Le Chat Lunatique - From Gypsy Jazz to 20's Swing

Le Chat Lunatique

Violinist/Vocalist Le Chat Lunatique
Violin ReVoSo, Rumba Flamenca
Music Instructor; YMI 
Noon Concert Series Manager; UNM Arts-in-Medicine Program
Violin & Gen. Ed. Music Teacher

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 Greg.