Boston Jazz Collective Club D'Elf to Peform At The Spire Center For Performing Arts

Jazz collective Club d'Elf will play at the Spire Center for Performing Arts on May 8. Winners of a Boston Music Award in 2023, Club d'Elf has been helping audiences lose track of time for almost 27 years with its mesmerizing synthesis of Moroccan traditional music and electronic, dubbed-out funk. Tickets go on sale on Saturday, January 10, 2026 at 6:00AM at spirecenter.org. 

Circling about bassist/composer Mike Rivard, each Club d'Elf performance features a different line-up, drawn from a constellation of some of the most creative improvisers from the jazz, DJ, rock & world music scenes of Boston, NYC and beyond. Named Boston Music Awards Jazz Act Of The Year (2022 & 2023) the band's music draws from a startlingly wide spectrum of styles that goes beyond any single category, including hip hop, electronica, Avant Garde, prog-rock, and dub. 

Under the tutelage of member Brahim Fribgane (who was born in Casablanca), the band absorbed Moroccan trance music, which is now an essential part of the mix. Fribgane passed away in early 2024, but his spirit lives on in the music, particularly in Rivard's commanding playing of the Moroccan sintir - an instrument he learned to play through the guidance of Fribgane, as well as Gnawa masters Hassan Hakmoun and Mahmoud Guinia.

The band's most recent album, 'You Never Know' (2022), garnered critical acclaim and rose to #2 on the Relix chart. The record unfurls upon kaleidoscopic clouds of spiced smoke, shifting from chopped dub-jazz through trance epics that reimagine Boston as a city of bazaars. Club d'Elf pay tribute to the music and musicians who have been primary influences, with half the album being covers of Gnawa, Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul, Moroccan band Nass el-Ghiwane, and Frank Zappa. The other half consists of original music inspired by Rivard's personal journey into darkness following a near death experience in the remote jungle of the Peruvian Amazon.