Blowzabella produce a second fine tunebook
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The subtitle 'one hundred and thirty tunes composed by members of the band' gives you the summary of this book - the melody lines, occasionally with suggested chords, of many of the fine dance tunes Blowzabella have composed and played down the years.
Along with the music notation there are biographies of every musician past and present, a history of the band, an introduction to the dances associated with the tunes, and some photographs of various lineups and individual members.
The notation is clearly printed, and great care has obviously been taken to ensure that the essence of each tune is captured, although the improvisationary freewheeling style of Blowzabella performances of tunes such as Horizonto (the first tune in the book) or Spaghetti Panic would be impossible to notate.
Tunes from the later albums are presented alongside those from solo or offshoot projects - I was pleased, for example, to finally see Nigel Eaton's Captain Courageous in print, having failed to work it out for myself some years ago. The melodies are grouped by family - there is a notable preponderance of jigs, schottisches, and waltzes, the latter category of course including many of Andy Cutting's finest compositions, with the other categories of bourrees, mazurkas, polkas, hornpipes and a final catch-all 'miscellaneous' section.
The book is well-produced (the blurry cover photo rather sells the book short, in that it fails to reflect the production quality of the contents): it also takes some initial persuasion to stay open on a music stand, but is robustly made and will not fall apart after ten minutes like some self-produced tunebooks.
If you know the work of Blowzabella, this is an admirable companion to the Encyclopeadia Blowzabellica tunebook of many years ago. Musicians who have not previously heard Blowzabella will also find many good melodies and nuggets of information in here, and should then investigate the band forthwith to get the full flavour.
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