A new CD of traditional music:
the Canadian Museum of Civilization and
Les Disques TOUT CRIN launch
Gabriel Labbé, Diatonic Harmonica
Gatineau, Quebec, January 10, 2005 — The Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC) and Disques TOUT CRIN are proud to announce the release of a new compact disc, Gabriel Labbé, Diatonic Harmonica.
Drawn from the archives of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the recording brings together twenty-four titles from the rich Quebec repertoire of traditional instrumental music adapted for the harmonica by Gabriel Labbé. The pieces on the album, some composed by Labbé himself, were recorded in 1993 by Carmelle Bégin, an ethnomusicologist at the CMC.
The harmonica has been popular in Quebec for over a century, and in the early 1920s, numerous 78-rpm recordings by Quebec harmonica player Henri Lacroix, and later by Aldor Morin, made it a favourite instrument for performing traditional music, along with the fiddle and the accordion.
Gabriel Labbé was born in 1938 in Rimouski, Quebec. Learning to play the harmonica at 7 years old came naturally to him, as he grew up surrounded by music. This album gives us a sense of Labbé’s remarkable technique and his ability to bring out the essence of traditional Quebec music, imbuing it with all its intrinsic feeling and significance.
Gabriel Labbé, Diatonic Harmonica is the latest release in the digital audio Archives collection that was created so that sound documents collected in Canada and stored in the CMC Archives could be made available to the general public. This musical heritage includes vocal and instrumental music from every region of the country.
Other titles in the Archives collection:- Philippe Bruneau, Diatonic Accordion, 2003
- Philippe Bruneau au Symposium de Lévis (1989), 2003
- Old Native and Metis Fiddling in Western Manitoba, 2003
- Songs of the Newfoundland Outports and Labrador, 2003
- Il n’y a qu’un seul Dieu, 1999
- Ukrainian Folk Music from Western Canada, 1999
- Jean Carignan, 2nd edition, 1998
The compact disc Gabriel Labbé, Diatonic Harmonica will be in record stores by mid-January. It is currently available in the Canadian Museum of Civilization CyberBoutique (Multimedia section) at http://cyberboutique.civilization.ca. Other titles in the Archives collection are on sale now at these locations.
Media Information:
Chief, Media Relations
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Tel.: (819) 776-7167
Media Relations Officer
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Tel.: (819) 776-7169
Fax: (819) 776-7187
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