House music pioneer talks about the genre

Jesse Saunders, one of the original Chosen Few DJs, celebrated the 35th anniversary of his song, “It’s OK” with remixes of the classic house music record. Photos provided by Jesse Saunders
Jesse Saunders, one of the original Chosen Few DJs, celebrated the 35th anniversary of his song, “It’s OK” with remixes of the classic house music record. Photos provided by Jesse Saunders

 House music pioneer talks about the genre

BY TIA CAROL JONES
     Jesse Saunders is one of the original members of the Chosen Few DJs. In March, Saunders celebrated the 35th anniversary of his song, “It’s OK,” with remixes.
     Saunders described house music as a “culmination of a lot of kids who had too much to do and too many resources to do it with.” Saunders said the house music scene in Chicago came out of Jack and Jill, an organization that was focused on creating a future generation of African-American leaders. “We all grew up together. We all went to Kenwood and Whitney Young, University of Chicago High School, Elizabeth Seaton. Even prior to that, we would all take trips together. Our mothers made sure each month we had an activity,” he said.
      During these trips, Saunders said he would take cassette tapes. He explained how he would take a 45 record, the small section of the drum break or intro. “I always thought to myself, why aren’t those part[s] longer? Those are really the cool parts to me, when the song actually breaks off and does something a little different. So, I started taking the pause button and making my own remixes,” he said.
     Saunders said he would start taking those breaks and adding them to something different, or flipping the parts and putting the beginning at the end. He said he would play the pause button remixes on his boomboxes. “The more I played the stuff, the more people would ask me where are you getting these versions from. I was like, oh, I just make them,” he said. He said that was “kind of like the beginning of where people started to get interested in the whole concept of being able to take something and create something else out of it.”
      Saunders said it was like a culture. He said his stepbrother, Wayne Williams, was already a deejay. “Once he heard what I was doing, and his perspective as a DJ and playing music for people, he thought these versions would kind of take him to the next level as a DJ because nobody else had it,” he said.
     Saunders said, as the popularity of the music grew, they needed more DJs, so they started bringing in Alan King, Tony Hatchet and Andre Hatchet. He said that is how Chosen Few DJs got started. He said from there, clubs started popping up, including the Warehouse, Powerplant, Music Box and the Playground, where Saunders was the resident DJ.
     “The Playground was the first of its kind because it was a huge teen club, it held 1500 people, we’d be packed every week. It had this enormous sound system. When you have more people listening, it generates more talk and it generates more sales in record stores,” he said.
     Saunders said a record store called Imports, Etc., was where the DJs got their records because they had European imports and different versions of music you couldn’t get domestically.
     “It became a thing for everyone to play music that wasn’t commercial. As DJs, we all sought out this different style of something that you wanted to be the first with something so when you played it, people would have to ask what it was. Then, you’d be selfish and not tell anyone so nobody could get it and play it through,” he said. “You had all these things working under the surface, working within a scene the general public knows nothing about at this time.”
       When Saunders started his music label, he enlisted the help of Kirk Townsend, a DJ who has knowledge of radio and record pools. He said once WBMX started playing house music on the radio, it started to spread. In 1983-1984, Saunders started to incorporate drum machines and instruments while he was Deejaying.
     Saunders started Jess Say Records in Jan. 20, 1984. “It’s OK” was an evolution of the house music sound, that Saunders released in 1986. Saunders’ had honed the craft of production and remixing and writing songs, and had a formula of how it worked. He put it under the Force name. Saunders got a deal with Geffen Records and moved to Los Angeles.
     “A few months later, people are calling me talking about this “It’s OK” record and how big it is, and how everybody’s playing it. And, I’m oblivious because I’m not there. It just became a really big record and it spread all over the country and eventually the rest of the world,” he said.
     Saunders hadn’t done anything with the song since it was released 35 years ago. So, he decided for the anniversary to release remixes of the song.
      “The culture of house music started in the late 70s. The actual inception of Chicago house music as we know it as a genre, started in 1984,” he said. “The only thing that’s really changed is the technology is bigger and better, and we’re able to do things in a more efficient way. Obviously, the sound quality is better now, and you’ve got more people doing it now.”
      Saunders said now everyone is going back to the early stuff and using it for the new music.
     “To me, it just kind of keeps evolving, going around, every five to 10 years, a similar sound or maybe a slightly different sound, but it’s pretty much the same thing,” he said.
     For more information on Jesse Saunders, visit www.brokenrecords.us.

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