The Loft
It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of The Loft to the history of Dance music. The Loft is simply the name adopted by David Mancuso for his ongoing series of house parties. However, it is these parties that influenced a wide range of Dance clubs and parties to come. The Loft and Mancuso's selection and presentation of music is openly acknowledged as a major influence by many of the most prominent DJs in Dance music. From the humble beginnings of a desire to throw better parties for friends, The Loft helped spark a Dance music revolution that continues to this day.
David Mancuso hosted a number of parties for friends in the mid to late 1960's at his 647 Broadway, New York City loft apartment. In 1969 he ended the parties and embarked on an inner journey that eventually resulted in a spell in the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital. After leaving Bellevue, Mancuso was given an opportunity to regain control of his former apartment and decided to begin hosting rent parties to pay the bills. The first of these took place on Valentine's Day February 14, 1970 with hand-designed invitations sent out to friends bearing the theme 'Love Saves the Day.' The parties soon turned into a weekly event and regular attendees began referring to the events simply as The Loft. The parties continued until legal hassles combined with official complaints about structural issues resulted in Mancuso's eviction in the summer of 1974. The Loft reopened in a larger space at 99 Prince Street October 20, 1975. Mancuso's parties remained at this Loft location until skyrocketing rents caused a second move in 1985. The new location on 3rd Street in the seedy Alphabet City neighborhood resulted in a reduction of crowds attending the parties, but The Loft remained in this location for 10 years. Finally, in 1995, with prospects for affordable locations in downtown Manhattan slim, David Mancuso took The Loft on tour in the U.S. and overseas. Tours have continued to the present. In addition, David Mancuso now hosts Loft parties in an undisclosed New York City location 4-6 times a year.
Sound quality has been a primary concern of David Mancuso from the early days of The Loft. A number of key innovations in club sound design have emerged out of experimentation to create the best possible sound at The Loft . With the assistance of sound system specialist Alex Rosner in the early 1970's, David Mancuso introduced the concept of tweeter arrays and subwoofers to boost both treble and bass frequencies in a club environment. Traditional loudspeakers included a single tweeter for distributing the treble frequencies, but Mancuso insisted on an array of 8 tweeters for each loudspeaker. Hung from the ceiling in a circular array facing all corners of The Loft, the tweeter arrays revolutionized the transmission of sound from the records played. To balance the boost to the high end, Rosner and Mancuso altered bass bottom speakers to introduce what soon became known as the subwoofer for intensifying the low end of the sound spectrum. Following the move to Prince Street, David Mancuso became increasingly insistent that all sound equipment be the highest quality possible even including $3,000 Koetsus needle cartridges for his turntables.
Some of the most lasting influence of The Loft resides with those who attended Loft parties and later became key DJs in the Dance music industry. David Mancuso has a stellar reputation for putting music together to accompany, enhance, or influence the mood of his crowds. From the light music to set the mood at the beginning of an evening to peak, powerfully emotional music to mellow mood music to close out a night, Mancuso is in firm control of the direction of his party. Among the key DJs who acknowledge debts to The Loft and David Mancuso are Paradise Garage's Larry Levan, Gallery DJ Nicky Siano, and Better Days DJ Tee Scott. When tension between club DJs and the record industry over the distribution of records for club play reached a fever pitch in 1975, David Mancuso was instrumental in pulling his fellow DJs together to form the New York Record Pool, the first of its kind, to facilitate equal distribution of music to member DJs.
The music played at The Loft ranged widely. Van Morrison and Traffic was played alongside James Brown, Aretha Franklin and War in the early days. Later the focus was more strongly centered on R&B and Disco. Never one to stick specifically to the mainstream, David Mancuso consistently expanded his audience's notion of what was danceable. In 1973 David Mancuso discovered Manu Dibango's imported recording of Soul Makossa and eagerly played it for his friends at The Loft. His consequent sharing with other key DJs proved the Dance community's ability to develop hit records when the single landed in the Pop and R&B Top 40. David Mancuso went beyond simply playing music and incorporated sounds of nature (water and thunder, for example), lighting effects, and even silence to intensify the experience of his audiences.
The Loft was a key venue in the early rumblings of Disco in the early 1970's and remains an important representative of the unifying power of Dance music today. David Mancuso insists that The Loft will survive as long as he is able to put together the type of parties that are at the spiritual heart of the Dance music community.