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unconscious grapevine. They send you a signal and you talk back to them through records. When I
played a record, the record that followed would make a comment on the record that came before.
Working two turntables with a quick hand on the volume fader was the way to do it. Only a dexterous
DJ could pull it off.
Francis Grasso was the master. The Brooklyn-born DJ took this spontaneous approach and turned
it into a science. Actually, the technique began in radio; Grasso perfected and patented slip-cueing.
While one disc was playing for the crowd, he would listen to the next selection on headphones and
find the best spot to make a jump. Then he d hold still the second disc with his thumb while the
turntable whirled beneath, insulated by a felt pad. At the right moment, he d release the next song
precisely on the beat. These perfect segues became a trademark, and once he got speed controls on his
Thorens turntables, Grasso could alter the records tempos so they d match perfectly. Reaching a
fevered crescendo, he d even play two records simultaneously for two minutes at a stretch on the
same beat. Or he d spin two copies of the same record at once, creating echo effects.
Musically, Francis Grasso s tastes were also on the cutting edge, and custom-fit for the dance
floor. He specialized in soul and rock s pulsing, percussive wing, mixing Santana s steamy  Soul
Sacrifice with such African-flavored exotica as  Drums of Passion by Babatunde Olatunji. Grasso
was a maven the original DJ with challenging taste. He played what he liked and made dancers love
it.
The Mix
The mix starts at a certain place, builds, teases, builds again and picks up on the other side.
The break is the high point. It s like asking someone a question, repeating and repeating it,
waiting for an answer and then giving the answer. That is the great satisfying moment.
 DJ Danae, 1979
The disco DJs fashioned a new sound and sensibility a nascent pop music style that couldn t be
heard on the radio; not yet, anyway. Gradually, a few  breakout songs from the disco scene began to
infiltrate the mainstream. One of the first was  Soul Makoosa by the Cameroon-born saxophonist
Manu Dibango. Hypnotic in its effect,  Soul Makoosa relied on a chanted vocal hook ( mama-koo
mama-sa mama-koo-ma-koo-sa MAMAKOOSA ) and complex, compelling rhythmic repetitions. It
was more than a novelty: it was the kind of dance record you d remember the morning after. Recorded
in Paris,  Soul Makoosa was discovered as an import by club DJs and eventually rereleased by
Atlantic Records in 1973. When it crept into the Top 40 that summer, not even disco cultists realized
it was an omen.
It wasn t only the music played in discos that slipped into the mainstream; the turntable strategies
and rhythmic tricks of the DJs themselves began to influence the act of recording. Tom Moulton is the
man who shepherded this process. He s the master of the 12-inch mix, or remix. Ironically, perhaps
tellingly, he was never a club DJ.
A former model, Moulton pioneered the process of restructuring a record to suit the dance floor,
juggling the elements of multitrack recording in order to shift emphasis. He discovered his metier
while programming homemade party tapes for a Long Island disco. Turning pro, Moulton found ways
to extend a threeminute song to more than six minutes by stretching instrumental sections. Working
with sixteeen- or twenty-four-track master tapes, slicing and dicing, he could play up the bass and
drums or whatever elements triggered a response in dancers.  A monotonous piece with few breaks or
melodic hooks could be reconstructed in such a way that you lengthened the breaks, Moulton
patiently explained,  or incorporated catchy tunes at the right places. Behind this was the idea to
produce the best possible relation between tension and relaxation.
Merging with the producers Tony Bongiovi and Meco Menardo, Moulton utilized his ideas on a
series of midseventies singles and albums by the soul singer Gloria Gaynor. Working with the original
 disco diva, the team brought the New York club sound to mainstream middle America. One of
Gaynor s specialties was a showstopping fifteen-minute medley in which she d smoothly progress
from song to song, flowing from  Never Can Say Goodbye to  Reach Out I ll Be There and leaping
from  Casanova Brown to  How High the Moon. The flow progressed with the same seamless
motion a disco DJ would strive for. It was a radical move on a record album.
As the 1970s wore on, more records were made with dancing in mind, and the pop singles chart
started to reflect this new trend. The Florida-based label TK Records and its light-soul  Sound of
Miami yielded Top 10 smashes by George McCrae ( Rock Your Baby ) and Gwen McRae ( Rocking
Chair ) in 1974, and a string of irresistibly silly-sexy hits by KC & the Sunshine Band. All these songs
featured swaying Caribbean-influenced rhythms and a gentle, hedonistic vibe and they sold as well.
 Rock Your Baby was a hit around the world, selling two million here and one million in the United
Kingdom. A silly piece of syncopated fluff, Van McCoy s  The Hustle sold ten million copies in two
years. Disco was knocking on the door.
Fever
A hot disco mix . . . is a sexual metaphor. The DJ plays with the audience s emotions
pleasing and teasing in a crescendo of feeling. The break is the climax.
 Andrew Kopkind,  Dialectics of Disco [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]