Gilles Peterson

Got this email from my friend just now, had to pass it along.

Friday night I went to see this dj Gilles Peterson in Brooklyn. It was so dope. One of those nights where you thank your stars you’re living in a city with good music. He played a lot of old soul stuff from his famous crate digging, but then tons of other stuff. Electronic, Brazilian, … Genres I couldn’t put a name to. Everything was danceable and I left sweaty (and alone, sadly) at 430am. Somehow over the course of typing this email it occurred to me that you would have enjoyed the show. And what’s more, that you’re one of the few people I know who would have not only enjoyed the eclectic nature of the music, but would have also been dancing and sweating all the way to the end too.

At the end of the show I felt this tremendous gratitude to the guy for going and finding all those records — and he was playing vinyl. And for the fact that someone along the way probably told him to stick to one genre, but he just couldn’t. But mainly for the fact that, as someone who loves music, he just had to play records his own way. The end of the jam felt like some sort of small revival. Almost like the small group of people who were there were no longer listening to records and dancing, but were experiencing something. Like we weren’t there to hear Gilles Peterson, we were there to be with Gilles Peterson.

He’s playing one more date tomorrow night at this big sticky club in the city. And I’m going to do the same thing all over again.

Gilles Peterson