VARIOUS – Chris Bangs Presents The Playbox – 2LP – Vinyl [MAY 30]

2LP – Black Vinyl.

My musical journey as a DJ peaked in the mid- to late 80s with the legendary Cock Happy and Special Branch nightsand Doos At The Zoo, spread across various venues in London. There were other joint one-offs, including amemorable night dropping tuff jazz tunes from the likes of Art Blakey and Charles Earland surrounded by giant
Victorian machine generators at Kews Museum of Steam where instead of our usual banners and posters, wedecorated the room with toilet paper. I also guested fortnightly on Gilles Monday jazz night at the Wag Club gettinghome at 5am and at work, in body if not in mind, at 8am.

There were also Special Branch holidays in Ibiza and Corfu, Rockley Sands, Prestatyn and Caister weekenders,dropping jazz dance, funk, rare groove and even a bit of Cliff Richard on the holidays and playing classic Blue Notejazz and Santana at Cafe Del Mar.I was credited with inventing acid jazz after a particularly wild night in early 1988 DJ-ing at a Nicky Holloway SpecialBranch Doo in Brentford, London. We were playing hard Latin jazz tunes while the words Acid… Acid… Acid… wereprojected onto the giant screens behind where Gilles and I were DJing. We stopped the music , I said acid jazz onthe microphone and we both collapsed laughing. Acid jazz was never meant to be more than a mild piss-take andreally was just a reaction to the hype that acid house was getting in clubland. We never intended it to be thatspecific, but acid jazz went on to become a genre that conquered the world. It gave me the freedom to play JimiHendrix, psychedelic poetry and early hip-hop tracks alongside hard bop and tough Latin tunes.

Tracklist:

1. Los Conquistadores Chocolats – Johnny Hammond
2. Brazilian Skies – Bill Summers
3. Quiet Fire – Roy Haynes
4. Nuther’n Like Thuther’n – Willis Jackson
5. Sentido En Seis (Six Feeling) – Louie Bellson & Walfredo De Los Reyes
6. Vera Cruz (Empty Faces) – Flora Purim
7. Visions Of A New World (Phase Ii) – Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes
8. No Matter What – Pleasure
9. Njia Walk – Fatback Band
10. Gunky – Johnny Lytle
11. Jubilation – Patrice Rushen
12. Mambo Mindoro – Cal Tjader
13. Yatra-t – Tania Maria
14. Braun-blek-blu – Dom Um Romao