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About Club d'Elf
Instrument: Band / ensemble / orchestra
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by Doug Collette
Club d'Elf Foam Brewers Burlington, Vermont June 3, 2023 Less than a week before the formal commencement of Burlington Vermont's Discover Jazz Festival, Club d'Elf set the bar high for the fortieth anniversary celebration of that annual event. Currently in the ongoing process of recognizing a significant milestone of its own--a quarter century mixing exotic strains of rhythm and melody into an ever-so-heady blend--the Massachusetts-based band also continues to make up for lost time visiting ...
read moreClub d'Elf, Naïssam Jalal, Bill Laurance, Michael League, George & New Releases
by Ludovico Granvassu
This week we put together a set which is centered around jazz influenced by Gnawa music, and musicians and bands which know how to “develop and envelope," i.e. develop a melody and mood which envelopes the listener. Happy listening! Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Bill Laurance, Michael League “Tricks" Where You Wish You Were (ACT) 0:16 Host talks 4:59 Club d'Elf “In a Perfect World" As Above ...
read moreClub d'Elf: As Above - Live At The Lizard Lounge
by Doug Collette
The music of Club d'Elf's debut album, As Above, speaks volumes in terms of the group's mystical and stylistic roots. In fact, it is perfectly reflective of the actual ancient quote from which the title is taken; 'As above, so below...' suggests how the rhythm motifs are as fully and completely developed as the melodic themes. Recorded in 1999 and 2000, at the Lizard Lounge in Boston, which has become Mike Rivard and company's home base over the ...
read moreClub d'Elf: You Never Know
by Chris M. Slawecki
You Never Know is the Club d'Elf studio album that captures the whirling, overlapping orbits of acoustic, electric and exotic sounds of the floating improvisational collective, which has recorded and performed together for more than two decades, with crisp studio clarity. But more importantly, You Never Know celebrates light born from darkness. Bassist and bandleader Mike Rivard, the sole constant in the collective's 24-year run, suffered a near-death experience from a pulmonary embolism which struck him while he ...
read moreClub D'Elf: You Never Know
by Chris May
Near-death experiences can reboot the mind, separating the important from the trivial. It seems to have worked like that for bassist and composer Mike Rivard, founder and leader of Boston's world-dub-jazz band Club D'Elf. A few years back, Rivard was nearly felled by a pulmonary embolism while seeking spiritual insight in the Amazonian rain forest. A long, dark period of depression followed, before Rivard emerged recharged into the light, having been sustained in large part by gnawa, the Moroccan trance ...
read moreClub d'Elf: Night Sparkles
by Chris M. Slawecki
On December 16, 2011, bassist and bandleader Mike Rivard and the rest of the floating Club d'Elf instrumental ensemble assembled at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge (MA), for their regular gig at the regular location in the extended live residency that the band began at the Lounge back in 1998 (and continues to this day). Guest musicians often dropped in after finishing their own Boston area gigs to join the Club and this evening would prove no exception, as Boston ...
read moreClub d'Elf: Night Sparkles
by Doug Collette
Night Sparkles follows bassist/sintirist Mike Rivard on his continuing adventures into the “Moroccan-based psychedelic dub" style he initiated with Club D'Elf in the 1990s. It's altogether remarkable he's managed to formulate such a novel approach to improvisational music while juggling the near-perpetual rotating cast of personnel, but it is to the great credit of the titular leader that his stewardship encourages invention from his bandmates, whoever they may be (in the not so recent past, keyboardist John Medeski and guitarist ...
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