
Jay Negron, or Jski as he’s known within the Club world was born & raised in the
Bronx, NY. He started collecting records at the tender age of 6 & later DJing through his ovewhelming love for music. He studied radio as a kid & certain DJs in particular;
Dan Ingram & Frankie Crocker were among his favourites of the time. At college he became a radio DJ himself. Then he met
Paul Solari, a neighbourhood club DJ who became a major influence on his musical career. Paul had heard one of Jay’s cassettes when walking past the corner where Jay was playing a selection of home made edits of current dance hits and had instantly recognized Jay’s talent. Paul introduced Jay to the world of club DJing & showed him the finer arts of mixing;
only to mix during the intros & not vocals, extended mixes using 2 copies of the same track, BPM matching etc. Paul was Jay’s mentor but Jay also admired
Walter Gibbons & Francois Kervorkian.
Jay soon discovered his own preferred style;
not keeping the vibe on the same plane & allowing it to progress toward an emotional upswing – it had to keep going up or it had to change in some way. Jay went on to play at some of New York’s most influential night clubs of the time:
The Playhouse, Tropicalia, Pegasus & The Roof Top. Whilst at the Playhouse, Jay was partly responsible for booking
Trammps. He says he can remember thinking they’d be 4 dudes lipsyncing to
Soul Train hits, they showed up with a 14 piece band & full Orchestra!
Throughout the years, Jay & Paul produced many remixes, mostly recorded onto acetates or reel-to-reel but never officially released. Their main influences being
Tom Moulton & Walter Gibbons. They appreciated the way they didn’t change the music. They just wanted to get the best part of the song longer & better suited for the dance floor & that’s precisely what Jay did.
Jay was also a charter member of the original
Record Pool on Prince Street, run by
David Mancuso, David Rodriguez, & Steve D’Aquisto. Jay’s record collection is second to none, even though during his DJing years he regularly gave away many demos & promos to close friends. Apparently, to this day he still has about
2,000 discs behing the couch! Jay has a huge appreciation of dance music, but if he had to name a few favourites they would have to include:
Disco Party, Ten Percent, My Love Is Free, Hit & Run, Doctor Love, Dreaming A Dream, That’s Where The Happy People Go, Bad Luck, Make It Funky & Heartbeat –
“Did I tell you that I love the Philly Sound”??
Jay took a break from the music scene during the late eighties but got back into music when
House music evolved. He saw this as a direct decendant of Disco –
“Artists like Ten City, Jamiroquai, C&C, & Incognito brought it back for me”.
These days, Jay is busy hosting his
Disco935 Radio Show over on
Live365.com every Saturday 8pm-11pm EST & maintaining his
SoundCloud account where Jay regularly releases his latest remix projects & has a following of over
2,075 fans. Along with
Pinky & Luis Mario, Jay also runs the extensive blog ‘
Legends of Vinyl‘.
Jay uses words such as
momentum,
drama,
emotion, &
happy music to best describe his style ..& to life in general,
“Who got it better than me ????!!”