"He suffered through a lot of bad jobs, but he had a lot of pride, too," Mike Gabanelli says. After arriving, he began going by the Anglicized version of his name, John. He got to Houston with $2 and no understanding of English. He came to Houston in 1961 to repair and tune Italian-made accordions. The elder Gabbanelli's decision to leave Italy was regarded by his family with shock, his son says. One of Gianfranco Gabbanelli's brothers specialized in making keys, another did woodwork. Making musical instruments was family work - Mike Gabbanelli's grandfather started at age 10 (he also worked with stringed instruments). Gianfranco Gabbanelli came to the United States in 1961 from the Marche region of Italy,where he was a tuner in an accordion factory. Gabbanelli has siblings, but he's the only one who was sufficiently intrigued by his father's craft to learn it. That rarity of expertise can be attributed to changing musical trends. Only a handful of people in the world can precision-tune an accordion by ear. "He's the youngest expert in the field."Įven her comment is modest. Quietly intense, Gabbanelli, 40, uses the word "artisan" several times as an understated shorthand for the knowledge and skill required to work with these instruments. Gabbanelli and his wife, Elia, (he's the company's CEO and president, she serves as vice president) took over when he died in 2003 and have tried to balance the tradition of the trade with new developments that can enhance sound or durability. His father began making Gabbanelli brand accordions 50 years ago and started the Gabbanelli Accordions & Imports company in 1991. Gabbanelli juggles repairing the old with designing and producing the new. Gabbanelli quietly fuses these two elements together and passes the instruments along to spirited accordion players like Ramon Ayala and Intocable's Ricky Muñoz, both Gabbanelli enthusiasts, who entertain thousands. The exterior screams with color and character. The inside is a meticulously constructed matrix of little pieces, precise and functional rather than flashy. He pushes through 15 to 20 repairs each day, the result of being a rarity in his field: a young craftsman attuned to the delicate nature of the instrument.Īn accordion possesses a duality that represents its maker and its player. "Even the worst piece of junk I can make play again," Gabbanelli says. Some appear fine on the surface, others look like they fell from the back of a truck in a rain storm and were left to rust. A long line of accordions needing repairs sits on the floor.
The room is impeccably clean and not terribly cluttered.īehind the counter, a door leads to messier confines, with a large workbench and accordion parts everywhere. Walk in the front door, and you're standing in the showroom, which looks like an exploding rainbow, with radiantly colored Gabbanelli accordions of various sorts - diatonic, chromatic and piano - sparkling from the ample sunlight that pours through the front windows. The Gabbanelli store in southwest Houston is divided in half. Even if it's toasted, I'm not going to chunk it away." "I know what it takes to build one of these instruments.
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