Smiley LIVE! Americana Root Series: Polka Americana
Wednesday, October 18 | 6:30pm
@ The Contemporary Club
This free public event is part of the Smiley LIVE! free concert series. Its family-friendly, with a Q&A segment where young and old alike can ask the performers questions about their music, their performance, and anything else they may be curious about.
About the Performers:
Polka was American roots music decades before anyone played bluegrass, zydeco, or Chicago blues. For many immigrant Americans and their descendants, polkas are more richly traditional than jazz, blues, or country (though country music incorporated a lot of polkas.)1 Acclaimed accordionists Fred Mlakar and Frank Rote will lead an expedition of songs and dance melodies tracing the evolution of polka music from European to distinctly American styles. Playing vintage diatonic, chromatic button, and piano accordions, they will also explain how accordions evolved with the music.
Fred is a third-generation accordionist and band leader who has entertained at festivals, wedding receptions, private parties, and dance clubs for five decades. Fred and his band recorded albums with his late father Joe Mlakar, an honoree of the Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame who was also the proprietor of a polka night club in Fontana, the Elbow Room. Fred currently lives in Irvine.
Frank is an expert accordionist, band leader and director of the Fontana Slovene Button Accordion Club. When not performing, he repairs and refurbishes vintage accordions at his home workshop in Rancho Cucamonga.
1 Bruce Triggs, 2019. Accordion Revolution: A People’s History of the Accordion in North America from the Industrial Revolution to Rock ’n’ Roll.Smiley LIVE! is a series of monthly free concerts featuring a variety of musical genres sponsored by the A.K. Smiley Public Library. The Contemporary Club is located at 173 S. Eureka Street, behind the Lincoln Memorial Shrine, just south of the Library and Smiley Park.