I got my first club gig at a place called Bogarts in West London playing Soul, Jazz Funk and Disco - Players Association, The Whispers, Deodata, a bit of Philly Soul stuff and worked there 5 nights a week for a couple of years. I also used to go out clubbing a lot. Most clubs played a lot of chart Disco and Soul but there were a few decent clubs with DJ's like Chris Hill, George Power, Chris Brown and Sean French playing much better tunes with a lot of Jazz Funk in the mix.
Some friends told me about this DJ Paul Murphy who was playing obscure Jazz Funk. I went along to his night and there were about 11 people in there but the music was amazing - rare Roy Ayers tunes, Ingram's "Mi Sabrina Tequana", Barbara Carroll's "In The Beginning" and the whole night was Jazz Funk or Jazz with one 'disco' tune in the whole set, Clyde Alexanders "Got To Get Your Love". That night changed me forever as a DJ as I figured there was a whole world of Jazz & Jazz Funk music that people weren't getting to hear and that's what I wanted to play myself. I did a few gigs with Paul but really meeting Gilles Peterson when he was 16 was what gave me to the chance to develop as a Jazz DJ.
Gilles had been playing hard Jazz Fusion at Camden's Electric Ballroom and I came from a more suburban Soulboy scene. I had a much less serious approach to playing Jazz in clubs than some other Jazz DJ's and the mix of our two styles proved to be a winner. We started running our own gigs together and played Jazz Fusion, Latin Jazz, Blue Note, rare Funk 7"s and what we used to call 'Dodgy Bossa' which was pretty much anything with a cheesy Latin beat. Those Gigs were about keeping the whole night as a party without trying to "Educate" everyone and generally playing records that were brilliant to dance to rather than bleating on about John Coltrane or Hard Bop. We had those records but who wants to hear them on a Saturday night out !
How did Rare Groove become Acid Jazz and how much of it was a reaction to Acid House? And there was a famous phrase you coined in reference to Acid House wasn't there?
There was a big warehouse scene in the UK in the mid 80's playing what later became called Rare Groove with all kinds of other stuff mixed in from Dinosaur L to Studio One Reggae plus a bit of Northern Soul. It was much more London based and the crowd were much more fashion conscious and really into their music. Gilles and I were playing a lot of Rare Groove in our sets but we were playing slightly different stuff to most of the Rare Groove DJ's. We used to track down funky stuff on labels like Blue Note, Groove Merchant and Prestige.
We both already had hundreds ( probably thousands by then! ) of Jazz records that we used to spin Samba or Latin tunes from and it was just a matter of revisiting those same LP's and digging out the funk tunes from them , mixing it up with our own Rare Groove 'discoveries' and some of the better early Hip Hop stuff. That was the mix of tunes that went on to become Acid Jazz and for me it all started when Gilles got a Monday night residency at the Wag Club in London. They'd had a Jazz night there for a few years with Paul Murphy initially, then later Baz Fe Jazz & Sylvester playing Bop, Latin Jazz & a bit of rare Salsa with some of the best UK Jazz bands playing live.
When Gilles took over the night I used to come down every other week and we'd play our funky Jazz mix downstairs and upstairs was more Jazz Fusion for the dancers. Upstairs became more of a playground musically and we started spinning some crazy stuff scratching "Accapella" Jazz stuff like mad Sax intros and Beat Poetry like Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" over Hip Hop drum tracks next to crazy Jazz Fusion like Dewey Redman's " Unknown Tongue".
One night Eddie Piller came down to the club. He was managing James Taylor Quartet at the time and I think both Eddie & James Taylor were blown away by what was happening there. The next time I saw JTQ they were playing a set pretty close to what Gilles and I span as DJ's. One night Gilles and I were playing at this Gig with Paul Oakenfold & Pete Tong. At that time Acid House was just taking hold in the UK but we were still spinning in the same room as them playing faster stuff that sat better in the mix with what they were playing.
Gilles was spinning this old Sabu Martinez track and there was a giant screen behind us showing Psychedelic Photos, Graffitti Art and Text. So there's this heavy Latin track spinning and the screen keeps flashing up "ACID ... ACID" behind us in giant letters and we thought it was well funny. I grabbed the mike and shouted " Fuck Acid House - This Is Acid Jazz !!! ".
We played our craziest tunes, slowing down and speeding up intros to tracks like Mickey & The Soul Generations "Iron Leg", Gilles spent the whole night repeating the words "Acid Jazz" on the mike between every track, the place went crazy and a new 'Genre' was born.
Interview courtesy of Steve Hoffman forums
BANGS / PETERSON - A "LEGENDARY" ROCKLEY RADIO SESSION by Chrisbangs on Mixcloud
CHRIS BANGS - OLD SCHOOL FUNK N JAZZ SET by Chrisbangs on Mixcloud