This month's MVP is very special. Rather than single out a Texas musician, we focus instead on an instrument, the accordion. 

Why? Well, hell, July's as good a time as any with the folks over at Texas Folklife Resources bringing their Accordion Kings roadshow to Austin. Through scholarly symposia and, more directly, seriously butt-rockin‚ concerts, you‚ll have an opportunity to learn how the accordion got rooted here in Texas and see (and hear) how so many diverse cultures have used the oft-maligned squeeze box. Invented in Berlin in 1822 and, independently, in Vienna in 1823, the accordion was, in that era of progress, when machines were created to ease man's labor, a natural progression of the harmonica, bellows, buttons and valves replacing lungs and lips. 

In 1857, German harmonica maker Matthias Hohner launched the first mass produced accordion, making a once expensive, hand crafted instrument cheap, rugged and plentiful. With a little practice, anyone (even me) can honk out a simple melody and 
just about everybody could afford a Hohner, so it didn‚t take long for it to become an integral part of European folk music. Technology brought new developments, multiple rows of diatonic buttons to play in more than one key, a system of bass notes for the left hand and, finally, a piano keyboard to enable a player to use any key. 

German and Czceh immigrants, thousands of whom came to Texas, brought with them their accordions and their polkas, schottisches and waltzes. Tejanos took to these strange new instruments and dances, adopted them into their own 
culture and created their own style of music, today called Conjunto. Another accordion tradition enetered Texas with the French speaking Cajuns and Creoles who moved into the booming Gulf region, Grand Texas, in the 40s, bringing with them musicians who soaked up the Western Swing craze of the period and still play this oddest of fusions. Zydeco, on the other hand, is an accordion-centered Creole mix of Cajun melodies, Afro-Caribbean rhythms and Texas blues, alive and very healthy in South Houston, whose Continental Ballroom is often considered the capitol of the Zydeco world.

Meanwhile, German and Czech polka band traditions survived in polka festivals, the parish picnics of Weimar and Praha and the beer halls of New Braunfels and Fredericksburg. A decidedly Texas flavor has been added to centuries old melodies in the music of groups like the not-to-be-missed Vrazels Polka Band of Buckholt, together for over 40 years. Traditionally, the various musical styles used different types of accordion, either piano, chromatic or button, with numerous variations, but over the 
years they borrowed freely from each other. Now the main regional distinctions are between makes and models, depending on availability or what‚s favored by the local hot players, witness Hohner‚s Jimenez-inspired Corona doimination of San Antonio and Sabas Espinoza‚s hot-rod customizing in Houston.

This month's Accordion Kings festivities celebrate the wonderful diversity of music and cultures here in Texas. But, most importantly, the accordion illustrates that no matter how far apart communities may think they are from each other, they have more in common than they may realize. In Texas, we all dance to the accordion.

Mark Rubin