1. Brandys en tournée

(La grande voyageuse**/ Les souliers de bowling**)
David composed these two brandies. The first is dedicated to Marie Marceau, a widely travelled flute player, and the second to Josianne Hébert, singer with the vocal quintet Galant, tu perds ton temps.

2. 5-4-3

(Quadrille de Rimouski, 2ième partie / Les bottes sauvages / Quadrille à ma tante)
This set of tunes starts with an unusual piece in five-four time that was recorded by Luc Michaud in 1928, followed by Joseph Allard’s well-known reel Les Bottes Sauvages, and ends with le Quadrille à Ma Tante, a tune in triple-metre from the repertoire of Isidore Soucy.

3. Galopes à Jos

(Galope de Jos Bouchard / Galope du Lac-Saint-Charles)
These two galops are from the repertoire of the famous Quebec fiddler Jos Bouchard (1905-1979). We learned the first from Yann Falquet. The second is well known in northeastern North America as Levantine’s Barrel.

4. Set des admirables

(Pour Alexina* / Le Reel du champion laboureur*/La Gigue à Célina)
Jean composed the slow air opening this suite on the death of his grandmother and the reel that follows for Roméo Besner, a provincial ploughing champion and harmonica player from southwestern Quebec. The last reel is one of the few “square” (i.e., not crooked !) tunes from the repertoire of Louis “Pitou” Boudreault, a famous fiddler from the Saguenay-Lac St. Jean region whom we greatly admire.

5. Le temps que ça prend

6. Brandys de Cadie

(Brandy de l’accordeur*/ Brandy de la relève*)
Jean dedicates the first of these two brandies to Acadian fiddler and pianist Gilles Losier, and the second to Évelyne Gélinas, flute player and singer from Mauricie region of Quebec.

7. Suite Halloween

(Rebecca Sophia* / Halloween* / L’édronelière*)
This set of compositions by Jean starts with a slow air he dedicates to Rebecca Christie, fiddler and singer from Washington D.C. area. It is followed by his celebrated Halloween jig and ends with a reel composed for Rachel Jones, a baroque violinist from Montreal.

8. Le step du bûcheron

(Quadrille des bûcherons, 5ième partie / Le Reel de Windsor Mills / Chip and rant)
J.O. La Madeleine recorded the first tune in 1928 and Louis Blanchette the second in the same pioneering period for 78s. The last tune is an English “single hornpipe” appearing in the early 19th century manuscript of fiddler Joseph Kershaw.

9. Quadrille des fêtes

(Le réveillon / Le Quadrille de la fin de l’an*)
Le Réveillon, a quadrille tune, can be found in a rare collection of Quebec tunes compiled and published by J.A. Boucher in 1933. Jean composed the second 6/8 on the last day of the year in the early 1990s.

10. Lydienneries

(Pour Élodie*/ POV**/ Le Reel Adrien St-Hilaire)
This suite of tunes in the Lydian mode starts with a slow air that Jean dedicates to Élodie, a friend from Champagne (France). It is followed with a jig composed by David upon his return from Povirnituk in the Far North. The closing reel is a traditional tune from the répertoire of Aimé Gagnon, a fiddler from the Lotbinière region of Quebec.

11. Monymusk duvalesque

Jean here presents his variations on the celebrated Scottish reel Monymusk. It is a long-standing tradition in Quebec for musicians to create their own version of this tune.

12. Peveril

(L’Outremontaine* / Les filles de Peveril*)
Jean dedicates the waltz-clog that opens this medley to Caroline Dupuis, Jean Carignan’s last pupil on the fiddle. The reel that follows is one of his best-known tunes, composed for his daughters Dulciane and Adeline, and their mother Carole. Peveril is a hamlet in South Western Quebec where Jean lived for 22 years.