Karen Stachel, Norbert Stachel and LehCats with Giovanni Hidalgo - Live at the Breakroom

[GA Russell]

Karen Stachel Norbert Stachel & LehCats Join Forces with Giovanni Hidalgo On "Live at the Breakroom," A 2-CD Set to Be Released March 20 On Purple Room Productions Jazz-Funk-World Fusion Band Led by NYC Multireedist Couple Captured with Legendary Conguero In a Hard-Driving, Groove-Heavy Performance of 10 Original Compositions   January 15, 2026 Omnivorous jazz fusion combo LehCats channels the awesome percussive power and ingenuity of conguero Giovanni Hidalgo with Live at the Breakroom, set for a March 20 release by Purple Room Productions. Captured on a night at the titular San Jose venue when Hidalgo was featured with the New York–based band led by husband-and-wife Karen (flutes, vocals) and Norbert Stachel (saxophones, flutes), the double-disc album is a superlative example of what can happen when spontaneity, unforced chemistry, and an energetic and receptive audience all converge.   Crucially, none of the six musicians working together on Live at the Breakroom knew that the performance was being videoed and multitracked. The night of October 18, 2024, was the first of two nights of engagements in the San Francisco Bay Area, with LehCats (Stachel, spelled backwards) inviting Hidalgo—among the most acclaimed and in-demand conga players in the world—to join them as special guest. They did, however, know that the performance, featuring 10 original compositions by Norbert or Karen, was on fire—which made it a delightful surprise when they discovered that it was documented for posterity.   “We realized that it was a great opportunity to produce and release a new CD,” writes Norbert Stachel in the album’s liner notes. “We felt the good vibes, and you can feel and hear great moments of high intensity and spirited interactions.” You sure can. LehCats’ polished but driving blend of jazz, funk, and Afro-Caribbean traditions oozes with the excitement and joy of inspired creation. From the raw-edged dance beat of the opening “Step On It” and the graceful Latin flow of “Sunshine” (illuminated by both Karen Stachel’s vocal and Matt Clark’s montuno piano), to Norbert’s sleek, brawny tenor marathon on “Power Tap,” to the Stachels’ dual-flute-led slow burn on “Soul Cha Cha” and the ferocious African polyrhythms (Karen’s stellar percussive flute solo among them) that charge the closing “Mandela,” the set is positively hair-raising.   LehCats is a dynamic ensemble with shifting personnel—Bay Area pianist Clark and bassist Dan Feiszli here joining New York’s Stachels and drummer Dan Gonzalez—that builds a formidable Latin-spiced groove on its own. Yet Hidalgo’s presence on Live at the Breakroom sends that groove into hyperdrive, as heard in his dazzling solo intro to “Afrobaldi” and gritty lock-in with Gonzalez, Clark, and Feiszli on “Power Tap.” What the band thought was a one-time, ephemeral moment in San Jose instead stands as indelible proof that rhythm and music might be the most powerful unifying forces on earth. Norbert Stachel was born in Vallejo, California and grew up just outside of Berkeley in the town of El Cerrito. Gravitating to the saxophone as a teenager, he became a friend and collaborator of Bay Area jazz multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum, which led to a remarkable career as a sideman for the likes of Prince, Sheila E., Boz Scaggs, and Tower of Power, as well as Andrew Hill, Freddie Hubbard, and Roy Hargrove.   Karen Stachel (nee Anderson) was born in Fort Lewis, Washington, the child of a military family that raised her in a nomadic base-to-base lifestyle. She began playing the flute in the third grade and became fascinated with jazz in high school, earning a jazz studies degree at California State University Hayward (where she studied and played with legendary bassist Chuck Israels) and a master’s in classical music at San Francisco State before founding the Karen Anderson Jazztet in the 1990s.   Meeting and developing their relationship on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene, Norbert and Karen married in 1996 and moved to New York in 2002, where they nonetheless maintained separate musical and professional trajectories until 2015, when they and drummer Dan Gonzalez came together to launch LehCats. The next year brought their debut album, Out of the Bag. They followed it up with 2018’s Movement to Egalitaria, with the Stachels and Gonzalez joined by a rotating cast of 28 musicians in various combinations. The unplanned but inspired recording Live at the Breakroom is LehCats’ third album.   Upcoming performances by LehCats include Sat. 1/17 (7:30pm-10:30pm), Vault 240, Hawley, PA; Tues. 1/27 (7pm-11pm), Arthur’s Tavern, 57 Grove St., NYC; Sun 2/15 (7pm-8:30pm), Paul Kares: The Room at Cedar Grove, Lewes, DE; Tues. 2/24 (7pm-11pm), Arthur’s Tavern, NYC.     Photography: Chris Drukker   

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