Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Jesse Saunders - On & On

JS 9999
How about a record that was actually made in Chicago?  How about something by one of the originators of House Music?  How about what is arguably the first commercially released House record?  Jesse SaundersOn & On is it.

Jesse Saunders was already a well-known DJ when he laid these tracks down on wax in 1984.  Legend has it that Jesse’s signature record (a bootleg disco mix by MACH called On and On) was stolen so he decided to recreate the main loop on his own and thus was born Jesse Saunders' On & On.  I don’t know how true this is but it’s a good story.  I do know that when this record came out, DJ’s and fans alike went nuts.  Everybody had to have a copy of this single by a local boy we could relate to.

Musically, On & On was not especially groundbreaking to Chicago audiences.  Other DJ’s were also using the 909 and 808 to create their own beats and mixing them from cassette or reel-to-reel in their sets.  The handclap-heavy, four on the floor beat with incessant cowbells and rimshots was already in fashion in the Windy City.  Jesse’s innovation was to show that you could sell this music.  He proved that House music fans would support a thriving local scene that included record sales as well as club attendance.  This record's success also showed that pure drum tracks (what would later become known as DJ tools) could sell well to the general public. Pretty soon every DJ was putting out a disc of their "go-to" drum tracks.

The flip side of this record, five classically sparse Chicago House drum tracks, has what I consider to be the most significant track on this release: 119.  This “song” became an even bigger hit than On & On.  Jesse had been using this track in his sets long before the record came out (hence the parenthetical, 1984 in the title) and crowds knew it well.  They even knew it by name.  I remember hearing folks at the Playground (club) yell “119!” from the dancefloor as a way of requesting it.  I think it was named after it’s BPM but how everyone (my friends and I included) knew it’s name before the record came out remains a mystery.  After this record was released, every DJ in Chicago began including it in their sets and it remained a popular break long after On & On was considered a dated novelty.

Jesse Saunders continued to record music on his own Jes Say label, Mitchbal, Precision, and others.  His collaborator for On & On, Vince Lawrence, also continued to create music in collaboration with Jesse, on his own, with his band Z-Factor, and under the pseudonym, Virgo.

Track List

Side One
On & On

Side Two
119 (1984)
5A
1A
4A & B
Im the D.J.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing these amazing masterpieces. Groove lessons for the digital age!!

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  2. Nice blog! The crowd probably knew the 119 track from the record that Jesse copied and reworked which was Adam & Fleisner's "Mix Your Own Stars". Peace!

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