of playing the same old musette repertoire over and over, when his playing ability was very advanced. 

If I was totally honest I sometimes found his style could be slightly formal, even when he was playing jazz. 

This valse moderne,  Delicatesse, was probably my favourite composition of his, that he wrote along with Rud Wharton.

 
 
This is the link to the video (called Marcel Azzola et les Sex Pistols):
http://en.rfi.fr/culture/20190122-marcel...s-age-91-0

He says the little Fratelli Crosio belonged to a taxi driver, who played it in his taxi waiting for clients. The taxi driver had his dog and this little accordion with him in his car. Its one of a special series of only 5 mini Crosio accordions. Azzola played this mini accordion in a sort of documentary film (?) about the Sex Pistols. Azzola was asked to participate with his accordion.
This 3 octaves 60 bass mini Crosio is the size of a 3-row diatonic accordion.

A younger Marcel Azzola TV interview:


Documentary about Marcel Azzola:

Marcel Azzola, lhomme à laccordéon (1992)

Thanks for the Delicatesse video, you have a great taste for fine accordion music.
 
Hi Stephen,
Got access denied (I'm in UK) for sex-pistols video, but I should be able to get it on You Tube. 
Watched the other two, and the second one (1992) was fascinating. I loved listening to Adolphe Deprince. He was probably best known for his polka compositions in the musette style outside of France and Belgium, and very few people in the UK will have heard of him. I believe his accordion was a Do2 B system, obviously with Belgian basses. Most of us in the UK are only familiar with C system. 
I couldn't quite work out Marcel's connection with the Nord region, although I'm aware that a lot of big name players were from there. 
Some of those kids (they'll be mature adults now) were sure under a lot of pressure being judged, and I suppose it all serves to illustrate that if it is taken to that level, the accordion is probably one of the most difficult instruments to play in the world. 
I tried to follow his chat with the pupils towards the end of the documentary but couldn't quite get the point he was trying to make about the musette style. It looks as though he was telling them that every accordionist was a musician, regardless of what style they played, or its limitations, but again my French let me down.
Many thanks again for the links to those clips.
 
Hi Terry,

Some of us have led very sheltered lives. I dare say that will be the video that we are denied access to. Must be because he shoved the cake in that nice lady's face, when all she appears to have asked for was a light for a cigarette!

Sex, alcohol, drugs, and prostitution, were the downfall of many an accordionist, especially if they tried them all out at the same time. Check the ages that some of them were when they died.

Marcel Azzola was one of many accordionists, a significant number of whom were of Italian birth or descent, who were able to present a different image of the accordion in Paris, whilst still keeping a "toe in the water" with the music of the street and the bals. They were fortunate that the instrument was recognised there as being suitable for classical study, as that certainly wasn't the case here in the UK, until about 1986. I never realised how many classical accordionists there were until I joined the forum, as I'd never heard anybody play that sort of music on an accordion before, and I was in my 60s when I joined. 

There will never be another Marcel Azzola, as times have changed dramatically from the days when he was to the fore. 

Galliano is only really well known to accordion buffs, and in truth I had never heard of him until the launch of "new musette" in the 90s. If you'd asked me about Galliano before that, this is what I would have told you it was:-



I'd better not say much more, as my name is Johnnie Walker!
 

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The girl is asking for a light, an autograph and then asks Sid to marry him before she gets pie faced... 
On the note of prostitution did you notice 70,s porn star Mary Millington cameo in the cinema.. 
Malcolm Maclaren the pistols manager was an A class arsehole who made his money by being an offensive ****wit... And sending Sid round the Jewish quarter in Paris is about as low as you can go... ****.. 
I liked the shake up the Pistols presented in 78 but I was 14 at the time... 
Marcel became a greater influence to me than any of those punky munkys... 
Toupee beats a Mohican this time. .
 
Terry,

I do remember the name Mary Millington, and she confounded all the medical experts by hammering drugs and booze relentlessly, despite being told that she was destined for an early death. She must have been made of stern stuff as she proved them all wrong, and lived to the grand old age of 33. 

I've only been to Paris a few times, in the 70s and 80s, and it was before I started taking an interest in the accordion. I never saw or heard an accordion being played, but wasn't really looking or listening out for accordions. 

I do know one or two people who are from Paris, and when they heard that I was interested in French accordion they were a bit incredulous that anybody, especially a foreigner, would be so inclined. "Uncool" was the operative word. They referred to it as a fad which had died out years ago, and proffered that most modern Parisians were keen to shake off any association with the accordion at all.  

Even in its heyday musette got a bit of a bad reputation because of its association with crime and the underworld. The German military banned the bals during the occupation, presumably to try and stop all of the rackets associated with it, but I don't know for sure. 

I do believe that is why Marcel Azzola and others attempted to elevate the status of the accordion, by applying it to styles other than musette.
 
I think there is a misunderstanding about the video hyperlink I was talking about. My link was to a 233 video of a Marcel Azzola interview at his place. He takes the little Crosio and talks about this instrument and his gig with the Sex Pistols.

I hadnt seen the video with Sid Vicious walking around in Paris and the charming Miss Millington. The video I was referring to is another one:

Azzola et... les Sex Pistols
8.1K views
davdufDavduf
Laccordéoniste de Brel, Marcel Azzola, raconte sa rencontre avec... les Sex Pistols. Plus dinfos: www.davduf.net
 
Stephen pid=63535 dateline=1548346394 said:
I think there is a misunderstanding about the video hyperlink I was talking about. My link was to a 233 video of a Marcel Azzola interview at his place. He takes the little Crosio and talks about this instrument and his gig with the Sex Pistols.

I hadnt seen the video with Sid Vicious walking around in Paris and the charming Miss Millington. The video I was referring to is another one:

Azzola et... les Sex Pistols
8.1K views
davdufDavduf
Laccordéoniste de Brel, Marcel Azzola, raconte sa rencontre avec... les Sex Pistols. Plus dinfos: www.davduf.net
Click to expand...


Hi Stephen,

Sorry, was able to view the correct video now, and also saw him play the little accordion in the Sid Vicious clip.

Jacques Brel was pretty much an off the wall character too, and it seems that several other characters Marcel Azzola worked with were the same.
 
ive just done my maths and Marcel would have been the age i am now 50 odd when he took this job....i'd say pretty admirable and hats off to the guy for embracing the youths and the changing times...impressive outlook and openness rather than a staid 'i know wht i like and i like what i know' type..chapeau...and great interpretation too
As to Mary Millington she was old enough to be my mum around this time and i don't think young Sidney lived long enough to see The Greatest Rock n Roll Swindle released...
 
Terry,

I actually met Mary Millington, along with Fiona Richmond and Penny Irving, at Newark County Showground in Nottinghamshire, in 1975 when I was in the Royal Navy Helicopter Display Team. They were all clad (just about) in bikinis. We obviously knew who they were, but they also knew who we were, so our paths never crossed after a cursory introduction.

From memory they were part of a campaign to attract new members to the the RAC or AA, who had a caravan at the location, but their success was hampered when a member of a parachute team, who had performed as part of a freefall parachute display from our helicopter, made a mess of his landing and went straight through the roof of their event caravan! Turns out there were 7 tits on display that day, and number 7, who had been trying to impress the ladies (he should have landed about 400 yards away), was taken to hospital with a broken left leg.

Well off topic, and doesn't even deserve a Mars bar!
 
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