Jan. 18, 1975: Gordon Jaffe -- "The Mighty Mite of the Accordion"
Another musical legend, and not just here in
Jan. 18, 1975
Hometown Musician Spreads Smile With
Style
“HOW ABOUT USING one of these pictures?” Gordon Jaffe proposes as three dynamic
They’re fine shots – instrument poised for action, face
radiating a charm that’s the essence of boyishness and a smile that would melt
a glacier at 10 paces.
“The Mighty Mite of the Accordion,” the caption calls him
and you believe it, yes, you believe.
You look at the pictures again and then at all 60 inches of
Gordon Jaffe and realize that in the maybe 25 years since this bit of
camerawork happened, the only thing that’s changed is his youth. The smile’s
still the same.
* * *
THE SCRAPBOOK
goes back to 1948 and a Buffalo Evening News story about a talent show by radio
rage Horace Heidt in Memorial Auditorium. The winner: Gordon, then 17 and a
“Did that change me? No. I made a special point not to let
it,” he says. “I didn’t feel like it did. People in school thought I would try
to be a big shot. I just tried to be extra polite.”
After high school, he signed with that
“I was gone for over a year and, you know, you get awful
lonely out there,” he says. “I was glad to get back home.”
Happily, there was no shortage of work for an accordion
player in
“Before rock ‘n roll, it was really popular,” he explains.
“People now think that you can only play polkas on it, but it’s really a
concert instrument. You can play the highest type of music on it. The accordion
is really an under-rated instrument.”
* * *
HE FLIPS
through pages and pages of entertainment ads, many of them for night spots that
now are just memories.
Wait, there’s a picture of Gordon in a Hawaiian shirt with
a group known as Florina & Her Tropicals, which rhumbaed and tangoed and
sambaed for two years in the old Mexi-Enda in
There are ads where he played between shows at exotic
dancer places like the Ellicott Manor or Frank’s Casa Nova.
And ads from the big-time rooms, the Clardon, the
Mauna-Kai, the Chez Ami, the Town Casino and the Glen Casino, mostly with a
trio or quartet, engagements that bulged his scrapbook with autographed photos
of the stars.
The Mills Brothers smile and wish Gordon their best.
There’s Jerry Vale and a very young Wayne Newton. Enzo Stuarti looking
impossibly handsome. And two short-haired Smothers Brothers.
“I was at the Glen for
three years,” Gordon recounts. “We’d play for dancing after the shows and
really got to know the stars.
“Tom Smothers would sit
in with us every chance he got. He’d always say: ‘I don’t believe how we got so
famous.’”
The scrapbook is a
chronicle of Gordon’s partnerships as well. Gordon Jaffe and Chet Durand,
Gordon Jaffe and Ralph DeBlasis (“The only guy I could look straight in the
eye,” Gordon quips), but mostly Gordon Jaffe and Red Nolan.
* * *
“RED’S BEEN my partner on and off for 15 years. We met one night
on a pickup job and took to each other right away.
“He plays a multitude of
instruments – guitar, Hawaiian guitar, banjo, piano – and we do a lot of
switching off.”
The accordion isn’t
Gordon’s only instrument either. In fact, his longest engagement – three years
and two months, six nights a week – was as singalong piano player at the former
Shakey’s Pizza Parlor on
In addition to the
piano, over the years he’s also picked up organ, guitar and, within the past
few months, banjo. As a six-day-a-week private music teacher, he teaches all
five instruments he plays.
It’s not surprise that
he’s taught them all (except banjo) to his children – David, who’s 11 and a
budding athlete, and Marianne, 9, whose Our Little Miss trophies stand proudly
beside David’s in the family room of the Jaffe home in the Town of Tonawanda’s
Green Acres section.
* * *
“I TEACH afternoons and play evenings,” Gordon says. “In the
morning, I get up and run. Not jogging, running. This morning I ran 3¼ miles at
the track at Sweet Home Junior High.”
The scrapbook advances
to 1974 and there’s an interior view of the dining room of the Parkway Ramada
Inn in
“I played there last
summer,” Gordon says. “It was one of the most beautiful engagements of my life.
I played for Gov. Wilson, Hubert Humphrey, Mayor Makowski, Ethel Merman, James
Coco.”
The newest item is an ad
for the Copperfield House on
“They like a lot of old
standards out there – you noticed the jukebox has all old songs – and they love
to dance and sing along.
“I’ve had young people
come in and say: ‘I haven’t heard this style of music in a long time.’ And they
seem to like it.
* * *
“I DON’T really copy anybody’s style. People used to say I
played like Dick Contino, but I always used my own style.”
Though Gordon’s been
playing continuously year after year, in many ways it seems as if he’s just
starting his career. The musician’s role hasn’t gone to his head. He’s bright,
smiling, eager to please.
“I like people and
people seem to like me,” he says. “I never feel like I’ve had it coming. I’ve
always been humble. When I’m working, I feel … glad.
“You just can’t wait for
jobs to come, either. I really work at it, auditioning, contacting people. It’s
hard work.
“When I was younger, I
was always looking for that big break. I still am. But now I think I’m looking
for it for my kids maybe more than me.”
* * * * *
IN THE PHOTO: Music Man – Buffalonian Gordon Jaffe.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: Gordon Jaffe collected another clipping on April 7,
1997, an article by Brad Talbutt in the
“But when the
sixty-something entertainer straps his gleaming, black Continental accordion to
his 4-foot-11 frame and begins to play, he is hard to miss.
“For 16 years, Jaffe has
shuffled through the eight rooms of the Italian eatery, shoes squeaking as he
goes, looking for a receptive patron or, better yet, a roomful of them.
“‘He’s been here so
long, he’s like one of the fish I hung on the walls,’ the owner, Battista
Locatelli, says affectionately.”
The article goes on to
recount how Jaffe, his wife and children left
A Facebook posting in
2011 reported that “Gordy is definitely alive and kicking” and still playing at
Battista’s. That same Facebook page has a YouTube link to him performing “Lady
of Spain.”
There have been rumors
for years that Battista’s is closing – Battista himself retired back in the
2000s – but it was still around a year ago. No word about Gordy. His son David,
who became an assistant manager at the Flamingo, a stone’s throw from Battista’s,
died in 2006.
* * * * *
FURTHER NOTE: All of these transcripts of old feature articles about the
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