Acid Jazz

A movement and a fashion of spontaneous origin. In September 1988, with what many will remember as the second “Summer of Love” gone, after the first and classic one of 1967, Acid was the term most in vogue. Just like punk, zazou, swing, and hip hop, it indicates at the same time both everything and nothing. These words are the empty square necessary to play the game, as in Chinese checkers. Specifically, the term acid jazz aids in the recovery of much material from periods past which would otherwise be in the hands of solitary enthusiasts. For deejays like Gilles Peterson and Edward Piller, in search of valid alternatives for listeners tired of the monotony of Acid House, it was an opportunity to make people dance while mixing Gil Scott-Heron and Aaron Neville with unobtainable and rare discs by obscure jazz vocalists along with Betty Carter and Etta Jones and much else under a new label. Dress codes also became fresh and neat. Shoes could be sneakers or fake crocodile loafers, without worry; polo shirts could be those with open-work by Duffer of St. George or the surfwear-inspired ones by Stussy and Quicksilver; raincoats by Burberrys or ones of suede bought second-hand: but everything was always mixed with extreme taste and with respect for the traditions of the past. In this sense, it was a genuine post-modern style.