Snowboy Presents The Hi Hat (The Worlds No 1 Real Jazz Dance Session) CD

The story of The Hi Hat starts way back in 1978, when Mark Cotgrove aka Snowboy (but back then Djing under the name of Mad Marx) used to hire The Goldmine Club on Canvey Island, Essex to promote and play jazz music on a wednesday night. Fast forward to 1986 and a new venture alongside fellow DJs Bob Jones and Phil Levine is in the pipeline. Stuck for a name, Snowboy suggested "The Hi Hat" and since then it has stuck. The next few years saw the session grow in size, and with a change of venue also a temporary change in name to "Across The Tracks". The next chain in the story is a certain club promoter called Eddie Piller, owner of the legendary Acid Jazz label. In 1995, having opened his seminal Blue Note Club in the heart of Hoxton, Eddie approached Snowboy to host a Jazz Dance session. Reviving the Hi-Hat name, the event kicked off in January of 1995 - attracting the best dancers in London and further afield, it wasn't long before it was gaining the reputation of the hardest session in the land! With a few more venue changes along the way, the Hi-Hat finally settled at the legendary Jazz Café - and is still packing them in to this day! The music on this, the third in "The Hi-Hat" series, is a reflection of the hard-hitting dancefloor jazz that is held in high regard at the session. All of the tracks have become anthems in their own right, with many of the artists playing live to the crowd of dancers and audience over the years. The UK's Sirius B have made many friends at the Hi-Hat, as have Holland's New Cool Collective - an 11 piece tour de force of jazz, latin and afro. Others, such as Brighton's Cubana Bop serve up a cool slice of afro cuban and the dangerously uncompromising 'Free' Afro-Jazz of World Saxophone Quartet's cover of Miles Davis' "7 Steps To Heaven" really sorts the men from the boys on the floor. Also featured is a rare and compelling live version of "Sunny Day" by Jon Lucien (known simply in certain circles as "The Voice") alongside floorfillers from brazillian percussion legend Airto Moreira plus classics from Bobby Sanabria and McCoy Tyner.

Jazz Dance Chart