Le Chat Lunatique

Gypsy Cats
They have a look about them- what with their rakish chapeaus and gypsy grins- that says they escaped from last night’s gig, bar tab unpaid, just one step ahead of a passel of jealous husbands. They have a sound that makes you want to smoke and drink too much- if only you could get off the dance floor. They have precisely trimmed antique mustaches that set you to wondering how far you can trust people so obviously skilled with tiny sharp implements.
They are Le Chat Lunatique: Muni Kulasinghe on violin (inspired by Stephane Grappelli and a “legless Polish gypsy”), John Sandlin on guitar (the classicist who fell under the sway of Django Reinhardt), Jared Putnam on bass (the sinisterly innocent one with a Western swing background, and Fernando Garavito on drums (the mysterious Colombian).
The quartet takes its cue from the gypsy swing of Reinhardt and Grappelli, but you’ll hear a wide variety of genres informing the performance of any tune in their eclectic repertoire. “It’s what we call ‘Le-Chat-ifiying’ a song” says Sandlin, “throwing in all these things from our collective musical subconscious.” (Take, for example, his inspired gypsy jazz arrangement of Eric Satie’s Gnossienne No. 1- over a reggae rhythm.)
Together for just over a year, they’ve written a number of intoxicating originals that can easily hold their own on the bandstand with the standards and which their CD, scheduled for release in early 2007, will feature. Stay up-to-date at myspace.com/lechatlunatiquetheband.
By Mel Minter, used with permission from Albuquerque the Magazine, November 2006
If the genre isn’t immediately familiar to you, maybe you haven’t caught its Albuquerque ambassadors Le Chat Lunatique. You should.
We’ll spell it out for you. Le (luh) Chat (shot) Lunatique (loo-nah-TEEK). Sorta Francaise for “crazy cat.” That part was inspired by a Beware Of Attack Cat sign spotted on a French garden gate by LCL guitarist/vocalist John Sandlin. Of course the name also evokes ghosts of Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grapelli and that whole magical hot jazz scene of Paree. The quartet’s sound does it far, far FAR better!
Besides John Sandlin, Muni Kulasinghe (fiddle/vocals), Jared Putnam (bass/vocals) and Fernando Garavito (drums) call Le Chat home, and what they call “filthy, mangy jazz” manages to draw, from the haunted corners of New Mexico, quite the Bohemian crowd. Well, their New Mexico counterparts...Nob o’Hillians! Actually that’s a humor point worthy of Jared, the band’s e-press agent. He issues “le schedule of le band” written with le Chat-load of puns. He is almost surely responsible for naming Le Chat’s new supposedly surreptitious live recording “Puss In Bootleg!”
Beyond Jared’s “influences” on the band, some mighty interesting musicians and styles enter into play. Everything from Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Cage and the Hot Club Of Paris in Muni’s case to Frank Zappa, High Noon (?), Stuff Smith and Hank Williamses One & Three but definitely not Two in Jared’s. You will hear far more in Le Chat than that, and they’re beginning to be heard everywhere that’s hip...or maybe the hip starts showing when they get there. On the night we’re watching (and watching is nearly as good as listening), Jared is fretting during the break over the chance the crowd may be hearing muddy sound due to poor room acoustics, as opposed to “filthy mangy” but pristine jazz. The crowd...every Retro, Goth, Jazzbo and Belly Dancer (yes, you read right) of ‘em...seems perfectly happy.
To see if anyone is paying attention, the guys begin the second set by (sort of) playing each other’s instruments. Truly mangy. It gets applause anyway. They switch around and pull the switch, getting down to the serious business of wonderfully dangerous playing. The gentlemen of Le Chat Lunatique are in an instinctive sync that some in the crowd may never get, but everybody gets close enough to make it happen in the room. There even comes a frantic Klezmer/Jazz piece, and you’d have to see the mutant jitterbug they do to this one to believe it! More delightful shockers roll out including a “House Of The Rising Sun” that hangs the moon with deep Blues and high Reggae! But these are jazzmonauts who are used to spacewalking and still being in Mission Control.
Check out Le Chat Lunatique’s website, schedule and samples on MySpace.com. Since they’re now streaming some of their music, as Jared might say “it’s Le Chat heard ‘round the world!” Glad we didn’t say that...
By Rick Huff
OPENMIC NEW MEXICO V.1, 1 SEPTEMBER 2006
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