Dennis McGee
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Dennis McGee
Dennis (Denus) McGee (born January 26, 1893, Eunice, Louisiana, USA – October 3, 1989) was one of the earliest recorded Cajun musicians. A fiddle player, he recorded and performed with Creole accordionist and vocalist Amédé Ardoin, with accordionist Angelas LeJeune, and with fiddlers Sady Courville (McGee's brother-in-law) and Ernest Frugé. The recordings with Courville and Frugé are among the few surviving examples of Cajun music as it existed before the influence of the accordion became prominent. McGee's repertoire included not only the waltz and the two-step common to Cajun music but also such dances as the one-step, polka, mazurka, reel, cotillion, the varsovienne, and others. Early life Dennis McGee was the son of John McGee Sr. who was of Irish ancestry and Amelia, of French and Seminole Indian ancestry. Amelia died when Dennis was two years old. He received his first violin at the age of 14, and started playing dances within 6 months. Legacy In the ...
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Eunice, Louisiana
Eunice is a city in Acadia and St. Landry parishes in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The 2010 census placed the population at 10,398, a decrease of 1,101, or 9.5 percent, from the 2000 tabulation of 11,499. The St. Landry Parish portion of Eunice is part of the Opelousas–Eunice Micropolitan Statistical Area, while the Acadia Parish portion is part of the Crowley Micropolitan Statistical Area. History One-time lawman and pioneer land developer C.C. Duson is credited with founding Eunice, which was named for his second wife, Eunice Pharr Duson. He and his brother, W.W. Duson, had already founded Crowley, Louisiana in 1887, and now he looked to the north of the parish for future development. Duson bought of land from Willie Humble of Prairie Faquetaïque and mapped out a town site, laid out in lots 50-by-140 feet, 12 lots to the block. Next, he persuaded the Southern Pacific Railroad to extend a branch line from Crowley to his new town. Then he began what he and his broth ...
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Accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame), colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The concertina , harmoneon and bandoneón are related. The harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family, but are typically larger than an accordion and sit on a surface or the floor. The accordion is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing ''pallets'' to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called '' reeds''. These vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instrument's reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block.For the accordion's place among the families of m ...
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Walter Coquille
Walter may refer to: People * Walter (name), both a surname and a given name * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968) * Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 1987), who previously wrestled as "Walter" * Walter, standard author abbreviation for Thomas Walter (botanist) ( – 1789) Companies * American Chocolate, later called Walter, an American automobile manufactured from 1902 to 1906 * Walter Energy, a metallurgical coal producer for the global steel industry * Walter Aircraft Engines, Czech manufacturer of aero-engines Films and television * ''Walter'' (1982 film), a British television drama film * Walter Vetrivel, a 1993 Tamil crime drama film * ''Walter'' (2014 film), a British television crime drama * ''Walter'' (2015 film), an American comedy-drama film * ''Walter'' (2020 film), an Indian crime drama film * ''W*A*L*T*E*R'', a 1984 pilot for a spin-off of the TV series ''M*A*S*H'' * ''W ...
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Ernest Fruge
Ernest is a given name derived from Germanic word ''ernst'', meaning "serious". Notable people and fictional characters with the name include: People *Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595), son of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor *Ernest, Margrave of Austria (1027–1075) *Ernest, Duke of Bavaria (1373–1438) *Ernest, Duke of Opava (c. 1415–1464) *Ernest, Margrave of Baden-Durlach (1482–1553) *Ernest, Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels (1623–1693) *Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1629–1698) *Ernest, Count of Stolberg-Ilsenburg (1650–1710) *Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover (1771–1851), son of King George III of Great Britain *Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1818–1893), sovereign duke of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha *Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover (1845–1923) *Ernest, Landgrave of Hesse-Philippsthal (1846–1925) *Ernest Augustus, Prince of Hanover (1914–1987) *Prince Ernst August of Hanover (born 1954) * Prince Ernst Au ...
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Cléoma Falcon
Cléoma Falcon (née Breaux; May 27, 1906 – April 8, 1941) was an American guitarist and vocalist who, along with her husband Joe Falcon, recorded one of the first known examples of Cajun music. The recording, " Allons à Lafayette" was released in 1928, and opened the way for other commercial releases of Cajun music. Aside from being a ground-breaking recording artist, Cléoma Breaux also was one of the few women to perform live, despite the social standards of the era. She was the first woman inducted into the Cajun Music Hall of Fame. Biography Cléoma Breaux was born on May 27, 1906, in Crowley, Louisiana, to an accomplished accordion player, Auguste Breaux, and his wife Mathilde Breaux. Cléoma Breaux and her brothers Amedée, Orphy, and Clifford Breaux were all taught as multi-instrumentalists, and began performing for the family's entertainment. Cléoma Breaux was capable of playing a "hard" rhythm guitar style, which was closely related to the preferred technique of l ...
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Joe Falcon
Joseph Falcón (September 28, 1900 – November 19, 1965) was an accordion player from southwest Louisiana, best known for producing the first recording of a Cajun song, "Allons à Lafayette," in 1928. He and his wife Cléoma Breaux left for New Orleans to record the first Cajun record and went on to perform across southern Louisiana and Texas. Early life Joe was born in Roberts Cove, Louisiana located nearby Bayou Plaquemine Brule and began playing accordion at the age of seven. He was the fifth child of Pierre Illaire Falcón and Marie Arvilia Boudreaux. His shares both Cajun and Isleño ancestry as his paternal great-grandparents, José Félix Falcón and María Antonia Damasa Falcón, were descendants of the Canary Islander colonists who settled in Valenzuela along Bayou Lafourche. His ancestors Cristóbal Falcón and Gaspar Falcón were born in Telde, Gran Canaria. His mother Marie was of Acadian descent. Music career His career as a professional musician began s ...
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Varsovienne
The varsovienne, also known as the varsouvienne or varsoviana, is a slow, graceful dance in time with an accented downbeat in alternate measures. It combines elements of the waltz, mazurka, and polka. The dance originated around 1850 in Warsaw, Poland. The words ''varsovienne'' and ''varsoviana'' are French and Spanish feminine adjectives, respectively, meaning 'from Warsaw'. The dance was popular in 19th-century America, where it was danced to the tune ''Put Your Little Foot''. It quickly became a favorite folk dance in the Scandinavian countries as well. The unique armhold by the same name – also known as the promenade hold – is used in other dance styles such as the American square dance, contra dance, and some ballroom dances. Henry Ford's Dance Orchestra recorded a piece titled Varsovienne. The Albion Dance Band recorded a varsoviana tune on their 1977 album ''The Prospect Before Us''. A varsoviana tune plays an important role in Tennessee Williams' play ''A Streetc ...
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Cotillion
The cotillion (also cotillon or French country dance) is a social dance, popular in 18th-century Europe and North America. Originally for four couples in square formation, it was a courtly version of an English country dance, the forerunner of the quadrille and, in the United States, the square dance. It was for some fifty years regarded as an ideal finale to a ball but was eclipsed in the early 19th century by the ''quadrille''. It became so elaborate that it was sometimes presented as a concert dance performed by trained and rehearsed dancers. The later "German" cotillion included more couples as well as plays and games. Names The English word ' is a variation of the French (which does not have ''i'' in the last syllable). In English, it is pronounced // or //; but in French, it is // (without the // sound, despite the spelling). The French word originally meant " petticoat (underskirt)" and is derived from Old French (‘ cotte’) and the diminutive suffix . T ...
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Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. Of Scottish origin, reels are also an important part of the repertoire of the fiddle traditions of the British Isles and North America. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure (see below). In Irish dance, a reel is any dance danced to music in ''reel time'' (see below). In Irish stepdance, the reel is danced in soft shoes and is one of the first dances taught to students. There is also a treble reel, danced in hard shoes to reel music. History The reel is indigenous to Scotland. The earliest reference was in a trial of 1590, where the accused was reported to have "daunced this reill or short dance." However, the form may go back to the Middle Ages. The name may be cognate with or relate to an Old Norse form, with Suio-Gothic '' rulla'', meaning "to whirl." This became ...
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Mazurka
The mazurka (Polish: ''mazur'' Polish ball dance, one of the five Polish national dances and ''mazurek'' Polish folk dance') is a Polish musical form based on stylised folk dances in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, with character defined mostly by the prominent mazur's "strong accents unsystematically placed on the second or third beat". The mazurka, alongside the polka dance, became popular at the ballrooms and salons of Europe in the 19th century, particularly through the notable works by Frédéric Chopin. The mazurka (in Polish ''mazur'', the same word as the mazur) and mazurek (rural dance based on the mazur) are often confused in Western literature as the same musical form. History The folk origins of the ''mazurka'' are three Polish folk dances which are: * '' mazur'', most characteristic due to its inconsistent rhythmic accents, * slow and melancholic ''kujawiak'', * fast ''oberek''. The ''mazurka'' is always found to have either a triplet, trill, dotte ...
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Polka
Polka is a dance and genre of dance music originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. Th .... Though associated with Czechs, Czech culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas. History Etymology The term ''polka'' referring to the dance is derived from the Czech word ''Polka'' meaning "Polish woman" (feminine form corresponding to ''Polák'', a Pole)."polka, n.". Oxford University Press. (accessed 11 July 2012). Czech cultural historian Čeněk Zíbrt also attributes the term to the Czech word ''půlka'' (half), referring to both the half-tempo and the half-jump step of the dance.Čeněk Zíbrt, "Jak se kdy v Čechách tancovalo: dějiny tance v Čechách, na Moravě, ve Slezsk ...
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