I co-produce a radio show on local community station
KUSF called the
Friday Night Session. Along with my fellow producers
Andrew Jervis and
Tomas Palermo, we visit brand new music for two hours every Friday night from 10pm to Midnight. While there's no set music policy, we tend to play jazz, soul, funk, latin, reggae and electronic dance music that is influenced by all those things, including Broken Beat, so-called "Nu-Soul" and Disco.
Last week we were lucky to have
Gilles Peterson,
BBC Radio One DJ and selector extraordinaire as our special guest. Gilles was in town working on the second volume of his
Gilles Peterson Digs America compilation series for
Ubiquity Records, as well as to DJ at local superclub
Ruby Skye, but still found the time to kick it with us at the KUSF studio in SF's Western Addition.
Over a killer falafel plate from
Haight Street's Blue Front Cafe and a wonderful bottle of wine, Gilles took us on a tour of his record box for two hours, while regaling us with tales of being a globetrotting DJ. Inbetween sips of cabernet, Gilles managed to play us a diverse selection of tunes ranging from latin jazz from artists like
Tito Puente and
Ray Camacho to more contemporary jams from
Louie Vega and
Simbad.