Bronx-born but New Jersey-based, heavyweight house talent Dennis Ferrer represents an exciting new lease of life for the so-called ‘Jersey Sound’ – a sound that dominated Eighties clubbing and helped bring about global dance music revolution.
Ferrer, currently riding ‘mainstream’ high with a re-release of his irrepressible Miami anthem Hey Hey, has long observed the New Jersey tenets of song and soul with glorious success. But there’s no denying Hey Hey is another step up altogether; song and soul in perfect dancefloor harmony. It’s enough to make you wonder what exactly is behind the Jersey thang….
“The New Jersey sound is a unique and interesting story,” opens esteemed DJ, producer and remixer Hippie Torrales. It was Hippie who, back in the 1980s, played the role of “opening jock” at pivotal Jersey nightspot Club Zanzibar. “We have a saying in Jersey – ‘New York may be the Big Apple but Jersey is where we grow them. I think being so close to New York, we had to always work harder and have twice as much talent to get recognition.”
Eighties night-time New York was being driven by influential new clubs like The Loft and Paradise Garage – clubs not centred on social interaction but, rather, dancing. The Loft’s spinner David Mancuso was making a major name for himself; so too Garage DJ Larry Levan. Times were changing; Mancuso and Levan were inspiring a new wave of discotheques in the city. Disco’s backlash against the domination of rock music and society’s racist and homophobic stereotype of underground dance was having more and more effect.
Of course disco, born in the Seventies, was evolving. “New York was going harder and deeper, it still is” Torrales explains. “Jersey, on the other hand, has always been a singer and content-orientated state; there has always been plenty of talent and innovation in New Jersey but any new dance music was going to have that vocal identity. The Jersey sound’s biggest influence remains gospel. In turn, you have to consider that Gloria Gaynor, the first disco diva, came from there; and Frank Sinatra. These artists have influenced today’s New Jersey records in more ways that we can count.”
Gloria Gaynor
So, New Jersey had great singers with a very real focus on songwriting and the emotional content of songs. But it also had an absence of record labels, which would also prove important. “Many New Jersey artists were supported by independent record shops like Movin’ and Music Village, who had very little budget for big productions” Torrales says. “The artists therefore had to work harder with their core material to get it noticed; sure, the same thing was happening elsewhere in the States but it was really pronounced in Jersey; it certainly defined things.”
Torrales started DJing at 15 and by 1979 was regularly in the booth at Club Zanzibar. The New Jersey club had evolved out of Abe’s Disco at the Lincoln Motel in Newark. “The Motel’s owner, Miles Berger, wanted to bring a flavour of the New York scene to New Jersey having visited the Paradise Garage with his sound and lighting man Richard Long,” Torrales recalls. “Long had put in the Garage’s sound and light show; he’d do the same for Zanzibar and really put it on the map.”
Indeed, Zanzibar would soon be spearheading New Jersey’s distinctively soulful and vocal dance sound. “The top jocks all played Zanzibar for a period… David Morales, Francois K, Tee Scott and David Morales; even Larry Levan, who wasn’t allowed to play any other clubs in the metropolitan area” Torrales points out. “I played until ‘81 after which time Tony Humphries took things on. There were great live acts like Grace Jones and Chaka Khan too but I think what really made Zanzibar and New Jersey legendary to the rest of the world was that fact Tony had a great radio show [on Kiss-FM NY] on which he’d break a lot of new soulful singers and house artists.”
Come the late Eighties, Humphries was getting regular requests to play the UK and Europe; the media there quickly coined the ‘Jersey Sound’ phrase as dance music, in general, accelerated its international influence. Back to the future, and that frenzied Jersey demand seems to be back. “Well, put it this way” Torrales, perhaps best known for his co-production of Rosie Gaines’ 1997 crossover hit Closer The Close, says, “Tony and I have been talking about a Zanzibar tour and are currently looking for suitable promoters. We’re also working on an album of Zanzibar classics due for release soon.”
And that brings us nicely on to artist of the moment Dennis Ferrer. If the Jersey sound hasn’t ever gone away, then it’s been making a particular song-and-dance in recent months; largely through Ferrer but not just Hey Hey. Check the man’s back catalogue – tracks like Church Lady and that bumpin’ ‘3000’ remix of Blaze’s Most Precious Love blend stirring Jersey sentiment with the very latest electronic, 21st century nous.
“It’s to do with the song content and talent,” Torrales re-stresses. “You can deny a style or even an artist but I think quality music and content-orientated songs will eventually find an audience. People are finicky in their taste of the moment but eventually the ‘now’ factor gives way to the quality factor. It’s the reason why people go back and look up talents long gone; and why they’re switching on to people like Ferrer now, who evolve music but with deep respect for the past.”
Welcome to the new New Jersey...
Hippie Torrales feat. Rosie Gaines’ Never Quite The Same is released soon on MN2S.
Hippie Torrales & George Mena Present Robin Reed’s Wastelands is released soon on DCS.
