Gilles Peterson
As told by Maurice Bernstein:
“Jonathan Rudnick and I met when I was working at the music venue Town Hall in New York in 1989. He had come to meet with my boss to pitch some programming ideas. Jonathan was already Director of Publicity at SOBs, and had his own independent projects too. I was an intern trying to gain as much experience in business as possible. I overheard the meeting and artists Jonathan was pitching. My boss didn’t know any of the artists, but I did, and decided to offer my uninvited feedback on Jonathan’s ideas. When his meeting finished, Jonathan approached me as he was intrigued that I knew the artists and had a point of view.
Realizing I was from the UK, he asked me if I’d ever been to Gilles Peterson’s Dingwalls party. It was the first time I’d met someone in New York who not only knew about Gilles and the jazz dance scene in the UK, but also thought doing something like that was feasible. We exchanged numbers and stayed in touch. We reconnected when I approached him and Larry Gold at SOBs to help me with the shows which became Groove Academy, and eventually we started Giant Step together.
Gilles was obviously an important influence on the birth of Giant Step. I’d experienced the music he was playing when I was a student in London at Wag Club, Dingwalls and Electric Ballroom. Even before I’d bonded with Jonathan, I had reached out to Gilles to try and get him to play for me in at one of my parties in NY and visited him in London. At the time Gilles was starting to run Talkin’ Loud and was coming to New York fairly often when we’d just started Giant Step. He was very reluctant to DJ at the club as he was awestruck by New York’s DJs and club scene at the time. He eventually made his NY DJ debut on the last night of our New Music Seminar showcase at Village Gate in 1991, where we presented Galliano and Brand New Heavies. He came back a year later, opening up for Jamiroquai’s debut show at Supper Club in 1992.
It wasn’t long before Gilles realized that not only was his style of DJing appreciated in New York, but that he was also admired by the very DJs he initially felt intimidated by, like Francois K, Louie Vega, Danny Krivit etc.
From there, a long and fruitful relationship continued, with too many New York events to list, Winter Music Conference parties in Miami, collaborating on Nuyorican Soul, numerous Summerstages, releasing his Incredible DJ cd, more parties, tours and some very very memorable nights of shenanigans. Gilles remains a tireless innovator and champion of music. Giant Step would not be the same without his inspiration.”
In 2005, Gilles Peterson released an album of live artist sessions from his iconic radio show on BBC Radio 1. To celebrate the album’s US release, and coinciding with Giant Step’s 15th anniversary celebration month, we presented a special show at Canal Room in New York on October 11th. Gilles deejayed and hosted the evening. The house band was led by Robert Glasper and performers included Heavy, Steve Reid & Fourtet, Amp Fiddler, Dwele, Jazmine Sullivan, and Jamie Cullum.
Making the evening even more special, the guest of honor was the legendary Larry Mizell of Mizell Brothers. All the performers got together to perform the Mizell-produced “Think Twice,” as a tribute to our guest of honor. We have a recording of the night available for stream on Mixcloud.
After almost 20 years of playing for us in New York, it wasn’t until 2010 that Gilles finally played Brooklyn. In the following years he continued to do gigs for us in the city, but once Output opened in Brooklyn, that became the place until its untimely closing at the end of 2018. The club didn’t allow photography of any kind so this Littlefield set from January 29, 2010 is the only photographs we have.
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