Whether he goes by Dave Lee or the edgier-sounding Joey Negro; whether as the leader of the Sunburst Band, or working as Jakatta, he is an ambassador of Disco. It really doesn’t even feel like a rivalry with fellow disco-phile Dimitri From Paris (they ended that feud long ago when they called a truce to their vinyl bidding wars on Ebay). Lee has secured his place in the timeline of modern dance music history with his own brand of disco house, and his homage to the classic disco artists with the Sunburst Band and tracks such as “Fly Away,” “Everyday” and “Just Do It.” But above all else, Lee is trying to strike a balance, as does any artist striving for success. This balance is ever present in his work under a catalog of monikers and aliases, and seems almost instinctual. The classic disco sound of Prospect Park and Raw Essence goes hand in hand with the jazzier work of The Sunburst Band and the deeper house vibes of Akaboo, while Raven Maize is Lee’s big room avenue. On the eve of the release of his addition to Defected’s unstoppable In the House series, Lee took the time to speak about the art of the re-edit, the musical balance he strives for in his career and why that balance is so delicate when it comes to the commercial success of house and disco. Lee’s earliest musical interests were on the opposite end of the spectrum – 1970s Glam Rock. Upon hearing Heat Wave’s “Boogie Nights” in a Saturday morning children’s program, he was bitten by the disco bug. “I just though it was really funky,” he remembers. “That was the first record that really changed me.”
The next discovery came when he stumbled across Radio Luxemborg. “I was shocked at all the music they were playing,” he remembers. “Up to that point I thought that what was in the charts was all that was out there. This was about 1979 and that was when I first heard Roy Ayers, Carnival, and Dancing in Outer Space. I had been buying 45 singles but that was when I really started seeking out 12 inch records.” While many detractors of disco and dance music criticize the lack of musicality, the musicality of the original disco and soul of the 70s is Lee’s primary focus. In his remixes and re-edits, Lee pinpoints certain elements or sections and, with the precision of a surgeon, cuts around them; masterfully manipulating them and bringing a new dimension to a song. The result is sometimes subtle, and other times an abrupt departure from the original. “Sometimes I keep things the same for the most part but I remove certain sections. On the Spandau Ballet (“Chant No. 1”) track from the Kings of Disco album, we used an old analog EQ system. We overdubbed a Rhodes, we found the guitar isolated on its own to create the layered sound and we also overdubbed the high hat to give the track some movement. I sometimes use over dubs of keyboards or added effects. It’s kind of like chopping around what’s there sometimes. I go into quite a bit of detail and I quite like doing overdubs because you can change the whole mood of the song.” The re-edit is, in some instances, a perfect modern example of what dance remixes used to be the early days of House. “I still do quite a few remixes that stay true to the original,” Lee explains. “Things like my mix of Hero, or Blaze’s “Wishing You Were Here;” old school remixes that keep the original chords and music and maybe change the drums a bit and change the arrangement, but stick with the main parts of the original. It’s all arrangement changes. It depends on the song you choose and what you think is right for the track.” Not merely a student of studio creation, Lee has shown impeccable dance floor sensibilities. “If I’m doing an edit purely for DJ use, I’ll go about it differently than if I know it’s going to be released. As a DJ tool, it’s often more rough and ready, it’s simply about making it easy to mix in and out of. If it’s being released properly, I put more thought into making it fit as a piece of music from beginning to end. I did an edit the other day for a track from the ITH album by Erotic Drum Band (“Action 78”). It’s really just a DJ tool. It’s a 2 minute interlude, a mood changing percussive track.” Other instances bring ideas for re-edits that aren’t such obvious choices, as with Lee’s re-edit of the O’Jays’ “Put Our Heads Together,” which appears on his In the House album. A project such as this reflects not just a knowledge and love for the roots of the music, but a desire to bridge the past to today’s dancefloors. “I had played the original out a few times and I felt that there were a few sections that were more exciting than others,” Lee says. “Certain bits, like the middle made it sound dated, and it was very vocal all the way through, almost a bit too much. I used the intro break a little longer, added a few FX on and added some length; something to make it stand up against modern records. It’s not always about improving the record, but sometimes making it more playable.”
Through his years of experience in the dance music industry, Lee has seen the waves of success that dance music has traveled; from major label acceptance to full fledged public shunning. Dance music has risen through the mainstream and returned underground several times over. It can sometimes seem as if the underground represents House in its purest form, and that over-commercialization is simply part of the cycle; a necessity to return things to a musical equilibrium. Lee looks at the situation in less broad terms. “I think people forget that they actually like disco because there’s a lot of rubbish,” Lee reasons. “You have all these disco versions of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” and “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” which were shit. They’re obviously the tracks that got played more than some of the better stuff because it was more accessible to the masses. Disco crossed over so much that jazzier disco records aren’t relatable, but other things are instantly familiar” A man who enjoys deeper, jazzier journeys as well as more straight-ahead house music, Lee makes the case for a balance in all things; mainstream and otherwise. “There is a lot of commercial music that is good,” he concedes. “Commercial doesn’t have to be shit. I don’t mind stuff that has a really catchy, hooky melody, which is ultimately what a commercial record is.” All things considered, Lee speculates that perhaps there hasn’t been as much change as there has been an expansion in the sheer volume of dance music. The result is an innumerable amount of sub-genres and a continual sub-division of dance music, which Lee charges as tipping the scales against the artist in terms of album sales. “The amount of music coming out makes it difficult. Within any one genre, you can have a big record, but if it doesn’t cross over across multiple genres, it doesn’t really result in many sales anymore, which isn’t very good.” Lee concedes that the infinite number genres may be necessary, if only for cataloging purposes. “I like many different styles, but I find it hard to keep up with. I like R n’ B, I like some Hip Hop, and I like some Drum n bass and techno. Even some things that I don’t like, I can appreciate as being well produced or well arranged, looking at it from a production point of view. People tend to specialize because it’s just plain difficult to keep up, even within one genre.”
I don’t think there’s much history of music going backwards. Although I do sometimes prefer music that has a slower tempo,” he explains, knowing full well the futility in trying to force the trends to swing one way or another. “I think it’s a reasonably healthy scene, there’s quite a lot of different music coming out these days. I like broken beat and the west London stuff. I also like some R n B; not the pop, stuff but people like Rahsaan Patterson, Allison Krocket; more jazzy soul. I can’t envisage going to a club and hearing that sort of variety alongside house music. It’s difficult to predict the future, really. Then again, I wouldn’t necessarily have predicted many of the things that have happened over the past twenty years.”
JJazproJect would like to thank Dave Lee for taking the time to speak to us and Toni Tambourine at Defected for setting things up. Joey Negro In The House is released through Defected Records, www.defected.com on Monday January 31st. For more information on Dave Lee you can also visit his label's, Z Records, website, www.z-records.co.uk |
