Club d’Elf feat. David Tronzo & Alain Mallet at Berklee!
Thu Sep 12, 8:00 PM - Thu Sep 12, 11:00 PM

A Boston institution for over 21 years, Club d'Elf has take its bold synthesis of Moroccan traditional music and electronic, dubbed-out funk to audiences as far away as Japan and South America. Circling about bassist/composer Mike Rivard and drummer Dean Johnston, each Club d'Elf performance features a different line-up, drawn from a constellation of some of the most creative improvisors from the jazz, DJ, rock & world music scenes of Boston and NYC, creating a unique experience for audience and musicians alike.

The band has been featured on PRI's The World, Voice Of America, and Afropop Worldwide, with Time Out New York describing the music as “The roaring avant-funk of electric-era Miles (and) the legato drift of the Grateful Dead…heady music that doesn’t neglect the tail”. The Boston Herald proclaimed “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.”

Over the course of fourteen albums the band has visited touchstones as disparate as Studio One, John Cage, Gnawa and drum'n'bass. Derived from ancient sources, trance forms the central core of the Club d'Elf aesthetic, unifying the various genres the band has absorbed. Guitars, turntables, Fender Rhodes, laptops, horns, tablas and all manner of exotic instruments flow in and out of the mix, along with Rivard's commanding playing of the Moroccan sintir, a camel-skin-covered bass lute.