Charles Magnante was an American piano-accordionist, arranger, composer, author, and educator who first began performing with his amateur musician father, singing at weddings and dances, at the young age of five. By the time he was seven, he had learned to play his father's accordion, and, fewer than ten years later, he was being offered opportunities to play with various orchestras...opportunities he turned down at the time in order to focus on his studies.
By the 1940s, Charles was leading a successful trio that also featured George Wright at the organ and Tony Mottola on guitar. (Mottola and his guitar are also featured on the recordings collected for this LP.) Magnante worked to expand the types of music that featured the accordion beyond the stereotypical Italian-American "O Sole Mio" image that audiences of the era always expected to hear. The "bright and sparkling new sounds" featured on this 1961 "Percussion Italiano" LP do, indeed, seem to break free of that old tradition.
All the information above about Charles Magnante—and more—can be found at Wikipedia here. Did you know accordionist Charles Magnante was also an avid big game hunter? He wrote articles detailing his hunting expeditions that were published in hunting magazines!
