Eddy Jahrl

Swedish-American accordionist and band leader, born April 28, 1901 in Broby, Sweden, died December 1976 in Long Island City, New York, USA, a.k.a. Eddie Jahrl or Jarl. In 1917, Jahrl and his family followed his father who had emigrated to the United States around 1910; the family settled in Hartford, CT. Eddy soon moved to New York where he could easily make a living playing the accordion professionally. For a while, he also toured the country on the vaudeville circuit as part of accordion duets, "Lundberg and Jahrl" and "Billy Moran and Eddie Jahrl." In 1925, he made his first recordings for Columbia and Victor, playing accordion duets with John Lager. In 1926, Jahrl formed a quintet consisting of himself on the accordion, accompanied by a guitar, bass, xylophone, and violin. With the Quintet, a Trio, and as soloist, Jahrl made dozens of recordings for Columbia and Victor between 1926 and 1934. Jahrl's biggest hit from this time was his 1926 recording of "Gökvalsen" on Columbia 22038-F (also released as "Cuckoo Waltz" on 12059-F and "Kakivalssi" on 3043-F), which sold between 75,000 and 100,000 copies. In 1937 Jahrl founded the Scandinavian Music House in Brooklyn, NY. First, he imported Swedish Sonora records. Soon, he pressed Scandinavian records himself in the U.S., using matrices he had imported from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. In the 1940s, he also started his own labels, Scandinavia (3) and Cordion and produced Swedish music shows on WBBC and WBYN. In the 1950s, he had to give up music and switched to electronics.