Gilles Peterson

Peterson was first heard as a DJ on the London pirate radio station Radio Invicta, Peterson spent his teenage years putting up radio transmitters for the pirates and playing on stations such as K-Jazz.[9] Brought up in the suburban South London soul scene Peterson was exposed to a variety of music.[10] He went on to host Mad on Jazz on BBC Radio London in 1986–87, and became known on the London circuit as a DJ specialising in the new breed of "acid jazz", drawing on the jazz, funk, Latin fusions and Brazilian music[11] of the 1970s.

In March 1990, Peterson joined London's first-ever dedicated jazz station 102.2 Jazz FM at its launch. The three-hour show was stripped into sections including the "Samba 60" and the "Vibrazone". Artists as diverse as the Freestyle Fellowship, Sérgio Mendes and Leon Thomas would all appear on the same playlist. He was dismissed from the station after playing anti-war songs and making anti-war comments during the first Gulf War.[12]

Peterson would then join Kiss FM in 1991, the station having become legal the year before. In his "Vibrazone" shows on Kiss FM he played acts as diverse as Josh Wink, Gang Starr and Horace Silver in the space of a single programme. Features included the "Herbie Sessions".

From 1998 to 2012, through his BBC show Worldwide – which was originally produced by longtime collaborator Benji B, Karen P (Folded Wing), Ben Cave, Beccy Grierson, Alex Kenning, and Dave O'Donnell – Peterson continued to present a wide range of music that may be new to its young audiences. The show always presented a combination of new, older and often very rare records from the late 1950s to 1980s. Every three months or so, Peterson dedicated a whole show to older vinyl releases in a special version of his show he subtitled as Brownswood Basement; two associated compilation albums with the same name containing older personal classics have been released on the United States label Ubiquity Records's offshoot Luv N' Haight.

In August 2004, the show moved from Wednesday (midnight till 2 am) to an earlier Sunday slot (11 pm to 1 am), with a spectacular live outside broadcast from The Big Chill at Eastnor Castle Herefordshire, featuring Bugz In The Attic performing a DJ set, and interviews with house DJ Tom Middleton and Mr. Scruff. One of the highlights of the changed format BBC Radio 1 show was the special sessions from the BBC's Maida Vale Studios. These included artists such as Roots Manuva, Björk and Floating Points. In September 2006, the show was moved from Sunday night to Tuesday night/Wednesday morning between 2 am and 4 am. The first show included a live appearance from Lupe Fiasco.

In late 2011, Peterson announced that after 13 years at the station he would be leaving BBC Radio 1, following his last show in the early hours of Wednesday 28 March and moving to a new show on BBC Radio 6 Music. Peterson started a new three-hour Saturday afternoon show on BBC Radio 6 Music, beginning on Saturday 7 April 2012, running weekly from 3 to 6 pm, and giving him an extra hour of broadcast time. Like his previous Radio 1 programme, it is made by independent production company Somethin' Else for the BBC.[13][14] He also presents a weekly show on RTÉ 2XM, 2-4pm on Mondays.[15]

A new global music-radio platform named Worldwide FM was launched by Gilles Peterson in 2016 with Boiler Room co-founder Thristian Richards[7] in September 2016. Following the success of the Grand Theft Auto V in-game radio station of the same name, WorldWide FM has expanded into the real world with Peterson and Richards hosting shows alongside a hand-picked roster of the finest DJs and selectors from five continents. Since the launch, the station has gone out on the road broadcasting across Europe, the US and Asia, with pop-ups in Amsterdam (ADE), Los Angeles (How We Do LA), Marseille (Le Gallette), Milan (Jazzmi Festival), Paris (Le Mellotron), Tokyo (HMV Shibuya), and closer to home, at the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair (Somerset House). The station is Powered by WeTransfer and broadcasting from The Pyramid radio studios in north London.

Upon leaving BBC London in 1987, Peterson took up a new Sunday afternoon residency at Dingwalls in Camden. It was around the same time that he'd started BGP Records, a sub-label of Ace Records focused on soul, funk and jazz dance, together with DJ Baz Fe Jazz.[16] Playing alongside fellow London DJ Patrick Forge, the night, dubbed Talkin' Loud And Sayin' Something, ran for five years. It coincided with the rise of acid house in UK clubland and would grow to establish itself as a legendary session.[17] The sessions were characterised by jazz dancers in suits, hats and spats, well-known jazz dance classics including tracks from Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Freddie Hubbard, Airto, Herbie Hancock, and the anthemic In The Fast Lane by Jean-Luc Ponty; but the jazz was fused with hip-hop and the more experimental tracks. It was at a Special Branch show, with fellow DJ Chris Bangs, that the term "acid jazz" was coined, starting as an in-joke. At the time, acid house was in the ascendant, and at one of the shows Bangs played a rare groove record, grabbed the mic and shouted: "Fuck that, if that was acid house, this is acid jazz!”.[17] DJs Femi Williams and Marco Nelson from Young Disciples claimed in a recently unearthed 1992 TV interview that they coined the term because they had a club with acid playing downstairs and jazz upstairs, so they thought it would be amusing to name the upstairs room "The Acid Jazz Room".[18] The veracity of this claim predating Peterson's is dubious, as the interview in question took place five years after the Acid Jazz label was created, and Young Disciples were first active three years after the formation of the label.[19]

In 1988, Peterson and Eddie Piller founded Acid Jazz Records, a label whose roster included the Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, Corduroy, the James Taylor Quartet and Snowboy.

In 1990, Peterson founded record label Talkin' Loud, enlisting the help of fellow DJ Norman Jay, who formed his own Global Village label. The Talkin' Loud roster included Nuyorican Soul (a side project of the producers Masters At Work), Courtney Pine, MJ Cole, Young Disciples, Incognito, Terry Callier, The Roots, Galliano and Roni Size's project Reprazent. The first release from Talkin' Loud was a self-titled compilation in 1990 featuring artists Galliano, Jalal of the Last Poets, Incognito, Young Disciples, Wild & Peaceful, and Ace of Clubs. The label saw five of its artists nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, with Roni Size's Reprazent winning the award in 1997 for the album New Forms.[20] The iconic Talkin' Loud logo was created by Ian Swift (Swifty) who also designed the magazine Straight No Chaser.

Peterson's current record label, Brownswood Recordings, was launched in 2006. The label's early releases includes the likes of British singer/songwriter Ben Westbeech, 45-piece orchestral ensemble The Heritage Orchestra, Japanese punk jazz band Soil & "Pimp" Sessions, Brooklyn-based pianist Elan Mehler and jazz vocalist José James. More recently, they've released music by Zara McFarlane, Ghostpoet's Mercury Prize-nominated debut and their long-running compilation series, compiled by Peterson, called Brownswood Bubblers. On 8 October 2006, both Peterson and Forge played the first of many annual reunion shows at the old site of Dingwalls (now a Jongleurs comedy club), with a compilation album of popular tracks from the club also being released at the same time in 2006 entitled Sunday Afternoon at Dingwalls.[21] This was just one among many other significant clubs with which Peterson was associated: Special Branch, Electric Ballroom, Wag Club, Babylon at Heaven, Fez, Talkin Loud at the Fridge, That's How It Is at Bar Rumba and his long association with Plastic People.

2009 saw the birth of a new collaborative project and long-term partnership between Peterson and Havana Club's "Havana Cultura", a global initiative developed by Havana Club International that gives a platform to Cuban artists from all disciplines. Peterson and Brownswood's involvement began two years later, resulting in four album releases and three international tours. Havana Cultura: New Cuba Sound was the first album to come out of the project, released in 2010. Travelling to Cuba in 2009, Peterson teamed up with the award-winning Cuban jazz pianist Roberto Fonseca to find the best up-and-coming musical talent in Havana. The double CD album was a celebration of Cuba's musical forces spanning Latin, Afro jazz and fusion to hip-hop, funk, reggaeton and soul. In support of this project, Peterson began a European tour in June/July 2010, accompanied by Fonseca, his band and vocalists Danay Suarez, Ogguere and Obsesión. This was the first of three tours organised in close collaboration with Havana Club. The Gilles Peterson Havana Cultura Band has now travelled through Europe and beyond with shows in London (Barbican), Paris, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Berlin and Madrid, as well as many festivals. Travelling with the rest of the 2011 crew, Mala (Digital Mystikz) was also invited to Cuba with Peterson to record and collaborate with local musicians as part of the ongoing Havana Cultura project. The results are found on the album Mala in Cuba, which was released on Brownswood Recordings in partnership with Havana Cultura on 10 September 2012.

Released in May 2014, the Sonzeira Brasil Bam Bam Bam album saw the Talkin' Loud imprint revived in partnership with Virgin EMI. The record is a journey through the different flavours of authentic Brazilian music culture. Sonzeira is the collective name for the group of Brazilian artists who feature on the album. Peterson turned from DJ to producer for this ambitious venture, settling in Rio de Janeiro with young UK production associates Sam Shepherd (Floating Points); Dilip Harris and Rob Gallagher from 2 Banks of 4; and Kassin from Rio collective Orquestra Imperial. The album features Brazilian artists such as Seu Jorge and Elza Soares. Along with the album, there was a documentary film celebrating the creation and release of "Sonzeira: Brasil Bam Bam Bam". Titled "Bam Bam Bam: The Story of Sonzeira", this two-hour documentary was directed by Charlie Inman and Ben Holman and shot in 2014 by Mother London and Rio de Janeiro's Beija Films. The film was also distributed in Tokyo, Japan by Sha-la-la Company and raised money for Fight For Peace (Luta Pela Paz), organisation founded in Complexo da Maré, Rio de Janeiro, as a direct response to youth-involvement in drug-related crime and violence.

In 2006, Peterson worked with Freshly Cut, a French event production company from Montpellier, to create the Worldwide Festival,[22] a small intimate festival during the summertime in the coastal town of Sète in France. It celebrated its tenth edition in 2015.[23] It was later expanded to include a winter version which is now hosted in Leysin in the Swiss Alps.

In 2019, Peterson, as part of Brownswood Recordings, helped found a new festival We Out Here.[24] Taking place in Cambridgeshire, the festival celebrates the 'elements and community of UK club culture.'[25] In 2023 the festival moved to a new site in Wimborne St Giles, Dorset.

The Worldwide Awards is an annual event wherein Gilles Peterson chooses his favourite records of the year. His listeners then vote for the top 10 via the Radio 1 website. The event has been held at London venues including Cargo and KoKo with full broadcast coverage by Radio 1, and has expanded to include sections such as "Best Clubnight", "Best Record Shop", "Best Compilation Album", and a special award called "The John Peel'Play More Jazz' Award" given to an artist, often a newcomer, who has displayed special noteworthy work over the year.

Peterson has made many regular appearances at music festivals across the world including Lovebox in east London, The Big Chill in Hereford and the Southport Weekender[26][27] in the north west of England. Away from the UK he has appeared at the Exit Festival in Serbia, INmusic festival in Croatia, and in 2006 the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Peterson also curated his own stage at Montreux Jazz Festival for 10 years during the 1990s. Recently he has appeared in festivals such as Tramlines, Standon Calling, Dimensions Festival in Croatia, Summerstage, Slide Festival and Odyssia Festival, where he gave a spontaneous interview sharing some interesting thoughts about music and festivals.

In 2011, Peterson founded the Steve Reid Foundation in memory of the legendary jazz drummer. Having witnessed Reid's suffering with illness and hardship, Gilles set up the charity to raise money for musicians in need.[28] Since then, they've collaborated with Help Musicians UK to help musicians who are in need of support. More recently, a collaboration with the PRS Foundation has seen grants and mentoring provided to new artists. Gilles ran the 2011 London Marathon, raising just under £7,000 for Help Musicians UK, followed by the 2016 New York Marathon, where he raised over $21,000 for the Steve Reid Foundation.

Selected credits

• Gregory Porter – "Liquid Spirit - Patchwork Peterson Remix" from The Remix EP (with Alex Patchwork)
• Melanie De Biasio – No Deal Remixed (album contributor)
• Raphael Gualazzi – "Reality & Fantasy (Gilles Peterson Remix)"
• Nono Morales – "Saona" (Gilles P & Simbad Remix)
• Bukky Leo & Black Egypt – "Skeleton (Gilles P Winter Dub)"
• Chambao – "Duende Del Sur (Gilles Peterson Dub)"
• Ghostpoet – Survive It (Gilles Peterson Mix)
• Keziah Jones – "Lagos – NY (Gilles Peterson Remix)"
• Seu Jorge – "Burguesinha (Gilles P Re-Edit)"
• Tito Puente – "Watu Wasuri (Gilles P Re-Edit)"
• Louie Vega – "One Dream (Gilles Peterson Edit)"
• Laura Welsh – "Undiscovered (Gilles Peterson Remix)"
• Meshell N'Degeocello – "Friends (Gilles P & Simbad Remix)"
• Makaya McCraven – "Run 'Dem (Gilles Peterson Edit)"

• Roberto Fonseca – Yo (co-produced tracks)
• Omar Souleyman – "Tawwalt El Gheba" (producer)
• Danay Suarez – Havana Cultura Sessions (Executive producer)