Gary Dahl Obituary/CV

Remembering Gary Dahl (1937 to 2017)

by Toby Hansen

On December 1, 2017 the accordion world lost one of its luminaries, Gary Dahl. Gary passed quietly at home in his sleep. During his lifetime he created a legacy of musical excellence.

View the Gary Dahl Collection at: https://emusicforaccordion.com/collections/gary-dahl-collection

Gary was born September 26, 1937 in Kent, Washington. He grew up in West Seattle and attended West Seattle High School where he was an outstanding baseball player. He pitched for his high school team as well as the local American Legion team. He liked to tell the story about how he was learning to throw an off-speed pitch and decided to try it out against future major leaguer and hall of famer Ron Santo. Santo hit a home run off Gary which influenced Gary’s decision to give up on that particular pitch.

Gary was also an accomplished charter pilot, flight instructor, fisherman, served in the U.S. Army in Korea, and was a passionate fan of his alma mater the University of Washington, as well as the Seahawks and Mariners. Gary was a loving father and husband and was especially proud of his daughter Leesa and her professional music career.

If that were all Gary had done in his life, that would have been enough for most people. However, Gary was more than just a soldier, pilot, or athlete. He was an accordionist, arranger, and educator of the highest regard. He studied accordion with Joe Spano at his studio in Burien and eventually went on to work for Joe as a technician and teacher. Gary led a highly popular band from 1960 to 1985 in the Seattle area, frequently booking engagements lasting more than a year. He was a regular performer at some of Seattle’s top clubs. His students were frequent competitors in accordion competitions in the Northwest.

In the 1990s, after several years away from the teaching studio, he got back into teaching and, to compliment his educational work, he began writing accordion arrangements, eventually publishing his books and collections with Mel Bay and Santorella Publishing.

Gary was also an early adopter of Internet technology, teaching lessons via the Internet and selling individual arrangements and collections on various websites.

I first came to Gary to take accordion lessons in the mid-90s while I was in college. Early on Gary recognized my potential and soon scheduled me for the last lesson of the day on Saturdays which allowed him to spend extra time with me, sometimes as much as three hours.

He also kept a conductor’s baton on his music stand and, when I didn’t play a passage correctly, he would smack the back of my hand with it! That may have been a deterrent to learning for a lot of people but I took it as a challenge. Needless to say, I was always very well-prepared for my lessons with Gary so I could avoid the wrath of his baton.

During the course of my lessons with Gary I had the chance to learn many of his arrangements and try out his instructional materials before they went to publication. When I learned his chord course it was still hand-written, with his notes in the margins. Later, the book would be published by Mel Bay for use by students worldwide. I got the rare privilege of having a front-row seat to Gary’s musical genius as I watched him refine his teaching materials and arrangements, all of which I now use as an accordion teacher.

After I concluded my accordion study with Gary we became very close friends. I would spend hours over at his house showing him how to do various things with his computer or fixing some mistake he had made with his email. We talked on the phone at great length about everything that came to mind—sports, music, politics, and, of course, the accordion.

Gary had a well-deserved reputation in his later years for being cantankerous and quick to criticize his fellow accordionists. Those who didn’t know him that well never understood that, although he could be harsh at times, his critiques were always motivated by his burning passion to present the accordion at its absolute best at all times.

Gary played out professionally during the least popular years of the accordion and always had to battle the public stigma of the accordion. He endured years of jokes about monkeys, tin cups, and bubble machines. All of those years of challenges gave Gary an unrelenting drive to demonstrate the accordion at its best at all times. He preferred that players who weren’t ready to play out in public hone their craft until they were able to present the accordion in a professional manner.

Gary Dahl left all of us with a monumental legacy of musical arrangements, instructional materials, recordings, and well-trained accordionists. For me, though, Gary was more than just a giant of the accordion world; he was a friend, mentor, and someone that I will dearly miss. Rest well, Gary; you’ve earned.

WEBSITE:

Gary Dahl is widely known as a virtuoso accordionist as well as a composer, arranger, recording artist and music educator, with an extensive background in music theory, composition and harmony.

Gary has now developed an impressive body of work including hundreds of individual arrangements and more than a dozen books currently in publication by Mel Bay Publications.

As a recognized teacher, Gary provides specialized training for all levels of students. Gary's students have won national and state competitions as well as achieving professional status. Lessons are available via computer MP3 for students worldwide.

Gary currently performs as a single for private functions. The Gary Dahl trio plus vocalist performed regularly at private clubs, hotels and the lounge circuit from 1960 through 1991. Gary is a graduate of the University of Washington specializing in composition and theory and is a former commercial corporate pilot, flight instructor and corporate sales manager.

Numerous requests from students and friends searching for HIGH LEVEL PROFESSIONAL ACCORDION ARRANGEMENTS inspired Gary Dahl to create a library over the last 15 years with the following goals:

- Creativity, good taste, harmonically/melodically correct.
- Music with a sensible degree of difficulty, such that any additional difficulty   would not improve the overall sound of the arrangement.
- Guaranteed audience appeal and playing enjoyment.
- Utilizing the orchestral capabilities of the accordion.
- Music that will excite and challenge intermediate through professional. See   page 2 for .pdf samples.