How to make a living as a jazz accordion player? In the early sixties this was not an easy question to answer for Richard Galliano. Following the example of his father he started playing the accordion at a very early age, but because the accordion wasn’t considered a proper instrument, he decided to study trombone and composition at the Nice conservatory. However, blood turned out to be thicker than water. He decided to combine his love for the accordion and jazz. Subsequently Galliano did for the French ‘musette’ what Astor Piazzolla had done for the Argentine tango: he stretched the genre and provided it with more depth. With his New York Trio ( Scott Colley on bass and Clarence Penn on drums) Galliano focuses on jazz again, the music the Frenchman had embraced as a youth.
