In the Beginning Part One
I was born in September, 1945, three months too early to be a ‘baby boomer’. World War II had just ended and my father was finishing his commitment to the Navy. My first five years were spent in our family home in El Segundo. We lived next door to my grandparents who had split their lot when it had come time for my parents to build their first house.
When my Dad decided to stop teaching and went to work for the Torrance Unified School District in 1950, he quickly decided he did not want to make the daily 9-mile commute. We moved into a new tract home in Torrance Gardens, one of the many new housing developments in a city that was exploding in post-war population. We were the second or third family to move in on our block. There were many young families and a lot of kids. It rapidly evolved into a close-knit neighborhood.
I had two older brothers. Larry was 5 years and Phil was 3 years older. We all started school at Fern Greenwood Elementary school. I started in first grade.
Two years later, a door-to-door salesman knocked on the front door with a 12-bass accordion in hand. Accordion had become immensely popular in the early 1950’s. Lawrence Welk and Myron Floren were household names. At 7 years old I certainly had no idea that I wanted to grow up to be a professional accordionist, but as a typical kid I easily became excited about something new – like taking accordion lessons. Of course, Phil wanted to take them too – so after some negotiation with the salesman, we would share the rental accordion and would both take the introductory 8-week course.
Music was not new to our family. Larry had started violin in Elementary School in El Segundo. Aunt Helen had generously provided the violin. He practiced bowing for nearly a year before he was allowed to take the paper out of the strings. We all understood why when the fateful day of paper removal finally arrived.
Phil had many interests and had a great amount of natural talent, but things came too easy for him. He quickly became bored with almost anything.
So early on one Saturday morning, we were dropped off downtown Torrance at Ferraro Accordion Studios. Ferraro was a big operation with studios all over Southern California. There were probably 10 or 12 students in the class and Phil immediately started helping getting the 12-bass accordions out of cases and strapped to the kids. Unfortunately, they were all upside-down. The situation was quickly corrected and we started.
The music consisted of individual pages reproduced from a mimeograph machine. There was a simplified system of notation with a single staff with the right hand melody. There was a chord name at the start of each measure. The teacher explained that you held the right-hand note while you played bass – chord – chord. He demonstrated. We played. It was a mystical state of musical cacophony, providing the mental foundation for many subsequent years in accordion bands. I get the same sense of ‘coming home’ any time I am near an oil refinery or dairy as I lived close enough to both in my youth to have those smells permanently imprinted in my senses.
At first, I had a hard time grasping the oompah-pah concept and was confused about what to do when I would try to practice at home. Phil would come to the rescue. He would patiently demonstrate and I would imitate until I could play the songs. It was too easy for him. Phil’s demonstrations were so effective that even my mom could do it.
After several weeks, I finally started to figure it out. We progressed from Skater’s Waltz which was 8 bars of dotted half notes to Cuckoo Waltz which had a complex mixture of dotted half notes, half notes, and quarter notes. However, there was still no specific written notation for the left hand.
Toward the end, Phil stopped going to the lessons, but I was having a great time. At the end of the 8-week course, I was scheduled for my exit audition with one of Ferraro’s musical directors at Ferraro Central. We packed up the 12-bass, made the short drive, and I found myself playing for some guy sitting behind a desk. My proud parents sat behind me. I guess I was fabulous as the audition segued into a sales pitch. In short time, I was holding a ‘Universal’ 120 bass accordion, trying to find my starting notes. There were a lot of buttons and more treble keys. The price was a mere $350 (or something like that) and it would most certainly be the start of a great career.
At the time, my Dad was a purchasing agent for the Torrance School District, understood profit margins, and knew a high powered sales pitch when he saw one. My parents often described the disappointment on my little face as we left without the new accordion or even the 12-bass. But they said we would figure something out.
A few days later, we drove up to Los Angeles Music, a music store familiar to both Aunt Helen and my dad, and I got my accordion. It was a white Soprani. It had a black case with a blue lining. I remember selecting the white accordion as I was certain mom would also want to play. We left and once we were home I spent the rest of the day playing it. When I got up the next morning, one of the pieces of trim had come loose from the grill. I was crushed that I had already damaged my accordion. My dad drove back up to Los Angeles Music and exchanged it for another one.
The next issue was lessons. Bettie Thomas Accordion Studio, Home of the Torrance Accordionettes was only 3 or 4 blocks from home, on the corner of Torrance Blvd. and Crenshaw. We contacted Bettie. Her first reaction was concern that we hadn’t bought the accordion from her. She said it wouldn’t match the sound of the other accordions in the bands, but nonetheless, she scheduled me to study with Marguerite Senechaw. The mimeograph sheets were replaced with Book IA of the Sedlon Accordion Method. She wrote her name in the front of the book so I would remember it.
Marguerite explained that we would need to step back a little as I needed to learn notation beyond a melody line. She was very thorough and an excellent teacher for beginners. She taught me to read music and count.
I started playing with Bettie’s Bands almost immediately. As far as my accordion blending, it didn’t prove to be an issue at all. Everyone was made to feel welcome. Everyone was given something to do. I remember one little girl from another studio who had learned Merry Widow Waltz (Bettie’s theme song for all bands) in a different key. She would play along in the key she had learned it, creating a very strange parallel organum. Bettie also included children with disabilities. Music was something to be enjoyed by everyone!
There were some other things about Bettie that had a life-long effect on my musical future. The Bands performed a lot; probably a minimum of once or twice each week. Performances included community centers, garden societies, market openings, tree dedications, senior citizen centers – everything. The Torrance Accordionettes also had a weekly radio show that was broadcast live from the studio. Bettie’s studio included a rather large room with a stage and lights. The bands rehearsed on the stage – so you got used to being on stage right from the start. The larger section of the room was used as the studio for dance classes. Everyone played solos. You never knew when you would be called, but you would. And all the music was memorized. These were great skills that were introduced from the start – before you realized they were anything special or unique. No one ever had a problem playing a solo, memorizing, or adapting to any given performance situation.
During the summer months, Bettie had a float, and we performed at parades throughout Southern California. She pulled it with an old yellow Jeepster – and we would play, dance students would dance, and others would walk in front twirling batons or carrying a banner. There were costumes. There were routines. The Accordionettes were very patriotic. Our parade songs included the Caisson’s Song, Anchor’s Aweigh, and the Marine’s Hymn. There were even parties to paint the float.
Early in my career as a Torrance Accordionette we made a multi-day tour to Catalina Island. We all stayed in a couple large houses and made numerous performances. I was one of the youngest members on the trip and stood at the end of the line when we posed on the pier for our picture.
Bettie didn’t charge students to play in the bands. Students were also welcome to play with any of the more junior bands. There was a chart board for each band that was refreshed at the start of each year. The chart listed your name and the name of all the songs you had to play to complete the requirements for that band. You performed each of your songs as a solo at the band rehearsal and your accomplishments were recorded on the chart with a star. Each year you repeated the entire repertoire – from Baby Band (the actual name of the band) up through the Professional Band. So in addition to everything else, you learned a lot of music.
There were often surprises in Bettie’s shows – like when she put the entire band on roller skates, playing a march while executing a ‘grand march’ formation. More than one student crashed to the floor on top of their accordion.
Audiences were entertained with the shows. The shows weren’t polished and certainly not high-art, but people enjoyed seeing so many young people having so much fun. And the kids did have fun. Bettie turned out a large number of very versatile, competent musicians and entertainers.
About a year after starting lessons with Marguerite, she decided the drive from her home in Whittier to Torrance was just too far. The time required to teach was competing with obligations to her family. For the next year, we made the weekly drive to her home so I could continue taking from her. However, I still participated in all the studio activities.
A hero at the time was Bill Luzon, a neighbor who lived at the end of our block. He had a very old accordion, decorated in the obligatory art deco mix of rhinestones and yellowing mother-of-pearl. I loved listening to him play, which he did with great enthusiasm. On one occasion, Marguerite had assigned ‘Tinker Polka’ from the Sedlon Accordion Course. ‘Tinker Polka’ introduced the dotted-quarter note, eighth note pattern and she cautioned me not to become frustrated as it would certainly take several weeks to master this important rhythm. She wrote the counting in the book, ‘1’ ‘a’ ‘&’ ‘a’, ‘2’ ‘a’ ‘&’ ‘a’ which I was to recite aloud while playing; which became an even greater challenge when you added the bass notes which were played on the beats. I remember my folks hauling me and the small Soprani down to the end of the block and sitting across from Bill as he worked with me on the rhythm. Rather than talking about how complicated it was, he said it was really quite easy and worked with me with the ever-present smile that was always there whenever he put on his accordion. All the while, life in the small tract house roared on with the normal commotion. Marguerite was shocked at my next lesson when I tore through the dotted rhythms in Tinker Polka.
Maybe this was the foundation of something else I carried forward years later when I taught, be it music or people learning to ski or ride motorcycles. If you don’t tell someone something is hard, they usually won’t think it is. It is especially helpful if you can demonstrate. “Here, try this!” Not a lot of explanation about what it is – that all can come later.
I was progressing quickly – and became envious of some of the larger accordions other students were playing. At the time, Bettie was selling Frontalinis. Her personal instrument was a full-size model that had an unusual mute that consisted of five large chrome clamshell-looking devices that stuck out of the grill. I never saw another one like it until many years later on Ebay.
But the time was right for me to graduate from my Soprani to a mid-size Frontalini. With the addition of a piccolo, I now had three reeds in the right hand. I remember playing through all my songs and basking in the color the additional reed added to the sound. The push of switch added an entire new dimension to my repertoire. The Frontalini had the round ‘port hole’ shifts.
About this time, Bettie made a new addition to her teaching staff. Tom Owens was one of her former students who now studied with Myron Floren. At the time, Lawrence Welk had introduced a ‘junior band’ on his show and Tom was the accordionist for the group. In addition to accordion, Tom played organ at church and had a summer gig playing the calliope at the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott’s Berry Farm. An incredibly brilliant and gifted musician, he ultimately graduated with his PhD from UCLA in musicology and remains a faculty member at El Camino College.
My folks and Bettie decided I was ready for a change, so I started lessons with Tom. A quiet person by nature, Tom was musically and academically disciplined. I must have been a challenge as I was starting to come out of my shell and was ready to take on the world.
Armed with our near-matching black Frontalinis, Billy Kanu, Jerry Roberts and I started playing as a trio in Bettie’s shows. We also started making some of our own solo appearances. Billy was very quiet. Jerry was much more gregarious. I was the youngest. We wore the obligatory satin shirts with big puffy sleeves (Bettie provided the patterns for the mothers) and a sash. There was a good natured competitiveness and we all had a good time. We also had parental support. In addition to hauling us around to play, our parents would critique our performances. One thing in particular that my dad detested was for us to ‘sway’ in unison as we played. It was just something that would sort of happen.
It was common practice for studios to conduct yearly recitals. Bettie conducted hers at the Torrance Municipal Auditorium. The highlight would be the guest artist. I have a program autographed by Myron Floren with two critical words of advice, “keep practicing.” He also commented on the Billy, Jerry, Billy trio after listening to us play at one of the studio recitals, writing, “Work on dynamics and keeping together, Myron Floren,” on a small piece of paper. Myron had great energy and the warm personality that came through the television was even more evident in his personal appearances. He was always very supportive and made students and parents alike feel comfortable.
Bettie had a way of involving the entire family in the studio. She could literally find a way for every member of the family to participate. Phil took tap lessons at Bettie’s and Larry was occasionally hired to do miscellaneous chores and even fix accordions.
Billy faded out as we got closer to high school and academics took on an increased priority. Jerry and I continued as friends into high school (he was a year ahead of me), but our musical paths changed as he expanded into musical theatre and I remained more focused on accordion.
A major event that happened in the early years was the Western States Accordion Festival. I will never forget the first one. The year was 1956. It was held in the old Long Beach Municipal Auditorium, located in the center of the Rainbow Pier, and next to my favorite place on earth; Nu Pike, the obligatory seedy amusement park that was the home of the Cyclone Racer rollercoaster.
The first festival was a one-day event. My dad was on one of his few business trips so Gramps took my mom and I to the festival. I don’t think anyone had ever dealt with 5,000 participants in a single festival. At 8:00 a.m., it seemed every single contestant and their parents were at entrance waiting to get in. In addition to one magnificent photo op, it was a mess beyond belief! I remember Pietro Deiro Jr., the familiar face from so much of my sheet music concluding his remarks at the evening concert that “some festivals on the East Coast think they are big with 1,000 participants, but they haven’t seen anything like this!” The guest artists included the Tito Guidotti Jazz Quintet and John Molinari.
Locating the competition rooms was a challenge, requiring navigating through the constant blare of noise from students practicing in the halls, on the balconies, and everyplace else. There was also an endless journey up and down the Municipal Auditorium’s long ramps that lead from floor to floor.
My dad had returned from his business trip by the time we got home that night. Mom nearly collapsing from exhaustion told him it had been quite an experience.
By the second year, the festival was well organized. Schedules complete with times and site-maps were provided ahead of time, helping stagger arrival times. Practicing was not permitted in the halls, bathrooms, or any other common area. There were categories for every classification of solo, duet, trio, combo, and band. The competition among the studios was heightened as the winners and studio names were announced in the downstairs auditorium, followed with a proud procession to the sea of trophies that literally filled the stage. Parents and students alike would cheer wildly for their home studio.
Another highlight of the festival was the vendor displays, where you could get pictures of famous accordionists, the latest manufacturers’ brochures and try the different accordion models. Over the years I built quite a collection of autographed 8 x 10s, framing and hanging them with a carefully selected hierarchy in the sun porch.
Toward the end of my time studying at Bettie Thomas Studios, I made another accordion change. This time it was a Crucianelli, a student-level line made by Pancordion. Myron and Tom both played Pans, so the Crucianelli was obligatory. The Crucianelli had ‘flipper’ switches similar to the Pan. I remember my dad commenting on one particular performance of Tango of the Roses, and how my interpretation convinced him I should have a new accordion. I also got my first accordion amplifier, a blackish-gray Gretsch with a single 15” speaker. Accordion had become the center of my life.
At one point, Bettie Thomas worked with the local Ford dealer, Oscar Maples, to sponsor a television show; it was my first television appearance. This was long before the use of tape; shows like this were ‘live’. I am sure the producers found working with Bettie’s organization a challenge – I remember Accordionettes ducking down to cross in front of the camera and not quite making it. A short time later, Oscar Maples was bought out by Vel’s Ford. Perhaps Oscar should have sponsored more shows.
The festival brought the greater Southern California accordion community together; and it was a large, active group. Around this time, my parents sensed there was a discipline lacking in my musical studies. Though they thought the world of Tommy, they could see where he didn’t have the experience, or perhaps the desire, to corral an enthusiastic, musically rambunctious pre-teen.
Home in Torrance, California, where it all started
(pic 2009)
Bettie Thomas Studio, home of the "Torrance Accordionettes" (pic 2009).
I brought my accordion to the party, but no one asked me to play
