Before disco, there was The Loft. And what was The Loft? We’ll let David Mancuso tell you about this legendary New York party.

Step One: Sound out, seek and you will find.

Step Two: Do a bit of love dancing.

Got it? OK, now you’re in the Loft space. And how can you tell? Well, it should be perfectly obvious: it’s all over my face.

In the early Seventies, around 200 lucky souls had done some seeking, done some love dancing and they’re still smiling. And what’s really cool is that some of them are still dancing. “The Loft developed into three generations. Sometimes you’ll see all three generations at a party, I’m not kidding! You’ll see a grandmother dancing with her grandson."David Mancuso has been watching them dancing all this time. The founder and host of New York’s seminal house party for some 28 years, Mancuso maintains that The Loft’s legendary status through three decades and three locations is down to how it maintained its basic principles and integrity. “I’m part of something bigger than me. A lot of places aren’t designed to endure. I saw it as a lifestyle, I was looking way the hell down the road.”

In 1970, Mancuso was living in New York, very much an activist (civil rights, gay liberation, anti-Vietnam War) and very much a social kind of fellow. “There was a lot of crossover between these groups and the music was that way too, there was music coming from every possible direction. So people mingled more, in a real way and were very open.” He was also going to parties and having a few himself ("ever since I was nine, I was going to other people’s houses and meeting up with people") when he found himself in economic enstranglement. So he threw a party that asked for a two-dollar contribution.

The party was by invitation only and had freshly squeezed orange juice and organic foods ("very Sixties"). It also had Mancuso playing music on a sound system that he had developed himself and would continue to experiment with over the years. “You know when you listen on your headphones and you are totally engulfed in it, well I was always trying to create that effect. When I was a kid I had this radio that was about three feet high, with a big speaker, and I was always into sound, drawn into it.

And I experimented with it. I had no technical training with audio but I was trying to follow this sonic trail and, you know, ohm is the source of all sound so there were situations where I’d go to see artists or concerts or the nutcracker and these were reference points. Or even listening to birds chirping, you want the real thing as much as you can.” Coming up with seminal sound techniques like tweeter arrays and bass reinforcements, he created quite literally a legendary sound system.
Speaking about dance culture today, Mancuso reckons “we should really be incorporating live musicians again, they’re a very important component. I mean even with the sound system at The Loft, the one thing that it did was encourage lots of other people to do the same. And all of a sudden, people realized they don’t have to dance beside a juke-box all night!”

As the monthly outings evolved into weekly affairs, Mancuso played an array of uplifting music. With two compilations out on Nuphonic, the richness of The Loft’s musical sound becomes startlingly clear. Rhythmically, melodically, spiritually, soulfully and lyrically uplifting, there was music like Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa” or War’s “City, Country, City", which, combined with The Loft’s atmosphere and acoustics, laid the foundations for disco. Later, Risco Connection’s infamous “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” and Loose Joints’ “Is It All Over My Face” would display how this party had influenced the productions. Loose Joints came together in The Loft and Steve D’Aquisto, long-time Loft attendee and friend of Mancuso, produced that classic and delectable piece of cello disco. There’s a distinct thread that runs throughout and it’s most definitely a love of quite gorgeous music that makes you want to dance.

With The Loft, there was little talk of the DJ’s mixing prowess. Mancuso made sure you were listening to the music, not to him. “Every song stands on its own. You know you’re at home right now and you’ve some records there and there’s a record that you love. Dearly. You put that record on and you listen to the whole thing, don’t you?”

Despite his modest assertion that his was an incidental role in the legend of The Loft, it is impossible to think of The Loft without Mancuso. He did have friends play on occasions ("once in eleven years I missed a party because of an abscess in my tooth, it came on so fast") but, he said, “for other people to play the criteria was the same as if you were going to have someone babysitting your kids.” David Mancuso: the real sugar daddy.