Moodymann at Jazz Cafe

Moodymann at Jazz Cafe

21 July, 2008
by: Robin

On Gilles Peterson's Radio 1 show recently, Moodymann (in his first ever interview) said that he likes coming to London because the transport's good, the people are less racist than in Detroit and he quite likes the rain. He also said, "If you want a hot DJ, I’m probably the wrong person to call." Well, someone at the Jazz Café in Camden called him anyway, and yeah, he was actually pretty hot.

The idea fits in with the return to genuine house music that's happening at the moment among a few people who are bored of minimal and electro-house. (It's definitely happening in Germany, so like both of those things, eventually it'll transfer over here.) Moodymann's style is lo-fi, heavy on classic samples (even though he's a virtuoso singer and keyboardist) and appeals to serious thirty-somethings who insist on only listening to 'soulful' music and say they don’t understand anything over 125 beats per minute. Fair enough if that makes you think of boring, MOR shit, but by being weird and talented he manages not to come off as bland. On the night, he also played some spacey synth-disco - which was great - and, typically, quite a few proper soul and disco records, which wasn't as interesting, but went down well with the enthusiasts of smooth.

It's hard not to have a decent impression of Moodymann anyway, seeing as he's modest and says nice things about London, but in person he turned out to be very charming. For one thing, any house DJ gets bonus points for not playing music that makes your head feel like it’s the big bit of MDF in that saucy Benny Benassi video. Secondly, he has lots of personality for an electronic music producer and does a good turn as compere. He has a super-cool voice, graciously asks everyone how they are and explains what he’s doing, and even does competitions. In one, you could win five pounds by telling him what year the track he was playing was made. Loads of Moodymann nerds went up to guess, but everyone got it wrong because it turned out it had been recorded the night before in a hotel room.

Some people might not want to believe this, but there comes a time in life when it seems a better idea to shuffle around with an 'older crowd' on a Thursday night than it does to spend the time between 10 pm on Saturday and 10 am on Sunday sandwiched between the hard, damp bodies of young, idle Europeans who live at the T Bar. But there does, and if you haven’t already got already there, when you do you’re probably going to really like Moodymann.

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Robin