S q u e e z y t u n e s

Recent Korean Trot

As promised here is some inanely jolly Trot from the biggest star of modern Trot - Jang Yun-jeong.

Korean Trot Music

Trot music from Korea is their oldest form of pop music, taking it's name from the foxtrot ballroom dance which has the same kind of simple 4/4 beat. It seems to a 20th century music, and was starting to die out until a recent revival by a few pop stars.

Here's some classic old Trot from the war era. This is a bit grim, but bear with me - tomorrow we'll have some of the happy modern stuff. Strangely the accordion is one of the typical instruments for Trot.

Simon Vouet: St. Cecilia (c. 1626)

Simon Vouet: St. Cecilia (c. 1626), originally uploaded by euthman.

Today (Nov 22nd) is St. Cecilia's day - the patron saint of musicians in general and organists in particular.

Tabou Combo - Kompa from Haiti

Tabou Combo started in the late 1960s are are still going strong. In the 1970s they moved to New York and record a monster of a record that I distressingly difficult to find. By this time Compa had been renamed Kompa, and the music moved with the times and has never disappeared.

I will never get bored of listening to this track, and just hope I can track it down on CD one day.
Tabou Combo - New York City

Sadly somewhere along the line the accordion stopped being a part of their sound. The groove carried on though.

Here they are performing in Paris a year or two ago.

Twoubadou Music from Haiti

Don't think that Compas is the only music from Haiti to feature accordion, there is also twoubadou (troubadour) music which is more of a folk music. Here is a brilliant example.