Exuberant strumming for the holidays
Gypsy jazzers The Lost Fingers tackle more than carols on new album
The Lost Fingers used to be a novelty act, a trio of guitarists from Quebec having fun with gypsy-jazz versions of 1980s hits.
In fact, their name is a reference, however twisted, to their spiritual leader, the late, great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who lost the use of two fingers when he was injured in a fire and had to relearn how to play.
But the current Lost Fingers are a completely different entity from the group that had the secondbestselling album in the country in 2008. (Their Lost in the ’80s was the runner-up to Nickelback’s Dark Horse.)
Joining two of the three original members — guitarist Byron Mikaloff and bassist Alex Morissette — are three new faces. There was another virtuoso guitarist, François Rioux, a sultry-voiced singer, Valérie Amyot, and the group’s producer, John Jorgenson, the Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist who’s worked with a who’s-who of legendary artists, including Elton John, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. Jorgenson isn’t a permanent member, but is having so much fun he joins them when he can.
Tunes from the new album, Christmas Caravan, display such exuberance and precision that listeners will be immediately smitten.
These folks are clearly serious about Christmas music. In an interview after the performance, Mikaloff, who’s the bandleader, said a lot of thought and preparation went into recording the new album.
“Christmas music can be a real
trap, and it’s hard to do well. There are few good albums,” Mikaloff says, naming records by Oscar Peterson, Louis Armstrong and Pink Martini as some of his favourites. “This one is not just the typical red hat and jingle bells and people looking out at the snow. There’s heat and depth.”
Indeed. Among the album’s surprising moments are a haunting cover of Joni Mitchell’s The River, a bluegrass romp through Go Tell It On The Mountain, an Arabian-flavoured We Three Kings and a swaggering vocal by Mikaloff on Armstrong ’s ’Zat You Santa Claus?
That track is the guitarist’s favourite holiday song, and when it came time to sing it, he was petrified. “Louis Armstrong owns the song so I was very intimidated to sing it,” Mikaloff says. “It made me take vocal lessons. I really had to step up my game, and with six months of instruction, I’ve been able to master my voice. It really made me more comfortable in the studio.”
Plus there was no small amount of pressure from Jorgenson in the producer’s chair. At one point, after five hours of trying to nail We Three Kings, Mikaloff was so exhausted he fell asleep on the floor of the studio. “John drained everything I had out of me,” he says.
Lost Fingers first met Jorgenson, who’s based in California, when the then-trio shared a stage with his gypsy-jazz quintet at a guitar festival in Northern Quebec. Impressed by their willingness to experiment, Jorgenson contributed clarinet and guitar tracks to one of their recordings, and then agreed to produce their 2014 outing, World of Wonders.
“I thought these guys are really creative and not afraid to go outside the box,” he says. “When we started working on World of Wonders, it was eclectic but then this album ramped it up even more. For me, that’s just where I live. On my phone, I’ll have ABBA and then some Transylvanian gypsy band or classical music. It’s really fun to be able to use this backlog of ideas and skills that I have in the back of my head. And they’re such good musicians and singers.”
Jorgenson didn’t miss a beat when he found out he’d be producing the new incarnation of Lost Fingers after the departure of original member Christian Roberge, who left because of creative differences with Mikaloff.
In addition to recruiting Rioux as the new guitarist, Mikaloff fell in love with Amyot’s voice after meeting her at an industry party. A former contestant on La Voix, she and Mikaloff share a passion for music of the ’70s and ’80s. “I was like, ‘Let’s try it,’” Amyot says. “And it was fun, even the first time.”
So what’s next for the Lost Fingers? Another album’s worth of Christmas songs is ready to record, and shows are already booked for next year’s holiday season. The group is also planning something special for their 10th anniversary in 2018. In the meantime, they plan to tackle the hits of the 1990s. “It will be divided,” Mikaloff says, “We’ll be doing the hard-rock, alternative, dark side of the ’90s, and then the bubble gum dance pop.”