Garage house (originally known as "garage"; local terms include "New York house" and

New Jersey sound The New Jersey sound or Jersey sound is a genre of house music originating in Newark, New Jersey during the early 1980s. It is a type of deep and garage house with an emphasis on soulful vocals influenced by Newark's gospel legacy. History T ...

) is a

dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded danc ...

style that was developed alongside Chicago house music. The genre was popular in the 1980s in the United States and the 1990s in the United Kingdom, where it developed into

UK garage UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic dance music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. The genre was most clearly inspired by garage house, but also incorporates elements from dance-pop, R&B, and jungle. It ...

and speed garage.

Characteristics

In comparison to other forms of

house music House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by Disc jockey, DJs and music producers from Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago' ...

, garage includes more

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

-influenced piano riffs and female vocals. It has a more soulful R&B-derived sound than Chicago house.

History

Garage house was developed in the Paradise Garage nightclub in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and

Club Zanzibar Club Zanzibar was a dance club that opened in 1979 at 430 Broad Street in Newark, New Jersey. Its presence in Downtown Newark was noted for its influence on house music and garage house genres and scene. Club Zanzibar, along with other gay and s ...

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area. It predates the development of Chicago house, and according to All Music, is relatively closer to

disco Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric pia ...

than other dance styles. As Chicago house gained international popularity, New York's garage music scene was distinguished from the "house" umbrella. Dance music of the 1980s made use of electronic instruments such as

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

s, sequencers and drum machines. These instruments are an essential part of garage music. The direction of garage music was primarily influenced by the New York City discothèque Paradise Garage where the influential DJ

Larry Levan Larry Levan (; born Lawrence Philpot, July 20, 1954 – November 8, 1992) was an American DJ best known for his decade-long residency at the New York City night club Paradise Garage, which has been described as the prototype of the modern da ...

, known for his musical versatility and innovation, played records. According to '' Blues & Soul'', contemporary garage music started with

Boyd Jarvis Boyd H. Jarvis (October 26, 1958 – February 17, 2018) was an American record producer, remixer and musician, best known for his song, co-written with Jason Smith, "The Music Got Me"; released in 1983 by Prelude Records. He has collaborated wit ...

and Levan's

The Peech Boys The Peech Boys, also known as the New York Citi Peech Boys or NYC Peech Boys, were a band that comprised Bernard Fowler, Steven Brown, Robert Kasper, Darryl Short, Larry Levan and Michael de Benedictus. The group formed at the Paradise Garage, b ...

. Jarvis, using the Visual moniker, was behind 1983 recordings "Somehow, Someway" and "The Music Got Me" , the latter especially influential, which later was sampled by mainstream house music record producers

Robert Clivillés Robert Manuel Clivillés (; born July 30, 1964
from

David Cole of C+C Music Factory.Jarvis v. A & M Records 827 F. Supp. 282 (D.N.J. 1993
UCLA
The popularity of the genre in the UK gave birth to a derivative genre called

References

{{House music-footer American styles of music 1980s in American music 1990s in American music 20th-century music genres Culture of New York City Culture of Newark, New Jersey House music genres

Characteristics

History

See also

References