Jazz Articles about Club d'Elf

Club d'Elf: Fire in the Brain Live at Berklee

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 11, 2014

"To thine own self be true" is a reliable expression, and few band biographies are more true to their subject than the official label writeup on the marvelously twisted Club d'Elf: “Circling about bassist/composer Mike Rivard (Morphine, Either-Orchestra, Guster, Boston Pops), D'Elf is a constellation of top musicians from the jazz, DJ, rock and world music scenes of Boston and NYC who get in the groove and proceed to blow it up." Fire in the Brain presents a ...

Club d'Elf: Electric Moroccoland / So Below

by Chris M. Slawecki
June 13, 2011

Even in our far-reaching and cluttered modern musical culture, it seems safe to suggest that there is no other band quite like Club d'Elf, a floating riverboat gamble with a fluid cast of contributors--keyboardist John Medeski, guitarists Reeves Gabrels and Duke Levin, Mat Maneri on electric viola, turntablist Mister Rourke, and many others among them--steered by bassist Mike Rivard and Rivard's longtime co-explorer, multi-instrumentalist and musicologist Brahim Fribgane. Electric Moroccoland, the first disc in the new two-CD ...

John Medeski, Mellotrons and A Mountain of Majoun

by Chris May
March 31, 2011

Club D'ElfElectric Moroccoland / So BelowFace Pelt Records2011 Boston-based Club D'Elf describes itself as a “Moroccan-dosed psychedelic dub and jazz collective." It is the sort of band that gives self-medication a good name, and it will reconfigure your synapses, in a good way, if you let it. Founded by bassist Mike Rivard in 1998, the group has a rolling line-up of jazz, avant rock and Moroccan trance players ...

Club d'Elf: Perhapsody Live 10.12.06

by Chris M. Slawecki
February 16, 2008

A floating ensemble in every best sense of the word, Club d'Elf is tethered to bassist Mike Rivard and the more or less house rhythm section from Rivard's extended residency at the Lizard Lounge, a progressive if not experimental music club in Boston. After releasing numerous live albums--the best laboratory for their mainly improvised, genre-munching music--they released their first studio album, Now I Understand (Accurate), in late 2006. What did they do at their studio album release party? Why, perform ...

Club d'Elf: Perhapsody: Live 10-12-06

by Doug Collette
September 21, 2007

Perhapsody, the seventh in a series of live releases by Club d'Elf, contains extended tracks like “Salvia Pt. 1" and “Jar of Hair," where the music ebbs and flows with a passion derived from the spontaneity of the bandïs interactions. Meanwhile, the absolutely impeccable quality of the recording maintains that heat of the moment rather than nullifying it.

Certainly the excitement level was high in the venue at this autumn, 2006 release party for Club d'Elf's long-awaited studio recording Now ...

Club d'Elf: Now I Understand

by Chris M. Slawecki
January 10, 2007

About eight years ago, composer/bassist Mike Rivard began leading a “floating residency in Cambridge, Massachusetts, organized around the rhythm section, which pulsed behind a kaleidoscope of horn, keyboard, percussion and guitar players. After seven live releases, Rivard has finally shepherded his “ever-changing performance ensemble into its first studio album. No fewer than 25 musicians participate in the workshop, happily hammering around the core “Elves : Rivard on basses and sintir, a three-stringed bass lute from Morocco; drummer Erik ...

Club D'Elf: Now I Understand

by Nic Jones
October 21, 2006

This music takes its time, and only repeated exposure to its delights reveals the depth of its identity. There is an overriding sense of construction behind the entire programme of Now I Understand, which perhaps stems from the fact that it's made up from both real-time and collaged parts. It takes in elements of dance music of the skewed and worthwhile variety, and features contributions from musicians associated with a wide variety of fields.

At first the voices on “Just ...