New York Post-Disco & Boogie

Disco keeps dancing while the bands and machines change places.

What you're really asking

Listen for the handover: a live bass feeling against a programmed rhythm, a big soul voice over a smaller electronic arrangement. New York's post-disco records kept club music moving into the early 1980s.

Boogie is one way through that world, not a name for every record in it.

Where it sits

Disco's commercial backlash did not close New York's dancefloors. Independent labels including Prelude, West End, Salsoul and SAM continued to supply DJs with extended mixes, while producers changed instrumentation and arrangement.

The Paradise Garage and its wider DJ network helped records circulate and develop identities in use. The period links earlier disco to electro and house, but those developments overlap rather than follow one tidy sequence.

The scene

Who: D Train, Taana Gardner, Inner Life, the NYC Peech Boys, Leroy Burgess, Patrick Adams, François Kevorkian and Larry Levan. Labels and rooms connect singers, studio musicians, remixers and dancers.

What: strong bass, vocal personality, electronic detail and arrangements built for the 12-inch. This scene centres on that New York network; boogie made elsewhere and later private-press rediscoveries need their own evidence.