It’s been more than 30 years since the death of Elvis Presley, one of most famous American cultural icons of the 20th century. Graceland remains a significant tourist site, and his music still evokes sentimental feelings among a generation who grew up with “All Shook Up” and The Ed Sullivan Show.
Still, his music can sound dated to those who came of age in a world of blogs and Barack Obama. That’s why Toronto five-piece Elvis Bossa Nova is radically re-imagining the Elvis catalogue, infusing classic tracks with Latin, country, and jazz to name only a few styles on their eclectic debut album, Hi, I’m Elvis Bossa Nova!
Each member of Elvis Bossa Nova is well-travelled within the city’s independent music community. Guitarist and primary musical arranger James Robertson plays with drummer Jake Oelrichs in the energetic indie rock group Run With The Kittens, while bassist Brian Kobayakawa melds jazz, roots music, and bluegrass in The Creaking Tree String Quartet. Vibraphonist Michael Davidson and percussionist Roman Tome, who round out the group, are both heavily involved in Toronto’s jazz and experimental community.
Robertson explains that the Elvis Bossa Nova project was conceived through somewhat unconventional means:
“Back in 2007, Brian and I were playing together in another band, and we needed to quickly fill in some dates at The Dakota Tavern because our band leader was going out of town. We were staying up late trying to figure out what to do. As we were wracking our brains, ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ came on the radio, so we thought we should do something with that. The idea kept growing and I recruited some musicians I had played with in the past and began arranging songs from there.”
Interestingly, the band members were not particularly large Elvis fans prior to the creation of the group.
“We were really into the idea when we started the band, but we didn’t think we’d still be playing together in three years’ time. It was designed to be a quick project, but it went so well from the get-go that we’re still doing it today,” explains Kobayakawa.
“We actually lucked out because Elvis obviously has a huge catalogue to draw from, but what I hadn’t realized is that it’s also really varied,” Robertson continues. “At first I had this image of him from the black and white days, just shaking his hips while all the songs had a similar rhythm and blues style. But since he had so many people writing music for him, there’s a huge variance in the material he released through the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.”
“Bossa nova” is a Portuguese term, meaning “new trend,” and refers to a short-lived movement in Brazilian samba and jazz music that took place between the late 1950s and the early ’60s. The band has arranged two songs in this unique style, but their catalogue of reinvented classics ambitiously blends a wide variety of styles with a flair for improvisation.
The basic familiarity with the Elvis legacy that many people possess has helped the band amass a considerable local following.
“Most people know a bunch of Elvis’ songs just because they’re everywhere—it’s impossible not to know some of them,” says Kobayakawa.
“It gives us the opportunity to do pretty out-there arrangements, our versions don’t sound too similar to the originals, but because the songs still have those familiar hooks, people will still recognize that we’re playing Elvis tunes,” adds Oelrichs.
Describing their sound as “out there” is an understatement. Their expansive version of “Viva Las Vegas” features a slow building percussion groove, accompanied by a deceptively laid-back guitar line. The speed increases steadily, and the track seems seconds away from flying off the rails until the classic melody, played through a slightly grungy, rockabilly guitar, finally enters the fray and stabilizes the group. The energy is relentless through multiple crescendos until the six-minute mark, when the band hits a barn-burning climax. And that is just one of eight songs that the band has transformed for their genre-bending, self-released debut.
Kobayakawa characterizes the band’s performances as heavily improvisational, ensuring that the energy present in each song never wanes.
“Our arrangements are never really set in stone—every song has an anchor that we use as a base, but improvisation in our music is always important. What we play can be drastically different from night to night,” he says.
The band plans on recording more reinvented Elvis material, as Robertson has arranged about 14 songs, not all of which appear on the band’s debut. For now, though, their wildly imaginative debut and unpredictable performances should pique the interest of the Toronto music community.
Elvis Bossa Nova hosts a CD release part for Hi, I’m Elvis Bossa Nova! on Jan. 8 at the Lula Lounge. For more information, visit elvisbossanova.com.
