Song about Frank Sinatra singing calypso

Repertoire, as in: probably not. Donna Parker & Bill Vlasak here. Check the beginning of the programme (after the intro) for Sune Alexanderson’s version of Dancing Queen. Playlist here. More Irwin Chusid here.

Petrushka, accordeons and theatre lead inevitably to the best film ever:

The tranny plumping up his chest to make the wedding guests smile for the cameraman remind me that this show needs tits. My pink dress–made by Lou B–has suffered over the years. If I knew where she lived I’d try to get her to make me another one.

If you’re interested in organs and theatre, quite soon you will visit Mr Stravinsky & Co and their lenten feast. Some background:

The play Petrushka seems to derive from a native older Russian buffoon and minstrel tradition and the Western European puppet theater tradition with its roots in the Italian commedia dell’arte. Possible evidence of the Petrushka play in Russia is found as early as 1637 in an engraving and description by a Dutch traveler, Adam Olearius. From around the 1840s to the 1930s, the Petrushka show was one of the most popular kinds of improvisational theater in Russia, often performed at fairs and carnivals and on the streets on a temporary wooden stage (balagan). The show was presented by two performers, one of whom manipulated the puppets, while the other played a barrel-organ. Recorded textual variants from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries depict the adventures of Petrushka, a dauntless prankster and joker, who uses his wit as well as a vigorously wielded club to get the better of his adversaries, who often represent established authority. The themes tend to be sexist and violent. Petrushka is usually dressed in a red caftan and pointed red cap, and has a hunch-back, a large hooked nose, and a prominent chin. The most popular scenes involve Petrushka and a handful of characters, among them his fiancée or wife, a gypsy horse trader, a doctor or apothecary, an army corporal, a policeman, the devil, and a large fluffy dog. Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka (1911) is probably the most famous adaptation of this puppet theater show.

Here are two music-box players and dancers competing for public in the first Shrovetide Fair scene, at the beginning of the ballet:

Recalling that a barrel organ is in some ways nothing more than a mechanised accordeon, some more fair soundscape with accordeon noises, here in accordeon transcription (ho!ho!) played by Mika Vayrynen:

If accordeon pastiche can be played on the accordeon, there’s no reason why a ballet about organs and puppets and puppetmasters shouldn’t be performed with organ, puppets and puppetmaster. That’s roughly what Basil Twist seems to have done starting in 2001:

First performed in 2001, this “Petrushka” also involves a conceptual sleight of hand. In the ballet dancers play puppets that come to life. In Mr. Twist’s version, puppets play puppets, and when they come to life, they dance. It works perfectly, plunging us directly into the story’s imaginative universe.

Unfortunately I can’t find video of him in action.

[There's a more interesting introduction to the Russian stuff here.]

This is not Bert Gilbert, the actor, wife-beater and adulterer (although possibly solely for the purposes of the decree nisi) who starred as ‘Arry Wilkins in the 1906 demonstration at the Hippodrome of the effects of The flood on London, of which was wrote:

Three hundred thousand gallons of water sweep away the bridges, pull down the houses, and float away everything that will float; while terrified horses and oxen dash down the hillside and plunge into the lake; and men and women are swimming for their lives. A very exciting five minutes, and a very clever piece of invention.

I wonder what scene ii was like.

No, indeed, this is Bert Gilbert, teacher, barrel organ man, drummer and singer, and an altogether more peaceful soul:

Points of interest:

• Bert’s haircut.
  I’m going to invest in a few more wigs, but skinheads are natural organgrinders, politico-culturally speaking.
• The paintwork, details here. Bert writes that “these organs are normally painted in a fairly classical fashion. Sometimes they get a one-colour paint job, and the typical German organs often have flower motifs. I ordered my organ unpainted and in collaboration with [Bas van Duyvenbode at] Airbrush Workshop The Dovecot it has acquired its own identity. The organ is called ‘The Eagle’ so that it is only normal that the bird can be found on it.”
  A popular old organ tune is the Austro-Hungarian military march Unter dem Doppeladler, Under the double eagle, which will no doubt go down well in those parts of Catalonia where people still long for a Hapsburg dynasty. I know a few scenery painters here who might do this sort of job. The cabinetmaker is likely to be more of a problem, but I’m not yet sure what kind of cabinet I want anyway, as Mariano Rajoy said to the undertaker.
• The innards, by Deleika.
  They look shipshape, but I want control from a generic chopped up laptop instead of Deleika’s no doubt excellent proprietary memory storage device. This is to give myself more musical flexibility (I’m writing the arrangements and want to be able to fool around as I proceed) and more (non-musical) input and output options, including stuff like infra-red movement inputs and the mechanical puppets output control I keep going on about. I respect Bert’s faith in cardboard books, but I need to keep weight down if I’m going to ride around with everything on a bicycle.
• 20 notes. On the one hand that’s clearly not enough. On the other, part of the charm of writing for barrel organ is coping with the limitations of the medium. (When everyone still used cardboard books and music was sold by the metre, you had to be careful with arrangements to avoid stuff like diagonal lines of holes that could cause book tears.) Hmm.