At 08:48 PM 9/4/00 -0700, Jonathan Takagi wrote:
>Gen Kanai wrote:
>
> > Let's see if Giant Step can outdo the Jason Bentley and the Bossa Nova!
> > Crew from LA. Jazzanova at the Fais-Do-Do Ballroom was one of the best
> > nights of 1999 in Los Angeles. I hope tonight comes close :)
>
>Gen, please let us know how this turns out! I think they've
>been advertising the gigs (at least in LA) as "Jazzanova", but
>really it's just one DJ, as far as I know. I hope that none
>would doubt me if I said that Ron Trent is in a totally different
>league than Jason Bentley, being a house music legend of sorts.
Well, I left a little early (3am) but it was a good night.
I was not aware of Ron Trent's legendary status as a house DJ. He had some
amazing stuff in his crate though - stuff I've never heard at all before,
which is nice. His opening set had everything from jazz to jazzy house, to
some great latin house.
The crowd was fairly mixed, but heavily male. There was this older
gentleman with tap shoes on who was grooving away tapping and dancing along
with the music. That left an impression :)
In comparing the scene at with Jazzanova at Shine in NYC and when Jazzanova
came to LA last year at Fais-Do-Do Ballroom, I'd say that the LA crowd was
more enthusiastic (shouting out and whatnot) and danced more. The New
Yorkers were standing around and drinking more and dancing less (in
comparison.) Perhaps this is due to the dominance of the bar scene in NYC
and that New Yorkers are more comfortable at a bar drinking because that's
the usual mode of socializing?
Shine's sound system was mixed. The mids and highs were nice and clear-
almost to the point of sharp, but not harsh. The bass on the other hand
was muddy and to top it off there was a lot of vibration in the ceiling
panels and speaker trusses. So the bass notes not only were not very clear
in the first place, their sound was further hampered by other vibrating
parts of the club which muddied up the bass even further. I may be a harsh
critic of club sound systems but these days so many clubs have great sound
(Twilo, Giant, Crobar, etc.) that the mediocre ones stand out. My
reference sound system in NYC is Twilo- specifically the Y2K Lounge
upstairs. That is such an amazing sound system from anywhere in the
room. I'm usually rather sensitive about my ears and I never wear earplugs
at Twilo. I did wear them at Shine however.
I wasn't sure who was Dixon and who was Claas but to be honest, neither of
them were great mixers. There were more than a few memorable trainwrecks
throughout the night when I said "wow! mix that wreck out quick!" and the
beats would keep on colliding. The BPMs were all over the place which is
why I think they had some challenging mixes and they went from genre to
genre pretty quickly at times.
I can't say that I recognized many of the tracks they were spinning. I did
recognize Jazzanova's remix of MJ Cole's "Sincere" as well as that Roni
Size track with Bahamadia singing on it. They threw down a lot of great
jazzy house, some experimental jazz, some 2 step, some d'n'b, some
booglaoo-kinda stuff and a lot of great house music too. It was a very
eclectic set.
I'm always a tad disappointed when I got hear a DJ set from a producer I
love and they almost never spin their own music. I know why they don't
play their own 12"s but I for one would have loved to have heard "Fedime's
Flight" or "Caravelle" or any of the other Jazzanova standards.
A good night was had by all,
Gen
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Sep 05 2000 - 17:24:40 MET DST