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ON STAGE
THEATER & MUSIC MUSIC NOTES
Deep house jams in good hands
with Sadar Bahar
By Ytasha L. Womack
Special to the Tribune
If you thought the late-1980s deep house scene was a thing of the past,
lost in dusty records
and Mendel Catholic High School yearbooks, you might not know Sadar
Bahar.
Known as "the deejay's deejay," Sadar Muhammad Bahar is one of the few
to play old-school
house and rare disco exclusively. "A lot of stuff I play, [other
deejays] don't play," said
Bahar. "Maybe they'll find it years later, if they're lucky," he said,
laughing. However,
Bahar's penchant for discovering lost hits and rare grooves has made him
legendary, earning
him renown as one of the "deepest" deejays around.
"He does his own thing," said Eric "Boolumaster" W. of WPWX-FM 92.3. He
doesn't care what
other cats are playing. He'll find those B-side records that are hot. He
just plays good
music. He's straight underground and I love him for being that way."
Bahar began deejaying during the height of the house music era, in the
mid-'80s. "I grew up
around deejays," said Bahar, a South Side native. "Steve `Silk' Hurley,
Eric Taylor, Charles
Breckenridge, we grew up in the same neighborhood." However, while other
house deejays hosted
large bashes or went on to producing, Bahar remained largely
underground, spinning in Chicago,
New York, Miami and overseas. He even worked the local roller rink
circuit, known for its
affinity for James Brown cuts and old funk songs. "I deejayed at the
Glenwood Roller Rink for
15 years," he said.
But Bahar's dedication to his craft has garnered respect, if not more
widespread fame. Several
deejays, upon retirement, handed Bahar their entire collection. "They
knew I'd do them
justice," said Sadar.
"That's great that he's keeping the tradition alive," said Grammy award
winning producer and
local NARAS chapter president Hurley. He remembers Bahar's early days:
"There's no way if
you're playing the best music that you can overlook the early house or
disco."
Although Bahar plays house, you won't hear popular, track-laden songs or
programmed disco. "I
like live instrumentation," said Bahar, "especially if it has a good
vocalist." Funk jazz by
Roy Ayers and Black Smoke, disco by Minnie Riperton, B-side dance songs
by Patti LaBelle and
the Bluebells, or Afrobeat by Fela Kuti are just a sample of the
hard-to-find tunes Bahar
throws into the mix.
"I'm always looking for something deeper that no one else is playing,"
said Bahar, who scours
music stores, thrift shops and libraries across the globe for classic
records. "I have about
14,000 records in all," he says. "I probably have one of the largest
Fela collections on wax,
too."
While many Chicago deejays have fans, Bahar's style of mixing has
spawned a devout underground
following affectionately known as Sadarnites--a hodgepodge of music
lovers, house heads and
professional dancers, who have been known to dance in a heated frenzy
for eight hours
straight. Take his legendary parties at Slick's, an all day jam that
kicked off at 3 p.m. and
lasted after midnight. "We had to blacken the windows to give people the
impression that it
was night," said Bahar.
"His audience goes crazy because he's playing to the point where you
catch feelings," said
Boolumaster W. "It's like, `Oh my God, this guy's snapping.'"
But it's this spirit of freedom through movement, and music inspired
fun, a core element of
old school house, that Bahar wants to encourage.
"People think we're on something different," said Bahar, "but it's just
music."
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