If it hadn’t been for Chris Hill at Canvey Island’s GOLDMINE and Ilford’s LACEY LADY, Bob Jones at Chelmsford’s DJs and Colin Curtis at many residencies in and around Manchester in the north of England experimenting with Jazz on the dancefloor in the mid to late 1970s ,we wouldn’t be dancing to Jazz around the World now. There were other superb DJs in the U.K at that time that were playing upfront Jazz-Funk and Disco-Jazz amongst the latest Disco and Funk releases, but some of what we now consider as classic Jazz-Funk were not made by the artists as dance records, it took these DJs to perceive them as dance records.
As the Jazz-Funk got harder and faster due to the heavier dancers pushing the DJs to challenge them, it became natural to drop in one or two fast Jazz Fusion tracks like JOHN KLEMMER-BRASILIA or CHICK COREA – CENTRAL PARK. Jazz became so popular in the clubs that inevitably Jazz-only nights started appearing around 1980/1981. The most famous ones being THE HORSESHOE (jaffas) and THE ELECTRIC BALLROOM DJ’d by the legendary PAUL MURPHY, where the Jazz that was played was lightening speed Fusion, + Be Bop to the heaviest dancers anywhere.
Jazz Fusion FM, music with no boundaries Jazz was still being played in most upfront clubs, and in just those few years since Jazz had started being played on the floors of discotheques, many DJs were experimenting with all the various styles from Bossa, Afrobeat, Fusion, Be Bop, R+B, Batucadas, Cu-Bop, Afro Cuban to Blue Note Swing of all tempos. By the end of the 1980s the Soul Jazz of the PRESTIGE and BLUE NOTE labels started getting more popular as well, most famously at GILLES PETERSON’s barrier breaking sessions on Sunday lunchtimes at DINGWALLS in Camden town, London. And along came ACID JAZZ...
Snowboy