House

Soon came the first records already made as house. Jesse Saunders is among the pioneers credited with some of the first house tracks released (mid-80s), and Marshall Jefferson signed in 1986 the anthem “Move Your Body (The House Music Anthem),” which introduced the piano as a hallmark of the genre. The scene's other boiler room was the DJ Ron Hardy's club, the Music Box, where many of these tracks were tried out for the first time.

Peak: the subgenres (late 80s)

From its Chicago core, house branched out almost immediately:

• · Acid house — its mark is the Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer (launched in 1981, discontinued in 1984 and rescued secondhand by musicians), whose “squelching,” bubbling sound defines the style. The group Phuture — DJ Pierre, Earl “Spanky” Smith Jr. and Herbert Jackson — released “Acid Tracks” in 1987 via Trax Records, considered the first acid house record. The style crossed the Atlantic and, by the summer of 1988, dominated British club culture (clubs such as Shoom in London or The Haçienda in Manchester).
• · Deep house — warmer, more jazz-inflected and more melodic. Its tutelary figure is Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers / Fingers Inc.), “the godfather of deep house,” whose prototypes “Mystery of Love” and “Can You Feel It” (written around 1984–1986) introduced chords and atmospheres never before used in house.
• · Garage — the New York strand, more soul and gospel, tied to the Paradise Garage club and to the DJ Larry Levan, whose way of programming in New York ran parallel to what Knuckles was doing in Chicago (both came out of the same New York scene). Levan in fact had Larry Heard's “Can You Feel It” before anyone else, and premiered it at the Paradise Garage.

Global explosion (the 90s) and the minitecas

By around 1985 house spilled out of Chicago, began to displace Hi-NRG in the gay clubs of Chicago and New York and made its first appearances in Europe. In the 90s it became a worldwide phenomenon: the United Kingdom and continental Europe adopted it en masse, it fed Eurodance and it diversified endlessly (progressive house, French house, British garage). For the Latin American minitecas, house arrived folded into that nineties torrent of imported dance music — in Venezuela a good part of it was experienced under the local name “changa” — and became part of the booth repertoire alongside Italo, Hi-NRG and Eurodance.

Pioneers and classics (Chicago and beyond)

• · Frankie Knuckles – “the godfather of house”; residency at The Warehouse; founding re-edits, “Your Love,” “The Whistle Song” (1991)
• · Jesse Saunders – among the first house records released (mid-80s)
• · Marshall Jefferson – Move Your Body (The House Music Anthem) (1986)
• · Ron Hardy – DJ at the Music Box, laboratory of the Chicago scene
• · Phuture (DJ Pierre) – Acid Tracks (1987), the birth certificate of acid house
• · Larry Heard / Mr. Fingers / Fingers Inc. – Can You Feel It, Mystery of Love (deep house)
• · Larry Levan – DJ at the Paradise Garage (New York), pillar of garage
• · Acknowledged European heritage: Kraftwerk and EBM, cited by Knuckles himself

Legacy

House is one of the most influential currents in contemporary music: born from it or fed by it are Detroit techno (a sibling genre), trance, Eurodance, UK garage, the French house of the 2000s (Daft Punk) and the EDM of the twenty-first century. Its 4/4 kick became the universal language of the dance floor. The city of Chicago has recognized it as heritage — the Warehouse building has been processed as a historic landmark — and Frankie Knuckles was enshrined as a founding father. In miniteca culture, house closed the circle that disco had opened: the same rhythm track that lit up the 70s came back, electronic and planetary, to light up the 90s.

Notes on scope and attribution

Which was the first house record is a matter of debate among historians. Jesse Saunders is one of the most frequently cited names (with titles such as “On and On”), but the sources acknowledge that opinions differ; this entry records him as one of the pioneers without settling the dispute or proclaiming a single “first record.”

Detroit techno is a sibling genre, not a subgenre of house; it is mentioned as a relative. The link with the minitecas is one of repertoire — house arrived within the imported dance music of the 90s — not of local invention; in Venezuela it was largely experienced under the name “changa” (see its own entry). The account uses “DJ” because that is the established term for the job in American club culture and because its history extends into the 90s and the present.

Social media

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Credits and sources

• · Miniteca framing (house within the dance torrent of the 90s; the local name “changa” in Venezuela): “La Revista de las Minitecas” (DJ Vladimir Medina edition), the “Changa” entry in the CMTK Archive and CMTK curation.
• · Origin in Chicago, The Warehouse (1977), Frankie Knuckles as “the godfather of house,” the name “house” derived from the club, founding re-edits and the debt to Kraftwerk/EBM: Wikipedia, “House music,” “Frankie Knuckles,” “Warehouse (nightclub)”; NPR, “Chicago and the birth of house music”; Red Bull Music Academy, interview with Frankie Knuckles.
• · Jesse Saunders (the first house records) and Marshall Jefferson, “Move Your Body” (1986): Wikipedia, “House music”; NPR.
• · Acid house, Phuture, “Acid Tracks” (1987), the Roland TB-303 (1981–1984) and the British peak of 1988: Wikipedia, “Acid Tracks,” “Roland TB-303”; Roland Articles; MusicRadar, “Everything you need to know about acid house.”
• · Deep house and Larry Heard (“Can You Feel It,” “Mystery of Love”), and the link with Larry Levan / Paradise Garage: Electronic Beats, “Larry Heard and Fingers Inc.”; Red Bull Music Academy, Larry Heard lecture; This Song Is Sick, “Larry Heard, The Godfather of Deep House.”
• · AllMusic – overviews of House, Acid House, Deep House and Garage; Billboard – dance chronologies.