JOE PETOSA JR. isn’t a particularly talkative guy — until you ask him about accordions. Then you might as well pull up a chair and sit a spell. As the third-generation owner of one of the last accordion companies in the country, Petosa can reel off the instrument’s virtues as enthusiastically as zydeco king Clifton Chenier laid down grooves on the squeezebox he bought from the family’s Seattle store in 1979.

For example: Did you know concert accordions can contain up to 7,000 parts? That an accordion can duplicate the range and notes of every instrument in an orchestra? That accordions are central to musical traditions that span the globe, from Tex-Mex, conjunto and norteño to Polish mazurkas, German polkas, Irish dance hall tunes, Jewish klezmer, Western swing, cumbia and other Latin beats, Finnish folk melodies and many more?