" data-original-title="" title="">Club d'Elf, the boundaries are long gone; they may never have been there to start with. Almost twenty years ago, the group debuted with Live at The Lizard Lounge (Grapeshot Media, 2000), an amalgam of jazz, electronica, hip hop, and funk. At times, the group (always a fluid entity) has included accordion, oud, didgeridoo, doumbek and qaraqab standing comfortably next to guitars, bass, keyboards, and horns. If it weren't obvious from the instrumentation, this is not a group to be categorized by genre. Two decades and a dozen albums later, Night Sparkles continues to provide listeners with inimitable musical adventures.

Mike Rivard founded Club d'Elf in 1998 and has deep ties to a broad swath of Boston music history. The bassist started the group with encouragement from another Boston legend, Mark Sandman, the late front man of the legendary indie band Morphine. Sandman and Rivard played together in a band called Hypnosonics and, following Sandman's untimely passing, Rivard played with two offshoots of Morphine, Orchestra Morphine and Vapors of Morphine. In turn, Sandman and saxophonist Dana Colley, a key member of each band, have appeared with Club d'Elf. Rivard also works with the Boston Pops Orchestra and plays the sintir, a Moroccan three-string bass/guitar hybrid.

Drummer Dean Johnston, a later arrival to the large rotational lineup, is often cited as a creative force in Club d'Elf. Guitarist David Tronzo joined the group on 2005's 100 Years Of Flight (KUFALA Recordings), a release that included