Annotation:Joys of Québec

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Revision as of 00:42, 1 February 2021 by MidwestFiddler (talk | contribs) (Corrected recorded source. Record is RCA Victor in Bluebird series and is by Joseph Bouchard. per Virtual Gramophone.)

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X: 1 T: Joys of Quebec (Joies de Qu\'ebec) O: French Canadian Z: 1997 by John Chambers <jc:trillian.mit.edu> M: 4/4 L: 1/4 K: A e/e/ \ | "A"e/c/c/c/ ce/e/| e/c/c/c/ ce/e/| "A"f/A/e/A/ d/A/c/A/| "E7"d/B/B/B/ Bd/d/| "E7"d/B/B/B/ Bd/d/| d/B/B/B/ Bd/d/ |1 "E7"ee g/f/e/g/| "A"f/e/^d/f/ "E7"e :| |2 "E7"ee/e/ "D"f/e/f/g/| "A"a3 |: c/d/| "A"Mez"D"Mfz | "A"e3/2f/ eA/B/| "A"cc "D"df | "A"c3/2d/ cA/c/|| BA GA | "E7"B3/2c/ BB/c/|1"E7"de fg | "A"f/e/^d/f/ "E7"e:|2 "E7"de f/e/f/g/| "A"a/f/e/c/ A |]



Fortunat Malouin

JOYS OF QUÉBEC (Les Joyeuses Québecoises). French-Canadian, Reel or Polka. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'BB' (Brody): AA'BB'C (Phillips). The reel is the composition of influential Saint-Sauveur, Québec, fiddler and traveling salesman biography:Fortunat Malouin (1870-1935), who recorded in the 1920's for the Starr and Columbia labels. The third section, which Jos Bouchard (1905-1979) included in his 1938 recording, is rarely played, although interesting. Malouin recorded the reel in New York City in 1928 for Columbia Records (backed with another of his compositions, "Reel de Rimouski"). The melody was included in Montreal musician, publisher, and music dealer A.J. Boucher's (1869-1927) Le Repertoire du Violonneux [sic] (Dec., 1933), a collection of Quebecois tunes that included versions of all eight tunes that Malouin recorded--all under different titles. "Les Joyeuses Québecoises" appears as "Variations sur un air canadien." Researcher Jean Duval believes that Boucher and Malouin were rivals or competitors, at least from Boucher's point of view, and that Boucher may have been seeking to point out that "Les Joyeuses Québecoises" was not Malouin's composition, but rather a part of older Quebecois repertory appropriated by him. He also may have been trying to 'show Malouin up' by printing (as the first piece in the collection) a version with (as Duval says) "fairly acrobatic variations", perhaps to show his musical superiority over Malouin[1].

Additional notes

Source for notated version: - Yankee Ingenuity (Mass.) [Brody]; Pete Sutherland (Vermont) [Phillips].

Printed sources : - Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; p. 150. Miller & Perron (Fiddlecase Book of 101 Polkas), 1978; No. 77. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1), 1994; p. 128.

Recorded sources: -Arhoolie C-334, Joe Cormier (Cape Breton/Mass.) - "Masters of the Folk Violin" (1989). RCA Victor-Bluebird series B-1143 (78 RPM), Joseph Bouchard (1938). Columbia 34157-F (78 RPM), Fortunat Malouin (1928). Fretless 200A, Yankee Ingenuity- "Kitchen Junket" (1977). Gusto 104, Jerry Rivers- "30 Fiddler's Greatest Hits."

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recordings Index [2]
Hear Jos Bouchard 1938 recording at Virtual Gramophone [3]



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  1. Jean Duval, Le Répertoire du Violoneux, 2018, p. 71 [4].