Home » Jazz Articles » Duke Levine
Jazz Articles about Duke Levine
Club 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: As Above: Live at the Lizard Lounge
by AAJ Staff
The groove runs deep and long on As Above, a 2-disc set from Club d'Elf. Voyaging through realms of electronica, ethnic percussion, and dirty funk, As Above pays exquisite attention to the beat. The two-plus hours of collected music on this set document the highlights of five months' worth of live improv at Boston's Lizard Lounge. (OK, so it's actually in Cambridge, but what's a hop across the river in the grand scheme of things?) Ringleader (bassist) Mike Rivard hosts ...
read more
Giveaway
Days remaining: 14
