The New Jersey sound or Jersey sound is a genre 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' ...
originating in
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.deep
Deep or The Deep may refer to:
Places United States
* Deep Creek (Appomattox River tributary), Virginia
* Deep Creek (Great Salt Lake), Idaho and Utah
* Deep Creek (Mahantango Creek tributary), Pennsylvania
* Deep Creek (Mojave River tributary), ...
and
garage house
Garage house (originally known as "garage"; local terms include "New York house" and New Jersey sound) is a dance music style that was developed alongside Chicago house music. The genre was popular in the 1980s in the United States and the 1990s ...
with an emphasis on soulful vocals influenced by Newark's
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 ...
legacy.
History
The New Jersey sound originated in the 1980s. Places like
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 ...
in
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.Tony Humphries began his residency in 1982, helped "spawn the sometimes raw but always soulful, gospel-infused subgenre" of
deep house
Deep house is a subgenre of house music that originated in the 1980s, initially fusing elements of Chicago house with the lush chords of 1980s jazz-funk and touches of soul music. Its origins are attributed to the early recordings of Larry Heard ( ...
music known as the Jersey sound. Besides the term "New Jersey house", there are alternative names for the genre: "In the UK, for fairly unfathomable reasons, it became known as garage music (named after the
Paradise Garage
Paradise Garage, also known as "the Garage" or the "Gay-rage", was a New York City discotheque notable in the history of dance and pop music, as well as LGBT and nightclub cultures. The club was founded by sole proprietor Michael Brody, and ...
in New York), while in NJ itself they simply called it club (or perhaps more pertinently, the Jersey sound)." Newark female singers famously remixed by house music 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 ...
included
Gwen Guthrie
Gwendolyn Guthrie (July 9, 1950 – February 3, 1999) was an American singer-songwriter and pianist who also sang backing vocals for Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Peter Tosh, and Madonna, among others, and who wrote songs made fa ...
("Ain't Nothin' Goin On But The Rent") and
Taana Gardner
Taana Gardner (born September 3, 1960) is an American disco and post-disco singer who found her success through West End Records since 1979. She is also a former member of the Aural Exciters.
Early life
Born in Newark, New Jersey (where sh ...
Aly-Us
Aly-Us is a house music group from New Jersey that was active mostly in the early 1990s. Their most famous record was “Follow Me” from 1992.
Members and history
Aly-Us originally started as trio composed of vocalist “Supa” aka Eddie L. Lew ...
released their deep-house hit "Follow Me."
Abigail Adams's house-music record label and store, Movin’ Records in Newark's neighbor
East Orange
East Orange is a city in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 69,612. The city was the state's 20th most-populous municipality in 2010, after having been the state's 14th most-po ...
, was another contributor to the Jersey Sound.
The Jersey club scene also gave rise to the
ball culture
The Ballroom Scene (also known as the Ballroom community, Ballroom culture, or just Ballroom) is an African-American and Latino underground LGBTQ+ subculture that originated in New York City. Beginning in the late 20th century, Black and Latino ...
scene in Newark hotels and
nightclub
A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music.
Nightclubs gener ...
s. "Queen of House"
Crystal Waters
Crystal Waters (born November 19, 1961) is an American house and dance music singer and songwriter, best known for her 1990s dance hits " Gypsy Woman", " 100% Pure Love", and 2007's " Destination Calabria" with Alex Gaudino. All three of her s ...
and other house luminaries performed on the Newark scene. DJ
Kerri Chandler
Kerri Camar Chandler (born 28 September 1969) is an American house DJ and record producer.
Biography
Chandler's influences go back to New Jersey, growing up in a family of jazz musicians. His father, Joseph Chandler, was a DJ and provided him wi ...
, another Zanzibar DJ, was another pioneer of the "Jersey sound" variety of house music. Jersey artists like
Jomanda
Johanna Wilhelmina Petronella Damman, known under her nickname Jomanda (born May 5, 1948), is a controversial Dutch healing medium who refers to herself as the ''Lady of the light.''
Background
Born Johanna Wilhelmina Petronella Damman in Dev ...
found success on the early 90s house music scene. Some have said that "when New York went to
rap
Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...
Zanzibar
Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands ...
.”
Festivals
Annual summer events like the Roselle House Music Festival in
Warinanco Park
Warinanco Park (pronounced by locals as War-Rah-NINK-co) is a county park in Union County, New Jersey. It is located in Roselle at the border with the neighboring cities of Elizabeth and Linden.
History
In 1921, a group of local citizens ala ...
, the Trenton House Music Festival, the
Weequahic Park
Weequahic Park ( (pronounced , or WEEK-wake "when spoken rapidly") is a park located in the South Ward of Newark, New Jersey, USA, designed by the Olmsted Brothers firm, (who also designed Branch Brook Park in Newark). The park is 311.33 acres inc ...
Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park is a park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue (500 N), on the south, ...
Music Festival attract families and house music enthusiasts, also known as "househeads," dedicated to the classic 1980s Jersey sound.
See also
*
Latin freestyle
Freestyle music, also called Latin freestyle or Latin hip-hop ''(sic)'' is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in the New York metropolitan area and Philadelphia, primarily among Hispanic Americans and Italian Americans in the 1980s. I ...
, a genre of dance music popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the New Jersey area