Paul Murphy

Paul Murphy

Paul Murphy is a UK jazz DJ, record label figure and producer associated with acid jazz, lounge and electronic music, and is also linked to jazz projects including Paul Murphy & Marc Woolford Project, Sound Experience and Signal Hill. He is known as a UK electro-jazz DJ and has played a central role in the British jazz and jazz-dance club scene.

Career

Murphy begins promoting club nights in the late 1970s, when a DJ does not arrive at one event because of bad weather. He then builds a run of club and concert work, including nights at The Horseshoe in Tottenham Court Road, where Jaffas becomes one of the first clubs to mix jazz with the emerging jazz-dance scene.

His work spans clubs and venues including the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town, the Wag Club in Soho, the 100 Club on Oxford Street, the Comedy Store and the Sol Y Sombra in Charlotte Street. He also starts Jazz Room Brighton, which continues for many years.

Club scene and radio

Murphy DJs with artists including Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Jimmy McGriff and Lonnie Smith. He is also the DJ for the first London concert by The Smiths. He runs Palladin Records between 1984 and 1986, and the label releases Venceremos by the London collective Working Week. In 1985 he becomes the first WIRE Magazine DJ of the Year.

After a period away from the club scene, he is rediscovered by Eddie Piller and takes a residency at the Blue Note club in Hoxton Square. He is later described as a key figure in the 1980s jazz revival and appears in the television documentary series Jazz Britannia in that role.

Production, remixing and label work

Murphy manages and handles A&R for Afro Art Records, the London label founded by Ashley Beedle of X-Press 2. He remixes and produces a range of projects, including Neon Heights, Solar Apple Quarktette, Robin Jones, Tito Heron, Kid Loco for the Cocteau Twins label, and Ashley Slater, formerly of Freakpower. His remix of Modx’s The Quest becomes a club hit in 2004.

He is also involved with Afro Arthouse, a project built around themes from favourite art-house films, with tracks connected to artists including Kid Loco, Glyn Bigga Bush, Diesler, Modx, Jung Collective, Origami, Peak and Buscemi. Films referenced in the project include 2001, Goodbye Lenin, The Wicker Man, Seven Samurai, Withnail & I, Ghost Dog, Amarcord, Underground, Z and Get Carter.

Recordings and releases

Murphy records material for a debut album called The Trip, and the track Jazz Room The Spiritual South Mix reaches number one in Gilles Peterson’s BBC Radio 1 Worldwide chart. He is also described as the instigator of the jazz revival of the 1980s.

Other activity

He runs a shop, Fusion Records, in Clerkenwell for a year and promotes a concert at the YMCA featuring Brazilian singer and pianist Tania Maria. He also works with clubs and events alongside a broad range of jazz and dance music figures, helping to link older jazz audiences with newer club cultures.