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Chicago house refers to
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' ...
produced during the mid to late 1980s within
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
. The term is generally used to refer to the first ever house music productions, which were by Chicago-based artists in the 1980s.


History and origins


Disco edits

Following Chicago's
Disco Demolition Night Disco Demolition Night was a Major League Baseball (MLB) promotion on Thursday, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois, that ended in a riot. At the climax of the event, a crate filled with disco records was blown up on the field ...
in mid-1979,
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 ...
music's mainstream popularity fell into decline. In the early 1980s, fewer and fewer disco records were being released, but the genre remained popular in some Chicago nightclubs and on at least one radio station, WBMX-FM. In this era, Chicago radio jocks The Hot Mix 5, and club DJs Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles played various styles of dance music, including older
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 ...
records, newer
Italo disco Italo disco (variously capitalized, and sometimes hyphenated as Italo-disco) is a music genre which originated in Italy in the late 1970s and was mainly produced in the early 1980s. Italo disco evolved from the then-current underground dance, p ...
, electro, EBM tracks, B-boy hip hop music by
Man Parrish Manuel "Man" Parrish (born May 6, 1958) is an American songwriter, vocalist and producer. He, along with artists such as Yellow Magic Orchestra, Kraftwerk, Art of Noise, Arthur Baker, Afrika Bambaataa, John Robie, Jellybean Benitez, Lotti Gold ...
,
Jellybean Benitez John Benitez (born November 7, 1957), also known as Jellybean, is an American musician, songwriter, DJ, remixer, and music producer. He has produced and remixed artists such as Madonna, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and the Pointer Sisters. H ...
, Arthur Baker and John Robie as well as
electronic pop Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a r ...
music by Kraftwerk,
Telex The telex network is a station-to-station switched network of teleprinters similar to a telephone network, using telegraph-grade connecting circuits for two-way text-based messages. Telex was a major method of sending written messages electroni ...
and
Yellow Magic Orchestra Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO for short) is a Japanese electronic music band formed in Tokyo in 1978 by Haruomi Hosono (bass, keyboards, vocals), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums, lead vocals) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards, vocals). The group is cons ...
. Some of these DJs also made and played their own edits of their favorite songs on reel-to-reel tape, focusing on the portions of songs which worked well on the dancefloor. Some even mixed in effects, drum machines, and other rhythmic electronic instrumentation in an effort to give songs more appeal. These edits and remixes were rarely released to the public, and even then were available only on privately pressed vinyl records or on
mixtape A mixtape (alternatively mix-tape, mix tape or mixed tape) is a compilation of music, typically from multiple sources, recorded onto a medium. With origins in the 1980s, the term normally describes a homemade compilation of music onto a cassette ...
s.


European connection

The early house music sound was a "dialogue" between
Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
, and Black American
post-disco Post-disco (also called boogie, synth-funk, or electro-funk) is a term to describe an aftermath in popular music history circa 1979–1985, imprecisely beginning with an unprecedented backlash against disco music in the United States, leading to c ...
Walters, Barry (1986):
Burning Down the House
''SPIN magazine''. Retrieved 2014-04-25.
and European
post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...
. Quote: "Turning its back on the idea of dance, indie rock (with a few notable exceptions) was determinedly funkless in the mid-to late eighties. In 1988, that side of postpunk began to reemerge from the gay, black Chicago house scene."
electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...
and their traditions with Italo-disco picked or, emulated the most, as the template for house music.Rietveld, Hillegonda C. (1998). ''This is our House: House Music, Cultural Spaces and Technologies'', Aldershot Ashgate. Reissue: London/New York: Routledge 2018/2020. Quote: "Like disco, house music has been produced by and for both an American and European home market, which may be due to the fact that house music is part of a dialogue between African-American soul and disco on one hand and North European electronic body music and its variants on the other, with a generous helping of Italian disco thrown in along the way." Precursors include electro songs " Planet Rock," " Let the Music Play," Italo-disco (e.g.
Klein + M.B.O. Klein may refer to: People *Klein (surname) * Klein (musician) Places *Klein (crater), a lunar feature * Klein, Montana, United States *Klein, Texas, United States * Klein (Ohm), a river of Hesse, Germany, tributary of the Ohm * Klein River, a r ...
), on one hand; EBM ( Liaisons Dangereuses;Reynolds, Simon (2012). ''Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture''. Soft Skull Press. p. 20. . Quote: "Perhaps the most prophetic of the early eighties avant-funk outfits was Diisseldorf's D.A.F, who began as an experimental industrial unit, then stripped down their chaotic sound to a harsh, homoerotic avant-disco influenced by the New Savagery ideas of artist Joseph Beuys. On their three Virgin albums, the inelastic synth-pulses and frigid frenzy of the beats uncannily anticipate acid house. D.A.F. and the similar group Liaisons Dangereuses actually had some currency in the early Chicago scene."
Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft } Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (; "German-American Friendship"), or D.A.F., is an influential German electropunk/Neue Deutsche Welle band from Düsseldorf, formed in 1978 featuring Gabriel "Gabi" Delgado-López (vocals), Robert Görl (drum ...
on acid house) on another.


Original productions

On the history,
Farley "Jackmaster" Funk Farley "Jackmaster" Funk (born Farley Keith Williams; January 25, 1962) is an American musician, DJ and record producer of Chicago house and acid house music. He is notable for writing and producing a number of highly influential tracks in th ...
says "
Jesse Saunders Jesse Saunders (born March 10, 1962) is an American house music artist, DJ, record producer, film producer, and entrepreneur. His 1984 single, "On & On", co-written with Vince Lawrence, was the first record with a house DJ as the artist that ...
was first He put out records before anyone conceived of doing it, got all the girls, and all the fame. Jesse wanted to be the next Motown."
Screamin' Rachael Screamin' Rachael, born Rachael Cain, is an American musician and Chicago nativedubbed the “Queen of House Music” by'' Billboard magazine,''. Rachael has been connected to the evolution of the House music genre. She has worked with performers ...
, co-founder of
Trax Records Trax Records is an American independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It played a major part in the development of house music. History Larry Sherman was originally a collector of vintage jukeboxes, and, frustrated ...
, describes the music the following way " at Trax did was really a combination of punk and industrial with a really great 4x4 dance beat. Today they want to call it EDM, but Chicago house is the mother of them all. A lot of people don’t want to recognize—I think people in the UK do, but others don’t. Part of it is that Chicago was never an industry town, and New York always likes to claim they did it first." In 1984, Saunders' label released, on 12-inch single, a song called "On and On". Saunders composed the track with Vince Lawrence to replace a record that had been stolen from Saunders' collection, the "On & On" bootleg disco
megamix A megamix is a remix containing multiple songs in rapid succession. It often features various artists. There may be only one verse or even just a brief chorus of each song used, sometimes in addition to samples of the same or other songs. It is ...
by Mach. That megamix, a pastiche of loops from several electronic disco records, particularly the bassline from Player One's "
Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter an ...
" (1979), had been Saunders' "signature" tune as a DJ; it was one that other DJs in the city did not play. Saunders and Lawrence added hypnotic lyrics and electronic instruments, utilizing a Roland TR-808 drum machine as electronic
percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
as well as a Korg Poly-61
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 ...
and a
Roland TB-303 The Roland TB-303 Bass Line (also known as the 303) is a bass synthesizer released by Roland Corporation in 1981. Designed to simulate bass guitars, it was a commercial failure and was discontinued in 1984. However, cheap second-hand units were ...
bass 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 ...
. In a 2010 interview, Saunders claimed the song sought to capture the essence of the style of disco that other local DJs were playing at the time, a style he says was already known locally as "house". Saunders' success with the relatively unpolished "On & On" inspired other Chicago DJs to try their hand at producing and releasing original songs in a similar style, using electronic instrumentation. Early such recordings included
Jamie Principle Jamie Principle (born 5 July 1960) is an American house music artist and producer born in Chicago, Illinois. _Biography_))).html" ;"title="allmusic ((( Jamie Principle > Biography )))">allmusic ((( Jamie Principle > Biography )))/ref> Biography J ...
's and Frankie Knuckles' " Your Love" (1986); and
Chip E. Irwin Larry Eberhart II, better known by his stage name Chip E. (born 1966), is an American DJ and record producer. Life and career Born in Chicago, Illinois, Chip E. attended St. Ignatius College Prep, Kenwood Academy, Columbia College and D ...
's "Jack Trax" record (1985), featuring the songs "It's House" and "Time to Jack", each of which used complex rhythms, simple bassline, sampling technology, and sparse vocals. These producers were aided in their efforts by the availability of affordable, mass-produced electronic music instruments, especially those from the Japanese Roland Corporation, including the
TR-909 The Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer is a drum machine introduced by Roland Corporation in 1983, succeeding the TR-808. It was the first Roland drum machine to use samples for some sounds, and the first with MIDI functionality, allowing it to syn ...
, TR-808 and TR-707 drum machines, TR-727 Latin percussion machine,
Juno Juno commonly refers to: *Juno (mythology), the Roman goddess of marriage and queen of the gods *Juno (film), ''Juno'' (film), 2007 Juno may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional characters *Juno, in the film ''Jenny, Juno'' *Ju ...
synthesizers,
TB-303 The Roland TB-303 Bass Line (also known as the 303) is a bass synthesizer released by Roland Corporation in 1981. Designed to simulate bass guitars, it was a commercial failure and was discontinued in 1984. However, cheap second-hand units were ...
bass module, and compact sequencers. Although there are conflicting accounts of the term's etymology, by 1985, "house music" was synonymous with these homegrown dance music productions.


Increasing popularity and divergent styles

As with other dance music, DJs and local club-goers were the primary audience for this relatively noncommercial music, which was more conceptual and longer than the music usually played on commercial radio. Mainstream record stores often did not carry it, as the records were not available through the major record distributors. In Chicago, only record stores such as Importes Etc., State Street Records, JR's Music shop and Gramaphone Records were the primary suppliers of this music. Despite the music's limited commercial availability, house records sold in the tens of thousands, and the music was further popularized via radio station 102.7 WBMX-FM, where Program Director Lee Michaels gave airtime to the station's resident DJ team, the
Hot Mix 5 The Hot Mix 5 are an American DJ team originating from Chicago, Illinois, who were chosen by WBMX Program Director, Lee Michaels in 1981. The founding members were Farley "Funkin" Keith (later known as Farley "Jackmaster" Funk), Mickey "Mixin" O ...
( Ralphi Rosario, Mickey "Mixin" Oliver, Scott "Smokin" Silz, Kenny "Jammin" Jason, and Farley "Jackmaster" Funk). The Hot Mix 5 shows started with the station's launch in 1981, and was widely listened to by DJs and dance music fans in Chicago as well as visiting DJs and producers from Detroit. Many of the songs that defined the Chicago house music sound were released primarily on vinyl by the labels DJ International Records and
Trax Records Trax Records is an American independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It played a major part in the development of house music. History Larry Sherman was originally a collector of vintage jukeboxes, and, frustrated ...
, both of which had distribution outside of Chicago, leading to house's popularity in other cities, including New York and London. Trends in house music soon became subgenres, such as the lush, slower-tempo
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 ( ...
, and the stark, especially hypnotic acid house. Deep house's origins can be traced to Chicago producer Mr Fingers's jazzy, soulful recordings "
Mystery of Love "Mystery of Love" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens and produced by Thomas Bartlett. It was self-released digitally, under license to Madison Gate Records and Sony Classical, on 1 December 2017. Luca ...
" (1985) and " Can You Feel It?" (1986), which, according to author Richie Unterberger, moved house music away from its " posthuman tendencies back towards the lush" soulful sound of early
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 ...
music. Acid house arose from Chicago artists' experiments with the squelchy
Roland TB-303 The Roland TB-303 Bass Line (also known as the 303) is a bass synthesizer released by Roland Corporation in 1981. Designed to simulate bass guitars, it was a commercial failure and was discontinued in 1984. However, cheap second-hand units were ...
bass 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 ...
, and the style's earliest release on vinyl is generally cited as
Phuture Phuture is an American house music group from Chicago, founded in 1985 by Earl Smith Jr., Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr., Nathaniel Pierre Jones aka DJ Pierre, and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson. The group is famous for inventing and defining the sound of acid ...
's "
Acid Tracks "Acid Tracks" is a 1987 acid house song by Phuture produced by Marshall Jefferson and released by Trax Records. Phuture consisted of Nathan Pierre Jones, better known as DJ Pierre, Earl Smith Jr., Earl Smith Jr (known as "Spanky"), and Herbert Jac ...
" (1987). Phuture, a group founded by Nathan "
DJ Pierre Nathaniel Pierre Jones, better known by his stage name DJ Pierre, is an American DJ and performer of house music based in Chicago. He helped to develop the house music subgenre of acid house, as member of Phuture, whose 1987 EP '' Acid Tracks'' ...
" Jones, Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr., and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson, is credited with having been the first to use the TB-303 in the house music context. The group's 12-minute "Acid Tracks" was recorded to tape and was played by DJ Ron Hardy at the Music Box, where Hardy was resident DJ. Hardy once played it four times over the course of an evening until the crowd responded favorably.Cheeseman, Phil.
The History Of House
.
The track also utilized a
Roland TR-707 The Roland TR-707 Rhythm Composer is a drum machine released by the Roland Corporation in 1985. Features The TR-707 has fifteen digitally sampled sounds. The instrument is capable of 10-voice polyphony. The alternate bass drum, snare, and hi- ...
drum machine. Chicago house music was being licensed to UK Labels by DJ International, Trax, KMS and the Transmat record labels, and with that the music began to expand throughout Europe. Especially the "Jack Trax" compilations, starting in 1987, helped to make rare house records from the U.S. available cheaply in Europe. Several house tracks became #1 hits on the
UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
, starting with Chicago musician
Steve "Silk" Hurley Steve W. "Silk" Hurley (born November 9, 1962), also known as J. M. Silk (for "Jack Master Silk"), is an American club DJ, house music producer, and songwriter. From 1985 to 1988, he had four top-10 singles on the US Dance chart, including the ...
's "Jack Your Body" (1987). The first house record considered to be a major hit overseas is "
Love Can't Turn Around "Love Can't Turn Around" is a 1986 Chicago house song by Farley Keith Williams a.k.a. Farley "Jackmaster" Funk and Jesse Saunders featuring vocalist Darryl Pandy. It holds an important place in the history of house music as the first record in th ...
" by
Farley "Jackmaster" Funk Farley "Jackmaster" Funk (born Farley Keith Williams; January 25, 1962) is an American musician, DJ and record producer of Chicago house and acid house music. He is notable for writing and producing a number of highly influential tracks in th ...
and
Jesse Saunders Jesse Saunders (born March 10, 1962) is an American house music artist, DJ, record producer, film producer, and entrepreneur. His 1984 single, "On & On", co-written with Vince Lawrence, was the first record with a house DJ as the artist that ...
featuring
Darryl Pandy Darryl Pandy (born December 24, 1962, died on June 10, 2011 at age 48Gregory Paratore: "Darryl ...
, which peaked at #10 in the UK Singles Chart in 1986.


Relationship to Garage and Techno

At the same time as house was becoming big in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
, other related genres were forming in other major U.S cities.
Simon Reynolds Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his professional career on the staff of ''Melody Maker'' in the mid-1980s. He has since gone on to freelance and publish a number of full-length books on music ...
' ''A Tale of Three Cities''Brewster (the first chapter of his book ''Generation Ectasy'') looked at the emergence of
techno Techno is a Music genre, genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally music production, produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central Drum beat, rhythm is typ ...
in Detroit, house in Chicago, and
garage A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...
in New York City and the reasons why the cultures took off like they did. Detroit was a unique urban area where industrial jobs had placed blacks and whites in the same economic situations, and this led to the Europhilia of these black youths and popularity of techno music. It was an attempt "to distance themselves from the kids that were coming up in the projects, in the ghetto." (Reynolds, p. 5)


Subculture

Chicago house aesthetic shared its look with other outsider hip hop and punk subcultures; however, the "indisputable sign of house-ness" came to be a "Ralph Lauren preppie meets English country gentleman style, with cardigans, woolen jodhpurs and riding boots."


The club scene

When these house clubs and parties started to appeal to a wider audience, it was similar to the past disco culture in New York City. Both genres originated catering to very specific subcultures and when the popularity grew it changed the whole scene. The posting of 'no jits' signs was "to make them feel unwanted. And that was when the scene started to self-destruct." However, even though there are definitely parallels between house and disco clubs, this seemed more like a reversal of roles. The more elitist house listeners did not want to dilute their clubs and culture. Pages 230-248 of Brewster & Broughton's ''Last Night a DJ Saved My Life'' also looked at the rise of the house scene in Chicago. Through showing Frankie Knuckles club, it gave a look at the club scene that was taking place and the energetic, sweaty, drug-fueled parties that house embodied. "House was a feeling, a rebellious musical taste, a way of declaring yourself in the know," (Broughton 242).


Dance styles

At least three styles of dancing are associated with house music:
Jacking Jacking, Jackin’, or the jack is a freestyle dance move in which the dancer ripples their torso back and forth in an undulating motion. It emerged within the context of Chicago house music in the 1980s. Origins and interpretations The style i ...
, Footwork, and Lofting. These styles include a variety of techniques and sub-styles, including skating, stomping, and shuffle steps (also see Melbourne Shuffle). House music dancing styles can include movements from many other forms of dance, such as and
slamdancing Moshing (also known as slam dancing or simply slamming) is an extreme style of dance, dancing in which participants push or slam into each other, typically performed to "aggressive" live music such as heavy metal music, heavy metal and punk rock ...
,
waacking Waacking (also ''whacking'', ''posing'' or ''punking'') is a form of street dance created in the LGBT clubs of Los Angeles during the 1970s disco era. The style is typically done to 70s disco music and is mainly distinguishable by its rotational ...
,
voguing Vogue, or voguing, is a highly stylized, modern house dance originating in the late 1980s that evolved out of the Harlem ballroom scene of the 1960s. It gained mainstream exposure when it was featured in Madonna's song and video "Vogue" (1990) ...
, African, Latin, Brazilian (including
Capoeira Capoeira () is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance, acrobatics, music and spirituality. Born of the melting pot of enslaved Africans, Indigenous Brazilians and Portuguese influences at the beginning of the 16th cent ...
),
jazz dance Jazz dance is a performance dance and style that arose in the United States in the mid 20th century. Jazz dance may allude to vernacular jazz about to Broadway or dramatic jazz. The two types expand on African American vernacular styles of danc ...
,
Lindy Hop The Lindy Hop is an American dance which was born in the Black communities of Harlem, New York City, in 1928 and has evolved since then. It was very popular during the swing era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Lindy is a fusion of many danc ...
,
tap dance Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perfo ...
,
modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...
. House dancing is concerned with the sensuality of the body and setting oneself free in ecstasy — without the worry of outside barriers. One of the primary elements in house dancing is "the jack" or "
jacking Jacking, Jackin’, or the jack is a freestyle dance move in which the dancer ripples their torso back and forth in an undulating motion. It emerged within the context of Chicago house music in the 1980s. Origins and interpretations The style i ...
" — a style created in the early days of Chicago house that left its trace in numerous record titles such as "Time to Jack" by
Chip E. Irwin Larry Eberhart II, better known by his stage name Chip E. (born 1966), is an American DJ and record producer. Life and career Born in Chicago, Illinois, Chip E. attended St. Ignatius College Prep, Kenwood Academy, Columbia College and D ...
from the "Jack Trax" EP (1985), "Jack’n the House" (1985) by
Farley "Jackmaster" Funk Farley "Jackmaster" Funk (born Farley Keith Williams; January 25, 1962) is an American musician, DJ and record producer of Chicago house and acid house music. He is notable for writing and producing a number of highly influential tracks in th ...
(1985) or "
Jack Your Body "Jack Your Body" is a house music song by Steve "Silk" Hurley, originally released as a single in 1986. It was featured on the album ''Hold on to Your Dream'', released in 1987, under the alias J.M. Silk. History One of the landmark records in ...
" by
Steve "Silk" Hurley Steve W. "Silk" Hurley (born November 9, 1962), also known as J. M. Silk (for "Jack Master Silk"), is an American club DJ, house music producer, and songwriter. From 1985 to 1988, he had four top-10 singles on the US Dance chart, including the ...
(1986). It involves moving the
torso The torso or trunk is an anatomical term for the central part, or the core, of the body of many animals (including humans), from which the head, neck, limbs, tail and other appendages extend. The tetrapod torso — including that of a huma ...
forward and backward in a rippling motion matching to the beat of the music, as if a wave were passing through it. All footwork in house dancing is said to initiate from the way the jack moves the center of gravity through space.


Influence and diaspora

House, perhaps more than any other form of black music, has birthed many offshoots and spread its sound far and wide. The prevalence of four on the floor beats in dance music is largely derived from house. It has influenced, in some capacity, Garage house,
Jungle music Jungle is a genre of dance music that developed out of the UK rave scene and sound system culture in the 1990s. Emerging from breakbeat hardcore, the style is characterised by rapid breakbeats, heavily syncopated percussive loops, samples, and ...
,
Eurodance Euro-Dance (sometimes referred to as Euro-NRG, Euro-electronica or Euro) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s in Europe. It combines many elements of hip hop, techno, Hi-NRG, house music, and Euro-Disco. This ...
, Electropop,
Dubstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken be ...
, and even certain elements of
Alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
and Hip hop. More direct offshoots of house (e.g. Acid house) are also notable for their own offshoots that extend the Chicago variant's family tree. House also partakes in aspects of the musical traditions of other sounds. Most notable is the influence it takes from disco—genre progenitor Frankie Knuckles was himself a relocated New York
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 ...
DJ. In many senses, house was a low-budget re-creation of disco, using synthesizers, sequencers, and samplers in the stead of orchestras and live performers. Disco also participated, to a less notable extent, in the soundsystem culture of typically Caribbean forms of dance music.


See also

*
Warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities ...
, Chicago * Acid house *
Trax Records Trax Records is an American independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It played a major part in the development of house music. History Larry Sherman was originally a collector of vintage jukeboxes, and, frustrated ...
*
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 ...
(black electronic-music venue in 1980s-era
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.Chicago record labels This is a list of record labels based in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivis ...


References


External links


Stuart Cosgrove: History of Chicago House Music
(1988)
Tim Lawrence: Acid – Can You Jack?
– On the early history of Chicago house (2005)
5 Magazine
- Chicago House Music magazine {{Boogierock 20th-century music genres House music genres Music of Chicago Music scenes