After Dark: Birth of the Disco Dance Party

Chapter 1

TURNING TO GOLD

“It’s time.”

Even though I couldn't hear him say the words from across the room over the music, I knew what Danny said. When Danny leaned over to signal Tony, he was asking him to give the bartenders a heads up.

A virtuoso of the vinyl, Danny was so skilled at DJing that he intuitively knew when the frenzied dancers needed a break. Thanks to his turntable magic, the “Theme From Shaft,” the hottest song of the day, had been pumping continuously for over 10 minutes, and the dancers were near the point of physical and emotional exhaustion.

A few moments later, Danny slowed down the momentum by playing “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” by The Delfonics. The plan worked. More than a hundred thirsty dancers swarmed the bar, but the bartenders were ready for the rush. They quickly quenched the crowd and sent them back to the dance floor.

“Bar sales should look good for the night,” Tony pointed out to Mr. Chu, the owner of the club.

Mr. Chu nodded. He was clearly pleased to see so many well-dressed people — more than 300 — jammed into his building on a random Thursday night.

I was at the front door with CP and Andre. When Danny glanced over at us, CP gave him a thumbs up.

The year was 1971. The place was the Ginza, a dance club one flight down from street level on East 58th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues in New York City. And it was the first of many soon-to-come events by us, a social club called The Best of Friends (commonly shortened to TBOF). We were eight members doing what we loved, but that night was especially memorable due to the high level of energy generated compared to the dances we had previously been giving with live bands.

Guests, dressed in sharp business suits and stylish dresses, were on their toes dancing the Penguin as multi-colored lights bathed them. It was a young, rather conservative crowd. Still, the combination of powerful, crystal-clear music, rapidly-changing colored lights, and the emotion of dancing created a primal connection to all on the dance floor. The faint aroma of perfume and cologne mixed with that of perspiration from the dancers.

Dancing the Penguin required a lot of energy and stamina. Most dancers were glistening. Some were in a full sweat. The few people who weren’t dancing watched intently, mesmerized by the visual and audio spectacle they were experiencing. It was unlikely any of them had ever witnessed anything like this before.

DJing is an art. It requires the DJ to have his pulse on the music scene and to constantly search for new, hip, danceable sounds. Danny and CP could read the crowd and knew when dancers wanted to reach a higher level of energy. There was an unprecedented, somewhat magical communion between DJ and dancers. It led to a tailored-to-the-moment playlist that encouraged non-stop dancing at a level of intensity that was previously impossible. I was one of eight partners that organized this disco dance party, which guests described as new, fresh, and exciting. I asked CP how he decided what record to play next. He responded “You have to decide if this beat goes well with that beat. It hits you.”

During earlier dance parties that we gave, Danny and CP taught themselves how to cue up a song, like “I Got the Feelin’” by James Brown on one turntable, then switch to a song with a similar beat, like “Dance to the Music” by Sly & the Family Stone on another turntable — all without a mixer. They used two turntables and had to switch from “phono 1” to “phono 2,” but the change was abrupt, so the second record had to be queued up just right to pull it off. It wasn’t always exact, but it was usually pretty close.

The equipment at the Ginza was state of the art, complete with two Technics turntables, earphones, and a sound mixer so as the volume on one record was faded down, the volume on a second record was turned up. That made it easier to continue the beat from one song to another compared to switch- ing from “phono 1” to “phono 2”. Using the earphones, my DJ partners could listen to the second record and, at the top of a bar, hold the record still while the turntable continued to spin underneath. The second record would then be released at the precise moment to keep the beat going without interruption. This enabled the music to be seamless, and dancers never missed a step. Danny and CP knew the music well, especially how certain songs started and ended, which was crucial in transitioning from one record to the next.

Some songs were short, maybe 3 minutes long, so our DJs not only had to be extremely knowledgeable about the music but nimble enough to match the beat. With certain red-hot songs, like “Theme from Shaft” by Isaac Hayes, Danny and CP used two copies of the record to extend the song by playing the bridge (the instrumental part in the middle of many songs), or other parts of the song, over and over again. This technique was never experienced before — at least not by our crowd — and it drove dancers wild!

Perhaps because of this technique and the extraordinary sound system, we were enjoying an unexpected wave of enormous popularity, not for ourselves personally, although there was some of that, but for the exciting and welcoming atmosphere we created. It was the birth of a movement, although we didn’t know it at the time. As Herschel Johnson wrote in Ebony magazine: “For many people, disco patronage approaches religion.”1 From a business standpoint, everything we touched was turning into gold.

After graduating from college in 1968, we formed TBOF as a social club to host dances just like the ones we gave with our college fraternities and social clubs. There was no financial incentive for what we were doing…we just thought it would be fun. There were eight of us, including me, Noel Hankin. We all lived in Queens, New York except for Mal Woolfolk who lived in Te- Teaneck, New Jersey. Mal didn’t join us until 1971 when we specifically sought him out because he seemed to know just about everybody in our cohort and everybody liked him. We believed Mal could attract more people to our events. And he did.

Charles “Danny” Berry lived in Jamaica, a predominantly African American, middle-class neighborhood in Queens, and graduated from C.W. Post in 1968 where he majored in math. He was a quiet force — smart, analytical, and knowledgeable about music, mainly R&B. Danny was one of those guys who could hear a song and not only tell you who recorded it, but he could tell you something about the performer. He was also very observant. These traits made him an extraordinary DJ because he knew how to gauge the mood of dancers and match it with just the right song. After graduating from college, Danny taught math in a junior high school for special needs children. It was a demanding job, but he had enough spare time for other activities. Danny and I, along with a few friends, formed a couple of social clubs that threw successful parties and dances. This proved to be an important stepping-stone for what was to come — the nationwide craze that seemed to grow out of what we started. It was through Danny that I met Tony.

Tony Cooper lived in St. Albans and graduated in 1968 with a degree in psychology and computer science from the New York Institute of Technology. After graduation, he became a 3rd-grade teacher. Tony was savvy, unassuming, and carried himself in such a way that he commanded respect. When he was in high school, Tony played basketball and baseball in local schoolyards and parks. He had an easy laugh and knew a lot of people. All of us had afro hairstyles in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but Tony’s afro was one of the biggest around.

During our college years, Tony was president of a social club that he formed along with several friends called the Kingsmen. They had a clubhouse in Queens that Tony rented from his father where they gave much-talked-about, popular parties on Friday and Saturday nights. That clubhouse, called the Kingdom, was where Tony’s family lived before moving into a new house. The Kingsmen had an attractive and loyal following of mostly middle-class African Americans who primarily lived in the St. Albans and Hollis areas.

The experiences that Tony, Danny, and I, plus a few more of our friends, had during the late ‘60s, prepared us for a journey that dramatically changed the way many New Yorkers socialized. The enormous success of the Ginza was a harbinger of what was to come. But there was no way to anticipate that the impact of our events and the music of the ‘70s would continue to be so influential to this day, now 50 years later.

1 Ebony, February 1977, pg. 54 Discomaniacs get down, style, and profile from coast to coast, by Herschel Johnson.

Chapter 2

QUEENS TO HARLEM

“Hey, man! Where are the parties tonight?”

Andre never knew where the parties were, but he was one of my few friends who had his own car, a VW Beetle. I didn’t have a car, but I always had a list of parties. Since we both had something of value to offer each other, we often hung out together. We got along well and grew to be close friends in short order.

Andre Smith was raised by his mother in the Ravenswood Projects in Astoria, Queens. That’s a pretty tough environment to grow up in, but he excelled in school and graduated from Fordham University. Andre was smart, savvy, and loved technology. He also loved socializing and going to parties. I got to know Andre in the ‘60s when we were college students. Although we went to different colleges, we pledged the same fraternity, which is how we met. We bonded over our mutual love of music, dancing, and socializing. I was also close to Danny Berry and hung out with him on occasion, but he didn’t always have access to a car. However, Danny was one of my best sources for party addresses. Many parties were in the St. Albans area, which is near where Danny lived.

I lived on the other side of town near Baisley Park in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, a more modest community. During the ‘60s we never went to parties in my neighborhood, or Andre’s for that matter. The parties I am talking about were house parties given by young adults who either knew us or knew of us. Parties were typically held in the parents’ homes, often in the basement. We didn’t need an invite. We were almost always welcomed when we arrived. Neighborhoods with the nicest houses typically had the best parties. These nicer neighborhoods were St. Albans, Hollis, Cambria Heights, and Springfield Gardens. But there were also many good parties in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and, on occasion, in New Jersey or out on Long Island.

Andre wanted to make money. He wanted to earn a comfortable living and afford the nicer things in life, therefore his career aspirations were focused on business, and felt this was his best avenue. I suspect growing up in the projects honed his ambition for something better. He had a large, saltwater fish tank in his mother’s apartment. He took that fish tank with him when he got his own apartment on the Upper West Side, which was a big project since his tropical fish were delicate and required the water to be just so. I think Andre liked his saltwater fish because they were unique…a bit of a status symbol. Andre also loved technology and delighted in being the first to get the newest, coolest, latest gadgets and devices, such as computers and telephones. He was one of my few friends who owned a reel-to-reel tape recorder, which we used often for fraternity and house parties. His tape recorder was a Teac, the best brand for a high-fidelity sound. Andre wanted only top-quality electronics.

Wayne Scarbrough was also a good friend. He was smart, practical, and loved to party. As an undergraduate at St. John’s University, he was the best breaststroke swimmer in New York City. Not many people were aware of his accomplishment because we didn’t have much interest in swimming as a sport. And Wayne was the kind of guy who wouldn’t bring it up. But if you asked him, he would tell you about it. Wayne was an only child and lived with his parents in a well-manicured house near Rochdale Village, the world’s largest housing co-op when it was built.

Although we all went to college, it wasn’t a given. Wayne and I went to Shimer Junior High School, grades 7-9, where only a small percentage of students were college-bound, so an academic-oriented high school was not in the cards for most. However, some of us wanted to go to college and I was among them. I got good grades, so I figured I was on track. One day, though, I was called to the guidance counselor’s office.

“Next year, when you move to high school, you will go to Woodrow Wil- son Vocational High School,” my counselor told me rather matter-of-factly.

“Woodrow Wilson?”, my mind was spinning.

“Of course,” she replied.“It is the closest high school to your house. You’ll be able to choose from many different trades to learn…auto mechanic, carpentry, welding. You should have no trouble finding a job right after high school.”

She was right. But I knew that I wanted to take a different route.

“I want to go to college.”

I will never forget the look on her face. It was pure disappointment. In the 1960s, guidance counselors didn’t encourage everyone to go to college. Their job was to steer people, particularly black males, toward vocational training.

“John Adams is already over-crowded,” she explained. “There is no room for you there.” John Adams was the closest academic high school to my neighborhood. I didn’t know anything about it other than the fact that it had an academic curriculum, which was essential if you wanted to go to college. Students at Woodrow Wilson were rough around the edges and seemed older than high school age like they were already wary of the drudgery.

“But, I want to go to college,” I repeated.

I wasn’t the only one. There were enough Shimer students on my side of town who wanted an academic education to justify creating a John Adams High School annex at Woodrow Wilson. That fall, about a hundred of us went to the annex for the 10th grade. Since the main building of John Adams was several miles away, we missed out on all extracurricular activities — no band, no track team, no opportunity to write for the school newspaper. I had to wait to do all these things until we attended the 11th and 12th grades in the main building.

Aside from delivering the Long Island Daily Press newspaper to subscribers, my first summer job was with the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, otherwise known as the A&P. I had to go to their headquarters office in downtown Manhattan to take a test. I did well on the test — so well that my score surprised the administrators. I was only 16 but based on my test score, I was eligible to man a cash register in my local store. But when I reported for duty at my local A&P, all they wanted me to do was take out the garbage and pull and dust the shelves. Pulling shelves meant pulling cans and boxes forward to the front of each shelf, to make the shelves look full and tidy. Looking back, I should have insisted on manning a cash register.

As a senior at John Adams, I took advanced placement (AP) classes in physics, biology, and chemistry to help prepare for a career in medicine. I did well at John Adams and started making plans for college. Once again, I sought the advice of the school counselor. My parents were immigrants from the Caribbean and not good at navigating the college admission system. And once again, I was disappointed by what my guidance counselor told me.

“Don’t apply to Queens College. You need a 90 average to get in and you only have an 88 average so you will lose your $10 application fee,” the counselor told me.

Queens College was part of the City University of New York (CUNY) and tuition was free if you qualified. My parents had already told me they wanted me to go to college, but they didn’t have the money to pay for it. I was not aware of student loans or academic scholarships so going away to college was out of the question. Therefore, when the counselor advised me not to even apply to Queens College, I didn’t think to question it. I was deflated but figured I’d work during the day and go to school at night. Fortunately, I mentioned my situation to a friend named Ricky Mangum. Ricky told me that if I applied to Queens College, they would “bicycle” the application to the other CUNY colleges in the order I specified so that each could determine if I qualified. Based on that advice, I applied and listed Queens College first, then the other four-year colleges, and finally the community colleges.

I was jubilant when an acceptance letter arrived from Queens College. What my guidance counselor failed to recognize was that my three AP courses pushed my GPA well over 90.