Jazz Accordion Solos

A great new YouTube channel

Recently, I found a really interesting YouTube channel: Jazz Accordion Solos, the channel of French-born accordionist and bandoneonist Julien Labro (visit his website).

On “Jazz Accordion Solos”, Julien posts his transcriptions of jazz solos by famous accordionists from the golden age of the accordion but not only that, recently he even published an exclusive interview with Richard Galliano!
Therefore I decided to contact Julien to ask him how the idea of creating a channel dedicated to accordion jazz solos was born.
This is his answer:

“Basically, I started this as an educational tool for fellow accordion players and musicians. I thought that it would be interesting from a historical standpoint and musical perspective to highlight the great jazz players of our beloved instrument. I feel like other instruments used in jazz (i.e saxophone, trumpet, piano, bass, guitar, etc.) have multiple resources to study and learn from a well-documented lineage and history, unfortunately, it isn’t so much the case for the accordion.

Additionally, the pandemic changed our lives (as we all have experienced), and for us performers that meant a stop to performances and touring schedules. One of the special projects that I had scheduled in 2020 was a program centered around celebrating the 100th anniversary of Art Van Damme. I had done quite a bit of transcribing for that project by lifting many of Art Van Damme’s quintet arrangements and solos off of his numerous recordings. When International Jazz Day reached out to me last year to do a short performance for them, I decided to honor Art Van Damme by putting together a virtual quintet and playing one of his charts.

The response was tremendous (much larger than I expected to be honest) and it made me realize that new generations didn’t necessarily know how great some of that music was. So I decided to embark on this project of transcribing solos by some of the greats like Art Van Damme, Tommy Gumina, Ernie Felice, Leon Sash, Dominic Frontiere, Pete Jolly, Frank Marocco, George Shearing, etc…

It’s been a nice response and people around the world have enjoyed being reminded of what the great players laid down before us. Sometimes it’s new to them or sometimes it’s a good reminder…In any case, I’m hoping this will serve as an educational tool for accordionists wanting to learn a little bit more about improvisation and jazz vocabulary.”

Well…mission accomplished! This channel is certainly an excellent tool for all accordionists who are approaching jazz improvisation but also for advanced accordionists who want to learn something new from the great Masters of the past.

So, what you are waiting for? Go now to Jazz Accordion Solos and subscribe!