Way back in 1989, when I was young ginger lad attending university in London UK , I was very much torn between the obvious hedonistic psychedelic pleasures of the nascent rave scene and the sophistications I found in the world of jazz… be it latin jazz, jazz funk, jazzy hip hop, jazz house or, dare I say it… errrr… acid jazz.
For a couple of years I was a regular at a certain Camden Sunday afternoon club helmed by DJ Gilles Peterson and his cohort Patrick Forge entitled Talkin’ Loud Sayin’ Something. I even had a dinky wee membership card, that I was most proud of.
Every Sunday I would shed my raver gear, don a smart brown suit (procured from a second-hand store) coupled with vintage dress shoes, and then take the Tube up to Dingwalls for my Sunday afternoon jazz dance… often going there alone as I could not convince any of my contemporaries to get out of their beds…
At the time I thought that I looked the Bees-Knees, but if the truth be told I’m pretty sure that I looked like a bit of a tit.
Since those halcyon days Gilles has gone on to run innumerable record labels and is recognised as being one of the finest selectors around.
So when I discovered that over the past 20 years he had turned into a bit of a food and wine fanatic, and that he was in Toronto for Havana Club’s Havana Cultura Festival , I just had to catch up with him…
Cue lunch at Delux on Ossington, a bottle of Norman Hardie‘s Pinot Noir, and an interview on a side street…