www.ClubdElf.com "One of the most inventive and ever-changing bands in all of new jazz. There is simply not another band like Club d’Elf on the planet." - Russ Davis, Jazz America
"Crushed between the borders of Morocco, jam band land and the kingdom of avant-garde jazz lies Club d’Elf...James Brown-meets-Sun-Ra." - Jed Gottlieb, Boston Herald
Moroccan-dosed dub-jazz collective Club D'Elf returns to The Falcon! 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 & world music scenes of Boston & NYC who get in the groove and proceed to blow it up. ...
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www.ClubdElf.com "One of the most inventive and ever-changing bands in all of new jazz. There is simply not another band like Club d’Elf on the planet." - Russ Davis, Jazz America
"Crushed between the borders of Morocco, jam band land and the kingdom of avant-garde jazz lies Club d’Elf...James Brown-meets-Sun-Ra." - Jed Gottlieb, Boston Herald
Moroccan-dosed dub-jazz collective Club D'Elf returns to The Falcon! 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 & world music scenes of Boston & NYC who get in the groove and proceed to blow it up.
With Rivard and drummer Dean Johnston at the core, guitars, turntables, Fender Rhodes, laptops, horns, tablas and a myriad of exotic instruments flow in and out of the mix. The band has made Moroccan trance influences an essential part of the mix, and on Fire In The Brain (Live at Berklee), Rivard's command of the Moroccan sintir, a 3 string bass lute used by the Gnawa, a mystical Sufi brotherhood of trance-healers, is in evidence on a John McLaughlin cover as well as the group's rendition of a traditional gnawa song. Derived from ancient sources, trance forms the central core of the Club d'Elf aesthetic,unifying the various genres the band has absorbed.
The band's bi-weekly residency at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA is the stuff of legend and provided a laboratory for its improvisational style to emerge and develop. Its latest studio CD, Electric Moroccoland/So Below, drew glowing reviews from PRI's The World, Voice Of America, and Afropop Worldwide for its bold synthesis of Moroccan traditional music and electronic, dubbed-out funk, rising to #1 on the Relix chart.
"Club d'Elf sounds like the lovechild of Pink Floyd and George Clinton, dropped in Marrakesh...some deeply psychedelic music." - Marlon Bishop, WNYC
Reeves Gabrels (Guitar)
http://www.reevz.net/
Reeves Gabrels is currently touring internationally with The Cure, one of Britain's best-known alternative rock bands, but is known for his long partnership with British singer David Bowie, with whom he worked as guitarist, bandmate, co-writer and co-producer from 1987 to 1999, as an essential part of Bowie's nineties sound.
Reeves continues to pursue an independent and wide-ranging international music career as an accomplished composer/songwriter, musical collaborator, and solo performer/producer with numerous credits. He worked with Robert Smith of The Cure during the late 1990s, collaborating on The Cure's "Wrong Number," and "A Sign From God", as well as the song "Yesterday's Gone".
Gabrels continues to play periodically, with Club D'Elf, the jazz-dub-Moroccan group led by Mike Rivard with a diverse roster of musicians and an improvisational approach. Gabrels has written soundtracks for films including David Sutherland's "The Farmer's Wife", and for PBS productions. He has collaborated with Public Enemy on the song "Go Cat Go" for the Spike Lee film "He Got Game". He wrote the "club music" portions of the soundtrack for the video game Deus Ex.
John Medeski (Piano/Keyboards) John Medeski, of the genre-defying trio Medeski Martin & Wood, has garnered fans across the musical spectrum. Built upon jazz roots, electronics and rhythmic grooves, MMW have broken out of the traditional jazz sphere and have shared the bill with groups such as The Roots, Beck, A Tribe Called Quest, Ray Charles, Hermento Pascoal, and Phish, frequently appearing in venues unavailable to most jazz artists. Medeski’s recording credits include John Zorn, Iggy Pop, T Bone Burnett, Ray Lamontagne, Dan The Automator and k.d. Lang. Medeski has produced The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, pedal steel guitar group The Campbell Brothers, and two records from The Wood Brothers.
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