who played too slowly, too somberly to the slapstick," said Maggie Hennefeld, associate professor at the University of Minnesota. "I've heard hilarious comedies killed by musicians. So, with music, they kept things moving.Ĭomedy - including Keaton's stunts, gags and pratfalls - offers its own challenges. No title cards, no cuts, no new camera angles. The duo, which often swells to four or five musicians depending on the gig, knows when to become invisible, building a subtle texture, and when to re-emerge.Ī few years back, they played to a Lois Weber drama that featured a seven-minute scene of people talking in an apartment. It's a little vaudevillian, a little carnivalesque and "completely their own," Moret said, "and adds new dimensions to the films they accompany." They play old, acoustic instruments but their music never feels dusty. Majewicz, who has an ethnomusicology degree from the University of Washington, discovered that working with a set visual, feeling or rhythm sparked her creativity in new ways. "That's when things started to really get interesting." "As time went on and we kept getting asked to do this, we didn't have enough repertoire. "In the beginning, we approached it the way a lot of bands approach a project like this: We took our existing repertoire and ordered it to fit the films," Majewicz said. In 2002, the pair was asked to accompany a silent film program there. Partners as well as bandmates, Majewicz and McCormick grew up in Rochester, N.Y., home of the George Eastman Museum, one of the world's biggest and oldest film archives. "But there's a lot more serious stuff to think about than losing a bunch of accordions." They 'really get comedy' "It's one of those things: It's all wrapped up in how painful the whole time has been. "We are so lucky and privileged," Majewicz said. "What accordionists call 'the golden age,' " McCormick deadpanned. From an East Coast dealer, Majewicz bought a black Bell accordion from the 1950s. Which, to this duo, means old instruments. Recording equipment and rare books.įriends and fans pitched in, raising about $20,000 for new instruments. No one was hurt, but the band lost a host of instruments: seven vintage accordions, old pianos and organs, an upright bass. After the killing of George Floyd, the Ivy Building for the Arts ignited in the riots that followed, likely via sparks from the nearby Hexagon Bar. The series is a return of sorts for Dreamland Faces, who have played few shows since last year, when their longtime studio in Minneapolis' Seward neighborhood burned. "We've seen them over and over again, and they're still worth watching - which is saying a lot." "One of our favorite things about the Buster Keaton movies is that they remain good movies," McCormick said. The band has become beloved regulars at the tiny Trylon, where they're scoring the silent half of this month's "Buster and Jackie," a series that pairs films by actor and martial artist Jackie Chan with cinema's original stuntman, Buster Keaton. Trylon Cinema's programmer John Moret credits his favorite silent film moment to Dreamland Faces: During the 1919 film "South," about Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, McCormick roared like a walrus. The duo sets the mood, builds the mystery and cues the mayhem. Or the movie "The Wind." Or silent film itself.įor nearly two decades, Karen Majewicz and Andy McCormick have composed and performed dozens of scores for silent films filled with accordion, organ and the warbling of a musical saw. Falling in love with Dreamland Faces might appear, at first, like falling in love with Buster Keaton.
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