Piano in the house

In the early days of house music, piano was the backbone typical of the genre, now play "Move your body" in your mind without the piano and the intro is gone.

House music has evolved since, some say it has lost its essence, it's been robbed of its soul and "blackness", true. What happened to the piano?

Want some piano then ... head to the jazz or lounge section genres of your favorite record shop. But we want dance floor piano, piano to make you move your feet, a hurried piano riff like in early house music records or in the disco days on numerous O'Jays hits, even Voyage, the French disco group had a killer piano disco monster in "Lady America" wayback in 1978 and like "Move your Body", the intro is the piano.

SK Radikals is a jazz-house group from the UK who never fails to deliver the goods, and I mention them here cause many times pulled out their singles "On the street" from 2002 and "Someday" in 2005, dropped them on the platters in order to get a dance floor piano high.

For 2008, BBE will be distributing "North Wind" by Rhythm of Elements bringing together the underground club heritage of DJ Uchikawa and classically trained jazz piano of Makoto Kuriya who played with some of the finest jazz musicians of the 20th century including Chuck Mangione, Nathan Davis, Billy Cobham and Donald Byrd to name a few. He has recorded numerous albums and performed across the globe.

The upcoming 12inch release will also contain the Disco Dub Remix and Dub Beats. Expect a deep tech house groove, laced and sweetened by fine musicianship from Kuriya.

Now let's move the piano from the lounge area and bring it on the dancefloor with a nod from Ray Charles up above.

image: Tribe 2 - North Wind by Rhythm of Elements upcoming 12 inch vinyl