EDM’s roots in Black America: Garage House
Much like how House music rose out of the Chicago nightclub scene, the same can be said for one of its most notable offshoots: Garage House, which is known by many other names such as the New Jersey Sound (or, just, “Jersey Sound,” but not to be confused with, “Jersey Club,”), the Newark Sound, and New York House. Garage House has spread like wildfire overseas, particularly in the United Kingdom where it evolved into U.K. Garage which maintains a significant, dedicated following still. U.K. Garage also ties back to the production of Big Fish Theory, a.k.a. the reason why I’m writing a trilogy of articles about house and techno to begin with. After reading and listening to the history of all these genres, the influences are almost as plain as day.
Around the same time frame that house music was taking off in Chicago (which you should read first, btw), it was also making its way up the Northeast Corridor, and evolving into something simultaneously similar, yet distinct. Similar to how Chicago house can largely be attributed to DJ Frankie Knuckles’ time mixing at The Warehouse (depending on who you ask), Garage house as a genre can be almost entirely credited to DJ Tony Humphries and his stint with the influential Club Zanzibar, and DJ Larry Levan at Paradise Garage.
Club Zanzibar operated in downtown Newark, New Jersey, from 1979 to 2000 (according to The New York Times). Originally, Club Zanzibar was an old Holiday Inn with an upstairs ballroom. Miles Berger bought the Holiday Inn, remodeled it, then renamed it the Lincoln Motel, which also included a dance club called Abe’s in the aforementioned ballroom. However, Abe’s struggled, due to its incredibly small venue and already saturated nightclub scene. Abe’s resident DJ at the time, DJ Gerald T, saw untapped potential, and convinced Berger to redo the club, get a new sound system, and let him rent it out.
The opening night was a hit, Berger made his investment back (and then some) within six months. Still, the club wasn’t as iconic as it would come to be. The first push Club Zanzibar got towards legendary status came when Berger promoted doorman Al Murphy to manager. Murphy had plenty of ideas for the club, such as hosting a weekly gay night, and bringing in DJ Larry Levan from Paradise Garage in New York City. Due to both being an openly gay black man and having a documented drug addiction, Levan wasn’t booked for really any other venues in the area outside of Paradise Garage.
Larry Levan at Paradise Garage
This feels like an appropriate time to segue to Paradise Garage’s role in Garage house (although based on the word, “garage,” you can probably do the math). Paradise Garage predates Club Zanzibar, though not by much: Paradise Garage opened in 1977, two years before Abe’s got its makeover into Club Zanzibar. Still, those two years mattered, as a lot of the early decision making at Club Zanzibar revolved around this idea of building a New Jersey version of Paradise Garage:
“We went to New York, New York and Studio 54 but neither of them were predominantly black… The Paradise Garage was on a totally different level in terms of size and scope, and the crowd was also black so we figured that if they liked it at the Garage then they'd like it in Newark."
- Miles Berger (Lawrence, 415)
“Torales remembers Berger's excited report. ‘He said, 'I've seen the best club ever! I've seen the most beautiful black men kissing!' He loved the atmosphere and wanted to create a club like that in Newark."
- Lawrence, 415
“Our crowd was much straighter and we weren't as sophisticated as Manhattan, but basically we were the New Jersey version of the Paradise Garage.”
- Miles Berger (Lawrence, 415)
Having Levan boosted the club’s popularity, as well as its significance in Newark’s LGBTQ community but, at this time Club Zanzibar (and Paradise Garage, as well) was still closer to a gaudy discotheque than anything happening in Chicago. ALL THIS IS TO SAY: it wasn’t until Murphy was introduced to DJ Tony Humphries that the club became THE hot spot. Humphries was doing mixes for Kiss FM in New York City (98.7 FM WRKS at the time, now WEPN), where he flipped and remixed popular songs and hosted his own show on Fridays and Saturdays.
Calling Tony Humphries a breath of fresh air would be a bit disingenuous, as Club Zanzibar was successful before him. Still, the importance of Humphries’ residency at Club Zanzibar can’t be denied (I mean, you’re reading an article about it so, y’know); his mixes were so popular and different, record store owners could tell when he was mixing a certain song because customers would come in looking for that record. In the same way that Frankie Knuckles and his contemporaries in Chicago were making new grooves using the rhythms in disco records, Humphries and Levan used more soulful music as the basis of their remixes (Newark was/is known for having prominent roots in gospel music).
Club Zanzibar’s open arms attitude towards its LGBTQ community (again, similar to that of The Warehouse in Chicago and Paradise Garage in SoHo), combined with the more spiritual, vocal based rhythms from Humphries, gave the club a warm and inviting energy that helped it thrive. Outside of the club’s doors, this could not be further from the case. Downtown Newark in the 1980s wasn’t exactly the safest place to just hang around; even Miles Berger, the man who owned the building and took a chance on Club Zanzibar, had grown disgusted by what the area had become by the time the building was demolished in 2007.
Humphries departed Club Zanzibar around the early 1990s, as the club separated from its Garage House roots, and shifted to more of a hip-hop centered culture. Unfortunately, as Humphries puts it, this resulted in a less inviting, and more violent environment, one that he felt he had to get away from. Luckily for him (but perhaps not as lucky for Club Zanzibar), recordings of his mixes were rapidly gaining popularity in the U.K. and clubs across the Atlantic were interested in offering him residencies. After much debating with himself, he eventually agreed to perform at a few festivals before landing a residency at Ministry of Sound.
Around the same time, Levan’s personal life and health were in rapid decline: Paradise Garage closed in 1987 and Levan was unable to find other consistent residencies. His drug addiction was getting the best of him and he ended up selling most of his equipment for cash. Despite a brief comeback tour around Japan in 1992, Levan called it quits on music for good before dying of heart failure on November 8, 1992.
Losing Humphries and Levan so close together left a vacuum in the area’s culture and, with the entire area becoming more known for violence and drug abuse, the once warm and welcoming Garage house scene would become a thing of the past.
But, despite what Club Zanzibar ended up becoming, it can’t be denied that in its heyday, it was THE place to be. Levan and Humphries pioneered a unique type of House music that was undoubtedly Newark/New York’s own. From the first-time thousands swarmed the club to its tragic decline, Club Zanzibar was an iconic spot with equally as iconic décor and guests. A few notable guests of Club Zanzibar included: Chaka Khan, Grace Jones, Patti Labelle, and Joe Robinson of Sugar Hill Records (apparently, Robinson premiered “Rapper’s Delight” at Club Zanzibar weeks before its formal release). Humphries’ popularity with Ministry of Sound has caused Garage to be more closely associated with the United Kingdom, but undoubtedly, its roots lie in Black American culture.
Proof:
Jacobs, Andrew. “Newark Loses Unwanted Landmark as Lincoln Motel Goes.” The New York Times, 8 Oct. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/nyregion/08newark.html.
Moore, Darnell L., et al. “A Community's Response to the Problem of Invisibility: The Queer Newark Oral History Project.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, vol. 1, no. 2, 2014, pp. 1–14. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/qed.1.2.0001. Accessed 24 Dec. 2020.
Owens, Frank. “Larry Levan: Paradise Lost.” Vibe, Nov. 1993, p. 62., https://books.google.com/books?id=zScEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PT8&dq=Vibe%20Paradise%20Lost&pg=PT63#v=onepage&q&f=false
Strub, Whitney, and Beryl Satter. “History of Queer Club Spaces in Newark | Queer Newark.” Rutgers, Queer Newark Oral History Project, 16 Apr. 2016, queer.newark.rutgers.edu/resources/history-queer-club-spaces-newark.
Tantum, Bruce, and Julie Winokur. “The Newark Sound.” Newest Americans, 22 Jan. 2016, https://newestamericans.com/the-newark-sound/
“Turbulence: Backlash and Survival.” Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979, by Tim Lawrence, Duke University Press, Durham; London, 2003, pp. 363–432. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11cw9vf.16. Accessed 16 Dec. 2020.