Annotation:Reel de I'île Bizard
REEL DE I'ÎLE BIZARD (Bizard Island Reel). AKA and see "Doc Boyd's Jig," "Old Jubiter," "Reel du forgeron (2)," "Republican Set (The)." French-Canadian, Jig (6/8 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Reel de I'île Bizard" was named for an island in the St. Lawrence River northwest of the island of Montreal, now merged with the city of Montreal. It was named for Jacques Bizard, who held it in fief in 1678 as part of the Seigneurial system of New France. The reel is fiddler Joseph Allard's (1873-1947) version of the tune also called "<incipit title="load:republican" width=850 link="https://tunearch.org/wiki/Republican Set (The)">Republican Set (The)</incipit>," found Samuel Bayard's Dance to the Fiddle (1981), and "<incipit title="load:jubiter" width=850 link="https://tunearch.org/wiki/Old Jubiter">Old Jubiter</incipit>" from Ira Ford's Traditional Music in America (1940), records Allard researcher Jean Duval[1]. Bayard collected the tune from a fiddler in southwestern Pennsylvania in 1960, while Ira Ford had it from a source in Missouri. Neither one seems to indicate a provenance, however, as Ford included tunes from a geographically widespread area, while Bayard's version was collected relatively late with an idiosyncratic title; appearances of the tune are only occasional. Allard's source is unknown.
Duval also notes that the tune was recorded by The Cornhuskers as "<incipit title="load:boyd" width=850 link="https://tunearch.org/wiki/Doc Boyd's Jig">Doc Boyd's Jig</incipit>," a mid-20th century Canadian group that included fiddler Jean Carignan, a pupil of Allard's[2]. Allard himself re-recorded the tune six years later under the title "Reel du forgeron (2)" (Blacksmith's Reel).