Mancky

Rafters was a basement club in St James’ Buildings, Oxford Road (later called The Music Box.) The Rafters jazz-funk nights, DJ’d by Colin Curtis and John Grant, ran from 1978-82.

The jazz-funk scene was all about virtuosity - the (mostly instrumental) music and the dancing were executed at break-neck speed - so it was a connoisseurs’ scene, and male-dominated. Many jazz-funk albums were released in Japan and so had indecipherable titles and sleeve-notes.

Lee Ritenour - Captain Fingers (1977)

Mid-’80s Berlin Tuesday nights were a bit different. Situated in another basement dive just behind Kendals, Colin Curtis and Hewan Clarke’s night ran from 1983-87, offering a music-policy compromise: the first half of the night was retro jazz-dance music (often with vocals, often latin) while the second half of the night was soul, usually a slow groove, mainly ’80s tunes.

Many of the jazz/jazz-latin tracks which were played at Berlin in the ’80s subsequently turned up on the Street Sounds Jazz Juice compilations, for instance:

Gilberto Gil - Maracatu Atomico

The Rafters jazz-funk survivors would dominate the Berlin dancefloor until midnight and then the younger soul crowd would take over when the music changed. The Rafters dancers had broadened their repertoire since the earlier jazz-funk nights however; in particular The Jazz Defektors had adopted a balletic dancing style which worked better with slower numbers.

The music at Band On The Wall last Saturday didn’t really include the retro jazz-dance music played at Berlin - but then there were only a few people who could really jazz-dance at BOTW on Saturday… Danny Henry and a couple of other guys… so perhaps this is why the DJs played funky soul with just a few short bursts of Rafters-style jazz-funk.

Also, the DJs may have calculated that people out on Saturday wanted to hear 1980s soul… even though the original Berlin night eventually became more famous for the jazz-dancing.

The last few ‘club’ nights I’ve attended at BOTW have been marred by over-dominant DJs hogging the on-stage limelight, but thankfully this didn’t happen at BOTW on Saturday; the focus was firmly on the music. Hewan Clarke and Colin Curtis hardly spoke and Mike Shaft talked much less than at the Rafters Reunion in August.

And the crowd were really laid-back, which was very refreshing; there was a great atmsophere and people had come along because of the DJ line-up, but they weren’t going to go overboard.

Hewan Clarke played some jazz-funk and jazz-dance early on. Danny Henry relished dancing to ‘Expansions’ by Lonnie Liston Smith:

Lonnie Liston Smith - Expansions (1975)

Hank Crawford - Sugar Free

Then Mike Shaft played soul/funk classics of the 1970s and ’80s; songs like Luther Vandross’s ‘Never Too Late’, Roy Ayers’ ‘Running Away’, Postive Force’s ‘We Got The Funk’ and Rose Royce’s ‘Magic Touch’:

Rose Royce - Magic Touch (1984)

Colin Curtis didn’t come on until the very end; he thanked Hewan Clarke and Mike Shaft for ‘warming up’ for him, which I thought was a bit rich seeing as they’d played for most of the night.

With his beard and grey hair, tied back in a pony-tail, he looked like a ‘soul viking’! He played a great set although there were only a couple of jazz-funk tracks, and the music was generally more mainstream than I would have expected.

This is Danny and a couple of guys dancing to the jazz-funk:

I really enjoyed hearing Gwen McCrae’s ‘Funky Sensation’ and Midnight Star’s ‘Curious’, which I now love, but which I probably wouldn’t have appreciated in 1985!

Gwen McCrae - Funky Sensation (1981)

Midnight Star - Curious (1984)

I was really surprised when Colin Curtis played Sister Sledge; it was a really good funky modern remix:

Sister Sledge - Thinking Of You (Dimitri From Paris Remix 2010)

Then, right at the end, he played Isley Brothers’ ‘Harvest For The World’… and it took me right back! I had completely forgotten that this was played every week at Berlin - and this was before The Christians covered it (and ruined it for everyone.)

Isley Brothers - Harvest For The World (1976)

He finished with Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On?’ which again, I think he played at the end of every Berlin night, but I had completely forgotten:

Marvin Gaye - What’s Going On? (1970)

When I heard those two last songs so unexpectedly, they reminded me of actually being in Berlin, circa 1985/86, and I caught a sudden glimpse of that old excitement of knowing that there are hundreds of amazing records out there just waiting to be discovered!

The Berlin nights for me were about discovering new music. Even though the jazz sounds and some of the soul records were retro - most of them were new to me!

I’ll always be grateful to Hewan Clarke and Colin Curtis for playing those records in a local Manchester club… just as I’m grateful to all the dancers for the inspiring spectacle of their dancing. It is amazing, looking back, that something of such quality was on my doorstep!

(And thanks to my friend Angela Schaffer who first took me to the Tuesday night at Berlin around ’84/’85.)