two thumbs up on joe bonsall and grand prairie waltz! a few years ago i had the pleasure of playing with cliff newman...i asked him to sing grand prairie.....talk about frisson!

roger

"Is this a quality of the "dance-hall" style, I wonder?"

Not necessarily. Look at Iry LeJeune. His playing had more ornamentation than some of the players you listed. On his records you hardly ever hear any other instrument take the lead, so he had to play a lot of notes to make it interesting. Eddie LeJeune pretty much had to do the same thing, in a later era.

"I know what people are referring to when they discuss this style, but has it ever been formally defined?"

No. It's a made up word. In Ryan Brasseux's book Cajun Breakdown, he discusses how in the earliest days of recording, the accordion and fiddle played together throughout the song and did not stop except for vocals. Even then there was a wide disparity among accordion players. Think of relatively straight ahead sounds like Joe Falcon and Dewey Segura compared with Mayeuse Lafleur, Delin Guillory, Amede Ardoin, etc. When the Cajun swing era came in the 1930s, it imitated jazz in that you had multiple instruments taking the lead in a certain pre-arranged order, so that you could put down your instrument while another player took the lead. Then when Nathan Abshire, Lawrence Walker, Jolly Boys of Lafayette, and others in the late 30s combined the accordion with Cajun swing bands, the dynamics sort of changed. It wasn't necessary for the accordion to have a lot of ornamentation. The accordion wasn't so much the engine driving the sound (that was the new rhythm section's job) as it was the "ornamental chrome" that put the "Cajun" stamp on the sound. It gave Cajun music a sound unlike the country music/string band sound common around the whole South.

Brasseaux uses the term Cajun Swing for the string band sounds of Leo Soileau, Hackberry Ramblers, Riverside Ramblers, Joe Werner's bands, Happy Fats' bands, Harry Choates, Chuck Guillory, etc. Then he calls the years after World War II Cajun Honky Tonk, when Iry LeJeune, Nathan Abshire, Lawrence Walker, Austin Pitre, Alphee Bergeron, Maurice Barzas, Lionel Cormier, Aldus Roger, and others had popular bands. Makes sense to me. Moreso than the term dancehall. And these players varied considerably in their complexity and speed. Nathan would play the same way no matter if he was in an actual dancehall like the Pinegrove Club in Evangeline or the Avalon Club in Basile or smaller venues like the Bearcat Lounge. Maurice Barzas played a long time in a lounge, not a dancehall per se. The venue is not what determined the style they were going for. Since these musicians were contemporary with the Honky Tonk era of Country music (Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams, etc.), I think Cajun Honky Tonk is a good name. I don't know whether anybody will object.

"And then there's the whole question of ornamentation. Is it necessary? Can there be too much of it?"

So I would say that the ornamentation is great in the right hands. Not necessary in the hands of a simpler but more rhythmic player. And yes, there can be too much ornamentation, in my opinion. Marc Savoy is probably not the most typical accordion player. I love his style but I have heard others say that he (and Iry LeJeune!) plays too many notes. Too much tappage! It's a matter of taste.

Those were my too sense.

---
Oh, Elias Badeaux of the Louisiana Aces sounded pretty simple but he had a whole lot of soul. Man, that accordion is crying! Same with Pee Wee Broussard!

Well said Neal. Information like this makes the discussion group worthwhile.

We used to use encyclopedias, now there is the internet, but we have Neal.

Whoa!! Excellent views! Thanks, Neal

Charlie B.