Working Week: Venceremos (We Will Win) - Or How I Learned to Jazz Dance

Got the Griffin IMIC all hooked up so I can record vinyl properly on this biatch. This one was laying around and it gave me an excuse to delve into some other related things.

Working Week - Vencerenmos (Jazz Dance 12' version)

Everyone knows Everything But The Girl's Tracy Thorn. but not so many people know about the milleu she came up in - the brilliant jazz (dance) scene of early 80s black London. This was the time when jazz, latin, and clubs went together, developing the "jazz dance" that continues even today (watch video here). The main venue was the (camden town) Electric Ballroom, who's dj was Paul Murphy (still doin damage). until Gilles Peterson replaced him in 1984.

Everything But the Girl - Each and Every One

Working Week sufaced after the demise of Simon Booth's first band Weekend, in the spring of 1983. The story goes that Simon wandered into the "jazz room" of the Electric Ballroom one night to find DJ Paul Murphy playing one of his songs to packed floor of young and mainly black jazz dancers and became an overnight local celebrity. He conceived the idea of a new band that would be bigger, tougher, politically motivated and jazz dance based.

Simon went away and wrote the first Working Week record Venceremos, aimed firmly at the club dancers while at the same time highlighting the political situation in Latin America. Venceremos was dedicated to the Chilean singer/guitarist Victor Jara who had been killed by the CIA backed military junta and was initially conceived as a benefit record for the Chile Solidarity Campaign. All the artists gave their services unpaid.

Venceremos was released to rave reviews, reaching number 15 in the pop singles charts. While the 7inch version featuring vocals from Tracy Thorn, Robert Wyatt and Chilean Claudia Figuerra was a bossa nova, it was the furious, double tempo 12inch version which really caused a stir with scorching solos from Larry and Harry Beckett and that driving Latin groove throughout, accompanied by a 15 minute film. That is what I have given you above.