Goodbye David.<\/p>\n
Unwitting architect of the clubbing phenomenon that defined the nightlife of the 70s and 80s across the entire planet.
\nBefore him, the figure of the DJ practically did not exist, and he, perhaps, did not even know he was one at the time. His turntables, without even pitch control, replaced the more expensive bands. He found records among the discarded materials of record labels and radio stations that until then had almost exclusively favored rock and white music in general. In his Loft, in the dirty and violent New York of 1970, every Saturday he invited young people of every race, class, and sexual orientation. It quickly became the underground venue of choice for those disillusioned by Vietnam, for those hiding from corrupt police and bigoted families. A safe haven in a Manhattan semi-abandoned to gangs for so many outcasts of respectable New York society.
\nA familiar place, a protected space where they could share that new four-on-the-floor music played through a sound system chosen with meticulous, almost obsessive care by Mancuso. That emphasis on bass made it impossible not to dance to it. Those rebels and outcasts, mostly homosexual, Black, and Latino, flooded the Loft and for a few hours abandoned alcohol (prohibited by David) to throw themselves onto the dance floor without inhibitions or fears.
\nThese were not profit-driven parties. The true purpose was to share an atmosphere, a place to live in the moment and forget what was out there. In there, under the mirror ball, everyone was equal, without any discrimination.
\nIt had no political or social agenda, but some say that what Mancuso did with his Loft, even unconsciously, the civil rights demonstrations of the sixties had not managed to achieve.
\nThe Loft quickly generated many imitators, and that cheerful, energetic music devoid of content would from then on be called: disco music.
\nWhen white people, owners of record labels and radio stations, understood its success, the poetry ended and the business began. While Mancuso was forced to close his Loft multiple times for lack of permits, others created the first true discotheques, and it was the beginning of that phenomenon that exploded with Saturday Night Fever.
\nDavid Mancuso was the pioneer, the precursor, a trendsetter who made a rotten Manhattan flourish. The glittering world of Studio 54 and the mega-discotheques of the following decade never belonged to him. Disco music and discotheques with their associated excesses of sex and drugs became such a pervasive worldwide phenomenon that in Chicago they even decided to burn it at the stake in a baseball stadium.
\nDavid continued to remain faithful to his passions for musical selection and sound quality, and perhaps that is why he never became, like today’s DJs, a true pop star.
\nPerhaps it is an exaggeration to think of David as the father of DJs and discotheques, but it is certainly not wrong to say that, without his passion, tenacity, and visionary philosophy, the world would have had much less fun and been much less enriched.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Goodbye David. Unwitting architect of the clubbing phenomenon that defined the nightlife of the 70s and 80s across the entire planet. Before him, the figure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senza-categoria"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n