(Gypsy,Swing) Le Chat Lunatique - Swing Gitan - 2014, MP3, 320

As unpredictable, fearless, and entertaining as their namesake, Le Chat Lunatique purveys an addictive genre they call “filthy, mangy jazz,” a signature sound that makes you want to smoke and drink too much—if only you could get off the dance floor. Le jazz hot of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli is their north star, but they use that beacon to navigate through a wide range of genres, blending Western swing, classical, reggae, d00-wop, and “anything else we damn well please” into strikingly original compositions and audaciously reworked standards alike.
Le Chat Lunatique is Muni Kulasinghe’s theatrical vocals, his violin skittering across the music like beads of water on a hot skillet—inspired as much by a legless Polish gypsy he encountered on his vagabond travels as by the great Grappelli. It’s the axe of guitarist John Sandlin, the classicist who fell under the sway of Reinhardt, felling bar after bar of music with ferocious dexterity. It’s the slap-happy bass and slyly sweet vocals of Jared Putnam, the sinisterly innocent one whose dark past embraces both death metal and Western swing. It’s the irresistibly deep-pocketed grooves of drummer Fernando Garavito, the mysterious and gracious Colombian who appeared by magic in New Mexico.
The group began prowling the nightspots of Albuquerque -that secret haven of hot jazz - back in 2005, spontaneously impregnating the ears of unsuspecting audience members, who found themselves unable to stop listening or dancing or making merry. From their earliest gigs, Le Chat Lunatique has offered swinging originals with ear-snagging hooks and stories to tell—well-constructed little gems that propagate earworms for ongoing pleasure. Devilishly clever lyrics offer insight into l’amour (“falling in love is like eating tacos”), a louche paean to a doting millionairess (“Buy me a Cadillac, buy me a yacht / Buy me everything that I haven’t got”), minatory observations on fate (“the bus of God will run you
over”), and the inevitable bitterness of a broken heart (“Miss Lady . . . please do me the courtesy of drinking in some other gin joint”).
The band’s repertoire also features original arrangements of tunes that stretch from kindergarten favorites (“Frère Jacques”) to pop hits (“Straight Up”) to swing anthems (“Minnie the Moocher”) to Reinhardt classics (“Blue Drag”). Every single tune is more than covered—it’s completely “Le-Chat-ified.” First, it’s dunked in the group’s collective musical subconscious, and then they play the hell out of it. Take, for example, Sandlin’s inspired gypsy jazz arrangement of Eric Satie’s Gnossienne No. 1 - over a reggae rhythm (say what?). Then there’s the medieval liturgical intro to “House of the Rising Sun,” which ultimately descends into transcendent desperation.
Riding the popularity of their acclaimed first CD, Demonic Lovely, which featured all original tunes, and their follow-up collection of covers, Under the Covers (Vol.1), Le Chat Lunatique has been inducing musical mania in an ever-widening circle—from the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, to the clubs of England, to the boards of the national theater in Novi Sad, Serbia, where they performed their commissioned score for Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental's ground breaking theatrical production Flamingo/Winnebago. In their home state of New Mexico, they’ve won award after award annually for best band, best jazz act, and best song.
Their irreverent humor, their intensity, and their expert musicianship will soon win them your acclamation as the best time you’ve ever had in public with your clothes on.

#777Our take on standards from the world of Gypsy Jazz- both old and new.
That band of maniacs appropriately known as Le Chat Lunatique—Muni Kulasinghe (violin, vocals), John Sandlin (guitar), Jared Putnam (bass, vocals), and Fernando Garavito (drums)—have released several albums loaded with delightfully eccentric covers and originals in a style they call “filthy, mangy jazz,” but their
latest release, Swing Gitan, finds them taking aim at the vintage music that inspired them in the first place—le jazz hot of Django
Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, and their contemporaries and descendants.
The band’s seriocomic stage presence, literately nonsensical patter, and zany takes on
sphincters, millionairesses, and buses driven by God make their performances madly
entertaining, but ultimately, it’s the music and the musicianship that keeps you in the house and on the dance floor. On Swing Gitan, those two elements are front and center as the band celebrates the classic tunes, and you can celebrate along with them at the CD release party this weekend at Marble Brewery.
The project began with Manny Rettinger, studio recording engineer and faculty member at UNM and owner of Ubik Sound, who was taken with the band and offered to record them. The recording process, a collaborative effort between Ubik Sound and the music department at UNM, served as a project for Rettinger’s students and a windfall for Le Chat, which got
professionally and beautifully recorded tracks in exchange for their time.
“What I proposed to them, is that I just really want this to be live,” says Rettinger. “The group is set up, and they just play—not superproduced and overdubbed and all this kind of stuff.” That approach, which helped to keep the production time down, aimed to capture the sound of a band known for its live performances.
Rettinger set them up in Keller Hall on the UNM campus, where they recorded in sessions over five days. He worked to make the band as comfortable as if they were in their own practice room. “We put some baffles up, but we really had it so everybody could see each other,” he says. “We don’t have headphones on everybody, and that makes people play more naturally.”
Well, more supernaturally maybe, judging from the results. Le Chat has had these tunes in their repertoire for a long time, says Sandlin, “and we just wanted to kind of get these in the can, take advantage of Manny’s generosity . . . to do these tunes we’ve been jamming for years. We
wanted to show our love and sort of pay homage.”
They’re right at home fanning the flames of the hot stuff, and even in the album-friendly format of four minutes or so per track, they manage to raise a white heat. Kulasinghe’s ferocious
double-stops, Putnam’s slappy-happy bass, Sandlin’s lightning runs and dreamy musings, and Garavito’s eternal groove burn effortlessly. Both Putnam’s and Kulasinghe’s vocals sound like they were made for that circa-1940s monster tube radio on my grandparents’ parlor floor.
You’ll find the classic “Blues en mineur,” “Nuages,” and “Swing Gitan.” There’s the down and dirty “Si Tu Savais,” with Kulasinghe’s sly and lugubrious violin; the sweet antidote of “Douce
Ambiance;” “Topsy,” with Sandlin’s spooky guitar and that slap bass of Putnam; “Bossa Dorado” (can this be related to the theme from Goldfdinger?), featuring Garavito’s study in forward
motion; the simultaneously earnest and greasy “ ’Deed I Do;” and several more. Additional tracks from the sessions may make their way to iTunes in the near future.
It took a couple of years to pull the project together and finally get the CD out the door
because, as Sandlin says, “we’re busy and we’re procrastinators, so that’s a bad combination.” At least some of the band members are also perfectionists, Sandlin hints, and that didn’t help speed things up, either. Nevertheless, it was worth the wait.
© 2014 Mel Minter. All rights reserved.

Muni Kulasinghe (violin, vocals), John Sandlin (guitar), Jared Putnam (bass, vocals), and Fernando Garavito (drums)