Club D’elf at Jimmy’s Jazz and Blues Club – Portsmouth, NH

Get your tickets to see Club D’elf in Portsmouth, NH. Happening on Sunday, June 22, 2025 at Jimmy’s Jazz and Blues Club. Doors open at 7:30 PM.

For over 25 years, Club d’Elf has blurred boundaries with its hypnotic fusion of Moroccan gnawa, jazz, dub, and electronica. Anchored by bassist/composer Mike Rivard, the band features a rotating cast of top improvisers from Boston, NYC, and beyond. Named Jazz Act of the Year at the 2023 Boston Music Awards, Club d’Elf’s music is a genre-defying journey through trance, funk, hip hop, and the avant-garde. Longtime member Brahim Fribgane, who passed in early 2024, helped shape the group’s deep connection to Moroccan music. His influence lives on in Rivard’s sintir playing, learned under Fribgane and Gnawa masters Hassan Hakmoun and Mahmoud Guinia. Their latest album, You Never Know (2022), hit #2 on the Relix chart and was praised as “a wide-ranging romp” full of serenity, chaos, longing, and peerless musicianship” (Afropop Worldwide). A new album is on the way in Summer 2025. “Crushed between Morocco, jam band land, and avant-garde jazz lies Club d’Elf.” – Boston Herald