New York DJ

Try These Jamaican R & B Tracks to Warm Up Any Winter Event: Rico & the Matador All-Stars, "Continental Shuffle" and Owen Gray & the Jets, "Nobody Else"

With the holidays over and the two coldest months of the year ahead, now is the time when winter in New York City and much of the country quickly loses its romantic appeal and instead becomes, to be polite, a real drag. Sorry to remind you, but remember, the weather doesn't really get consistently nice around here again until around the time we have to get our taxes in.

So, to “tropicalize” the atmosphere of events that you may have planned in the next two or three months of our annual struggle through blizzards, slush, and 37-degree rain, here’s two songs that are sunny, cozy, and fun. Both are Jamaican rhythm and blues tunes. If that genre sounds unfamiliar, don’t be surprised. It’s a rather small and obscure style, but fortunately some of its best songs recently have been made much more accessible for those of you who don’t have the time or interest to spend digging in record crates for hours a day by the release of the excellent compilation Trojan Jamaican R & B Box Set. Both songs here are available on the box set, as well as a few other less comprehensive compilations.

Jamaican R & B, born in the late ‘50s, is both like everything and nothing you’ve heard before. It combines shuffling jazz beats, the upbeat horns of what would soon become ska, festive Trinidadian-accented vocals of calypso, and a bit of the sultriness and gritty attitude of rhythm and blues and early rock ‘n’ roll. Most people are familiar with each of these styles, but put together in the right amounts, they create a sound that feels new and fresh and most of all, cozy and friendly.

Both these mid-tempo songs here have pleasantly catchy melodies that will get your snow-stained shoes tapping at any sort of event. “Continental Shuffle,” by Rico and the Matador All-Stars, a brief but swingin’ instrumental with masterfully mellow, pre-ska "skank" of a horn riff, immediately seems to brightens the mood of any room when we play it. The same reaction happens when we spin “Nobody Else,” by Owen Gray and the Jets. With its sturdy piano, its warm, fuzzy saxophones and its sweet calypso-inflected vocals, the song sounds like what Ray Charles might have recorded if he got his start in Kingston.

Have a listen to both; I think you'll agree they'll make things feel a little less "January-ish."

Matador All-Stars - Continental Shuffle

Owen Gray & the Jets - Nobody Else

Great New York City Songs for Your Event - At Any Time of Year

Well, the New Year is almost here and along with midnight kisses, champagne, and Auld Lang Syne often comes the tradition of watching the ball drop in Times Square. So with New York City in many people's mind's tonight, we thought this a perfect time to bring you a mix of great New York City songs for your events to not just feature at year-end events, but throughout the whole year.

Often at events located in or near the city, no matter what time of the year, we find that playing a few songs that reference New York in some way add an extra sentimental touch, both for those who live here or nearby, and those who have come to the event from out of the state or out of the country. The great thing about the city is that there's been so many songs in so many styles written about it, so therefore we've chosen songs are from a wide range of genres - jazz, soul, rock, folk, indie pop, reggae, hip-hop, merengue, and more. The songs are also from a wide variety of moods, some quiet, some loud, some in between, so you'll find many songs here to everything from a small dinner gathering to a huge corporate party. Many of these songs even helped define these genres they come from. Some of these are classics you've heard many times but still love and would want to hear many more times, some are newer and likely completely unfamiliar, some are only songs you want to hear when drunk, but all feature the city as a central part of the tune and capture an essence of the Big Apple in their own memorable way.

Here is the list of the songs included in the mix (arranged in a consecutive order, generally, of rising party-ability):

1. Take the "A" Train - Duke Ellington
2. Let Me Off Uptown - Mel Tormé
3. The Brooklyn Bridge - Mel Tormé
4. Manhattan - Ella Fitzgerald
5. Autumn In New York - Frank Sinatra
6. Spanish Harlem - Ben E. King
7. Brooklyn and Jamaica - Morgan Heritage
8. Take the L Train (To Brooklyn) Brooklyn Funk Essentials
9. Breakfast In NYC - Oppenheimer
10. Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed
11. Going Home - Luna
12. NYC - Interpol
13. Coney Island - Death Cab for Cutie
14. Wintering in Brooklyn - The Last Town Chorus
15. The Only Living Boy in New York - Simon & Garfunkel
16. The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) Simon & Garfunkel
17. The City - Joe Purdy
18. Fairytale of New York - The Pogues feat. Kirsty MacColl
19. Angel of Harlem - U2
20. New York, New York - Ryan Adams
21. Broadway - Goo Goo Dolls
22. New York City - They Might Be Giants
23. Rockaway Beach - The Ramones
24. Rockin' the Bronx - Black 47
25. Brooklyn - Mos Def
26. South Bronx - KRS-One & Boogie Down Productions
27. New York New York - Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel & The Furious Five
28. No Sleep 'til Brooklyn - Beastie Boys
29. Brooklyn's Finest (feat. The Notorious B.I.G.) - Jay-Z
30. Big Pimpin' (feat. UGK) - Jay-Z
31. Across 110th Street - Bobby Womack
32. Native New Yorker - Odyssey
33. Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do) - Christopher Cross
34. New York Soul - Ray Barretto
35. Funky Broadway - Wilson Pickett
36. 110th St. & 5th Ave. - Tito Puente
37. Un Dia en New York Los Hermanos Rosario
38. Fiesta en el Bronx - Frank River
39. NYC Beat - Armand Van Helden
40. New York City Boy - Pet Shop Boys
41. I Love New York - Madonna
42. I Love NYC - Andrew W.K. 
43. New York State of Mind - Billy Joel 
44. Theme from New York, New York - Frank Sinatra

So, as Frank Sinatra sings in his famous rendition of "New York, New York," let those little town dreams melt away and go listen to the mix here.

All Kinds of Off the Beaten Track Christmas Songs

It’s a few days after Thanksgiving, and, like most everywhere else in the country, in New York City the usual Christmas songs are starting to be played at establishments everywhere there's a sound system, from the tiny bodegas to the biggest department stores.

We know there’s plenty of you out there who don’t want to hear that same old, one-size-fits-all mainstream radio template of holiday songs that essentially boils down to a heavy dose of mid-century crooners with a splash of Paul McCartney or Mariah Carey thrown in now and then. So, we’ve put together an iTunes mix of about 40 excellent Christmas songs, most of which you likely haven’t heard at all. While some of these tunes are traditional Christmas songs that have been covered by newer artists and others are original Christmas songs that have received little or no mainstream radio airplay, taken together, all these songs cover a very  wide range of genres. The only criteria for the mix was that the songs be memorably well-performed, rather unfamiliar or underplayed, but also accessible. In other words, this mix is comprised of music you might hear at a party where the DJ is playing fresh Christmas songs to satisfy all kinds of musical tastes.

To that end, we’ve arranged the mix like you’re arriving at the start of a party: We begin with some ambient tunes, then things pick up from there, building intensity as we move through alt-country, indie pop, loungey electronica, jazz, soul, reggae, soca, salsa, meringue, Latin pop, hip-hop, and rock. Hopefully, after you’ve listened to the mix, you’ll feel good that there’s a lot of fresh Christmas music out there of many styles, and by artists you might not have known had risked potential embarrassment to record Christmas songs!

Some highlights of the mix include the Cocteau Twins' dreamy take on "Frosty the Snowman," which manages the difficult task of sounding ethereal and otherworldly while remaining faithful to the song's simple melody; a remixed version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" that uses thick beats and well-placed horn samples to do a great job of sexing up this often-played song (featured on the album Merry Mixmas that's pictured); and Soca General's "Santa Bring de Soca," a quick, happy burst of tropical-sounding festiveness that will surely get you to look for a place to put your winter coat if you hear the song while anywhere near a dance floor.

So, throw some of the songs from this mix on your iPod, and you might even be able to get through the whole season without even hearing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer."

You can listen to the mix here.

Alicia Keys, "No One" (Curtis Lynch reggae remix)

Ahh, summer is only about a month away, and one of the best kinds of music I like to start welcoming it with at events when the weather starts to tease us with a bit more sun and higher temperatures is the mellow, sunny feel of some great reggae, be it roots or new reggae. I try to play some reggae at events all year. Sometimes, to give people a shot of musical sunniness in the gray dead of winter in NYC, it's really refreshing to hear a set of it. But when summer starts to roll around, come on -- reggae's a must.

Over the past several months, the single "No One" by Alicia Keys has been very popular tune. I like it, but to me, it feels a bit spare in its original mix. However, this "reggae-fied" version seems to give the song just the fullness and bounce it needs. Unlike some reggae remixes of pop or R & B songs, grafting on a reggae sound here does not seem forced at all - I think it actually goes so perfect with the vocal melody of "No One" that I wish this was the orginal mix on her new album.

This remix is also excellent in that the reggae style it's done with feels just right - it's not too beat-heavy, nor is it too light or "new-agey." That balance is excellent, because it allows me to be more versatile, which a DJ always loves. For example, I can be playing a new R & B hit, then play this remix, then go right into some classic roots reggae like Bob Marley, Toots and the Maytals, or Desmond Dekker.

Okay, this mention of sun and reggae is now making me more anxious for summer than ever. Let's hang in there, soon we'll be wearing shades nearly every day again!