West End Records

Larry Levan: Jockey Slut Article (1998)

"Was This Man the Best DJ in the World?"
By Kelvin Lewis, Jockey Slut Magazine (UK), 1998
Reprinted with kind permission.

Larry Levan, who died six years ago, is still considered to be the most influential DJ ever. At the height of his popularity at the legendary Paradise Garage he was like a god for the 2,000 regulars, the creator of skills and tricks that elevated Djing to the artform it is today. Kelvin Lewis traces his history and speaks to the passionate people behind the club. All wannabe DJs and promoters: Take note!

Talk to any New York producer old enough to have been to the Paradise Garage in its heyday, and they'll swear that there never has, and never will be anything like it. Ask any of them from Danny Tenaglia to Dave Morales, and they'll all say the same thing. The Paradise Garage was a one-off. And resident DJ, Larry Levan, was probably the greatest DJ ever to stand behind a set of turntables.

From when it opened in January 1977, to its last party in the Autumn of 1987, the Paradise Garage was the clubbing focal point of New York. A place where dance artists like D-Train and Loleatta Holloway would come to perform. And the place where people like Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Grace Jones and Keith Haring would all hang out. It was the testing ground for labels like West End and Salsoul and producers like François Kevorkian and Levan himself. It was all these things, and much much more. For the 2000 regulars, Larry Levan was like a god. They even tagged his late-night sessions as "Saturday Mass." He did things with records that other DJs just didn't do. He would tell a story with his music. Sometimes sending the crowd crazy and minutes later making them break down and cry. There was, and still is, no DJ like him. He was an insanely talented genius, both behind the turntables and in the studio. And he made the Paradise Garage the legend that it is. "He was the inspiration for all the important DJs in New York today," says Mel Cheren, owner of West End Records and executor of Levan's estate. "People like Junior Vasquez, Frankie Knuckles and David Morales became DJs because of Larry." Judy Weinstein, director of Knuckles and Morales' Def Mix organization agrees: "He was brilliant. A true genius. He was, and still is, the best." And, as for why, six years after his death, Levan and the Garage are still placed at the pinnacle of the clubbing world, fellow disco producer and regular guest DJ at the Garage, François Kevorkian, says this: "The reason why it is so important is because everyone and their mothers were there every weekend checking it out. It was so obviously and blatantly superior to anything else going on. You had the best sound system around, the most talented DJ you can imagine with amazing records that no one else could get. Things he'd made himself and things others had made exclusively for him."