VA - 15 Years Of Body & Soul [2CD Set] (2011)

Body & Soul was born out of wanting to do something different from the clubs that were being filled in Manhattan, NYC every week. British promoter John Davis approached Francois about doing a party modelled on the London afterhours style, starting Sunday morning when the other clubs had shut. The party was to be in a warehouse in a corner of lower Manhattan that still, in those days, hadn’t been developed. Club Vinyl as it was known would become an integral part of Body & Soul. New York City is no stranger to underground dance parties overseen by DJs with priestly powers of musical beneficence. Dating at least back to David Mancuso’s Loft of the early ‘70s, and certainly including places like Nicky Siano’s Gallery and the vaunted land of the Paradise Garage with head wizard Larry Levan, there is a real tradition of dark, off-the-beaten-path places where music and personal expression through dance reign supreme. Places where “you felt special for being part of it, yet at home enough to truly relax and let go on the dance floor, together.” This last description comes from a manifesto published to announce the birth of a party that would become a part of that revered lineage, Body & Soul.