Nightclubbing: Zanzibar, An Oral History

Zanzibar’s story begins in the mid-’70s, when a real-estate man named Miles Berger bought a seedy Holiday Inn at 430 Broad Street, transforming it into the ever-so-slightly less sketchy Lincoln Motel. Within that building was a small dance club called Abe’s, which counted Gerald T and Hippie Torrales (the man who would later produce the 1988 house classic “You’re Gonna Miss Me”) among its DJs. When Abe’s outgrew its intimate room in ’79... well, that’s when things really started shaking. Sadly, quite a few Zanzibar’s principal players – soundsystem man Richard Long; managers Albert Murphy and Shelton Hayes; and DJs like Larry Patterson, Tee Scott, and Larry Levan – are no longer with us. But plenty of the others are. Here is the story of Zanzibar in their words.

Gerald T

I was actually playing at Abe’s before it was Abe’s, when the Lincoln Motel was still a Holiday Inn, back in ’75. It had this little bar-nightclub kind of thing that I was at. I was playing R&B then, mostly; the first disco 12-inch that people could buy was “Ten Percent” by Double Exposure, and that wasn’t till a little bit later. Before then, it was all 45s. When “Ten Percent” came out, I remember thinking, okay, we’re getting some music now! After the Holiday Inn was sold to Miles Berger and it became the Lincoln Motel, I still had the key to the club, and I was going up to get my equipment out. He came up to me and said, “Who are you?” I said, “Who are you?” He said, “I’m the new owner,” and I said, “Well, I was the DJ here. I’m just here to get my equipment.” He said, “I want to put a club in here. Do you want to DJ for me?” I said, “Sure!”

Stewart Upchurch

I was a day porter at the Lincoln Motel; I was about 17 at the time. It was at the tail end of Broad Street, which is like the commercial street of Newark. I don’t think there wasn’t really much beyond it back then, except maybe warehouses. The place was this gaudy, ’70s-looking kind of thing with burgundy carpets, red velvet all over, glass cut with little designs and a fountain – tacky, but not as bad as it could have been, like what “classy” would have looked like in a really bad Blaxploitation movie. And it was a little bit prostitute-y, I think, and there was probably cocaine around – I don’t know what the community thought about it, but it served its purpose.

Gerald T

I knew how to make Abe’s into a real club, but I didn’t have the money; Miles didn’t know anything about clubs, but he had the money. I told him, “If you want to have a professional club, you must have professional equipment.” That’s when we went over to Richard Long’s studio. And that’s how Abe’s got a Richard Long sound system. But when Abe’s opened, we were only getting like 25 people a night in there. You’ve got to remember, there were clubs all over back then; anyone who had a bar would get a DJ and call it a club, so there were lots of places to go. But my name was a little known – not a lot, but a little – and it went from 25 people to 100 to 200 to 300. Finally, we got 700 people. We couldn’t get any more people in there!

Hippie Torrales

I started at Abe’s in ’78. I knew Gerald and everybody there, and had been going there all the time. I was already getting a reputation as a DJ, and they agreed to bring me in, and I think I started doing Thursdays.

Gerald T

After a few months, I go to Miles, and I say, “You’ve got a ballroom upstairs. What are you doing with it?” He said, “I rent it out for $700 a night!” I said, “Why don’t we take this ballroom and convert it into a huge club, a club that will be immaculate? You could make that $700 back in five minutes every night!”

Hippie Torrales

When Miles was talking about opening up the main ballroom as a club, Richard Long said, “Look, I’m going to take you to this club in New York. It’s the premier club in the city.” Richard took him to the Paradise Garage, Miles fell in love with it, and said, “You know what? I want to bring this to New Jersey.” So the sound system at Zanzibar was great, of course, but the lighting was, too – it was like the lighting they had in Studio 54.

Tony Humphries

The way I heard it was that after they got Miles to check out the Garage, he was just like, “Hey, I’m sold!”

Stewart Upchurch

Before they started working on the ballroom, it looked like it might have been untouched since the building went up. They were knocking down walls and scraping shit. I’m not a construction guy, but I realized that nobody had any masks or anything. I thought, hey, this place is old as shit – there might be something that could really fuck us up, like asbestos or something! Eventually they gave us wet rags to put on our faces. That was pretty much the end of my porter days there. But I do remember them getting it done really quickly. The whole thing was put together in like a month and a half.

Larkie Rucker (assistant manager and host)

Zanzibar was built to be like a somewhat smaller Paradise Garage. The sound system was like the Garage sound system. People used to sleep up in the speakers – that’s how big they were. There were three turntables, reel-to-reel, cassette and everything.

Hippie Torrales

Opening night, which was the Friday of Labor Day weekend in 1979, was huge. They did it right; they invited celebs and everything. WNJR Radio did a live remote, and Channel 4 was filming. People like Kool & the Gang were hanging out. Tasha Thomas was there. My main competition for attention was this monkey named Zippy. This monkey could roller skate to disco music! And Joe Robinson from Sugar Hill Records was there. A week before, he had brought the test pressing of this record to a radio station in Texas and they had played it, but nobody in the New York area had it yet. He was like, “I have this new record, and it’s a new style. It’s only been played by one radio station in Texas so far.” So that’s how we ended up breaking “Rapper’s Delight.”

Gerald T

On opening night, I was playing downstairs; the upstairs hadn’t opened up for the night yet. Joe Robinson hands me a record, and I’m like, “Let me see what this record is.” So I put it on to listen to, and I was like, “Oh, my God!” At the time I was listening to it, I was already playing Chic’s “Good Times,” and when it got to the breakdown, it was just like this new record! I mixed the new one in when that breakdown came on, and the place went berserk. So that’s how I played, for the first time ever, “Rapper’s Delight.” I know Hippie says that he played it first – but how can he have played it first when the upstairs wasn’t even open yet? Both of us played it, but technically I played it first. And I still have that record, a test pressing with “Sugarhill Gang” handwritten on it.

Larkie Rucker

That night was so incredible. The club was draped in vines – real vines – with live orchids placed within them. There were flowers all around. It was a real tropical kind of decor. And we had these animals, tigers and all of those, which were rented from Great Adventure. They were out back by the poolside. It was Labor Day weekend, and we had those animals the whole time. We didn’t even go home that weekend; we just stayed at the hotel. Newark had never seen anything like that. All of New Jersey had ever seen anything like that!

Hippie Torrales

Miles knew he had a success right away. He had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, and one day I asked him how the club was doing as far as money goes. He said, “I made my investments back in the first six months!” Let’s just put it this way: He was a happy man. The guy was making money out the wazoo! But when Gerald and I were the residents, Miles used to pay me $40 per night as a DJ. And I only deejayed at Zanzibar one night a week. But I used to live in the hotel for free, so I guess Miles felt that it was a fair deal. That’s the way it was for DJs back then. Still, living on that much money was a stretch, even in the ’70s.

Danny Krivit

Hippie knew exactly what was being played at the Garage, and he played a lot of the same songs – but the way he played was more like an answer to the Garage. He knew what would work at the Garage and what people there like, but he would reach a little further and cater to his Jersey audience.

Hippie Torrales

Newark had always been a place for the more soulful, R&B style of music. We’d be playing some disco – “Love Is the Message” and things like that – but in reality, it wasn’t a hardcore disco town. It had always been a place for the more soulful, R&B style of music. The sleaze stuff was pretty big, along with Salsoul. And I used to break a lot of songs like “Mesopotamia” by The B-52s and things from Talking Heads, too.

Danny Krivit

He would bring those kinds of records out that you wouldn’t expect, but he would make them fit.

Hippie Torrales

For the first three months, Zanzibar was managed by this guy Desmond, who had also been managing Abe’s. But I wanted to bring in Al Murphy; he was the premier party promoter in Newark, doing the more New York style of parties. And Al had loved what I had been doing on my night at Docks, which happened to be a massive gay and black night. Miles was hesitant about getting him, but finally he said, “Okay, let’s bring him in.”

Gerald T

After Al Murphy became manager, that’s when my woes began; he wanted to remove me and put in the kind of DJ that he wanted. I’m not saying because I wasn’t gay, but he wanted something else. The club was changing. We went from being a classy club where everybody had to get dressed up, to a place where people could come in dressed casual, so they could dance. It was becoming like the Garage, really. But I kept spinning downstairs, and would get to play upstairs every once in a while. It was no big deal – I was still there to DJ and to enjoy myself. And to get paid! I didn’t leave the club till ’89.

Larkie Rucker

Hippie was there for a while, but not too long – maybe a year and a half. Then Albert brought in Larry Patterson, who had been a DJ at Albert’s own little gay club, Le Jock, which used to be on Halsey Street back in the day. And then Larry brought in his friend Tee Scott to play there Saturday nights, because Larry didn’t want to play both Friday and Saturday.

Hippie Torrales

They decided they wanted the kind of music that Tee Scott and Larry Levan were playing. Those guys had a style that was a little bit different. I used to really mix; that was a very important aspect of DJing for me. Those guys were more like great programmers, and the mix didn’t have to be that great, as long as the next song was great. Larry Patterson, who was Al’s roommate, was the guy who replaced me. And Larry Patterson was a great guy; he was the kind of guy who would help anybody. He’s the guy who brought Tony in, two or three years after I left. And he brought a ton of great people between me and Tony: David Morales, Larry Levan, Tee Scott, François K... pretty good for a club in Jersey!

Larkie Rucker

We used to partner up with Paradise Garage and brought in some really good acts. We brought in Five Star from London; we brought in Modern Romance and Central Line in from London, too. A lot of these people were coming over for their first time in the United States. Chaka Khan came through there a couple of times; Sylvester came through. We had Thelma Houston, we had Two Tons o’ Fun; we had Roy Ayers; we had Strafe. D-Train came through, and of course the Peech Boys, which was Larry Levan’s group. Loose Ends did “Hangin’ on a String.” Evelyn “Champagne” King was one of our biggest nights; we had so many people wrapped around the building, it was crazy. Phyllis Hyman performed and forgot the words to her song! Colonel Abrams, of course, and a lot of Jersey acts, like Young & Company, Mtume, Gayle Adams…I could keep going! But the person who came the most, and who would actually stay at the hotel, was Loleatta Holloway; she was like our resident.

Billie Prest (manager)

Al finally brought Grace Jones in, and that took everything to a whole other level.

Larkie Rucker

Grace Jones actually played there twice. One time, I remember her in all black, doing “Pull Up to the Bumper.” She cut her foot, and ended up having to go to the emergency room in the limo in all her glory – makeup and everything. It was seven in the morning, and people were like, “What is this limo pulling up to the emergency room? And who is this woman?”

Tony Humphries

I knew Larry Patterson, and one day he said, “You gotta check out this club in Jersey!” I was like, “Jersey! You gotta be kidding.” But Shep Pettibone, Jose Guzman – who was one of the on-air personalities at Kiss FM – and myself decided to take a ride out to Newark and check it out. I walked in and said, “Holy shit – this feels exactly like the Garage! They got something like this out here?” It was half the size of the Garage, of course – but I was shocked. I started hanging out there, listening to Larry Patterson on Wednesdays and Fridays, and Tee Scott on Saturdays. After I had been hanging out at Zanzibar for a while, I decided I wanted a chance to test my ability to play alongside these folks. It wasn’t even about the money. Larry and Tee kind of let me in slowly, letting me play for a while when they went off to do their thing. Finally I said, “Look, guys – if you don’t give me Wednesdays, I’m not coming back any more.” And that’s how I got into Zanzibar.

Larkie Rucker

After Albert passed away, and after Larry Patterson passed away, Shelton Hayes kept it going, and Tony carried it on.

Tony Humphries

But man, when I started there, I went through it! The first time I got to play there was a damn disaster, to tell you the truth. Seriously. I had never played on Thorens turntables, which are belt-driven, before. It’s a totally different feel from playing on Technics, which are a lot more precise than playing on anything with a belt. So I go up there and figure I’m going to mix some records, and it was like ashcans all over the place – bing, bang, boom, bash, bam! Oh my God, it was horrible. I couldn’t keep things on beat at all. Afterwards, I had to beg Larry Patterson. I said, “Listen, I’m really not this bad! Please, man, give me one more chance.” He gave me another shot, and I thought to myself, I’m going to find every record there is that’s really easy to mix, ones that didn’t have crazy intros or ends or something. I did okay that time, and eventually I started getting more comfortable with those Thorens.

Larkie Rucker

Sometime in the ’80s, club music turned into house music.

Billie Prest

At first, Tony wasn’t receptive to house. He definitely wasn’t loving it. But then I brought him Ce Ce Rogers’ “Someday,” which was produced by Marshall Jefferson; I came in from Chicago with the quarter-inch in my hand and delivered it to him. And then he finally warmed up to house, and the rest is history.

Tony Humphries

When we started getting house releases – from record pools, but a lot from Abby over at Movin’ Records in East Orange – I used them as kind of mixing tools, mainly. Bridge records. If I was going to play Aretha Franklin or something, and wanted to play Luther Vandross after that, I would use a house track to get from one to the other. I would almost always go from vocals then tracks, tracks then vocals – it was easier to blend with those Thorens. You needed as much help as you could get with those things.

Billie Prest

Tony wasn’t very happy with the Thorens, as you can guess.

Danny Krivit

Tony had a sound that was centered around underground Jersey house, and – before that – it was stuff that wasn’t quite house yet, like “The Music Got Me” by Visual. It was when all the Jersey producers were starting to come up. I would hear him play classics sometimes, but they were the kind of classics that would fit into the house groove that he liked. The main thing about Tony is that he was very much in a groove; there weren’t many dramatic pauses or changes. And the crowd loved the groove.

Jon Martin

I think everything that went on at Movin’ Records transpired because of shit that happened at Zanzibar, or conversations that happened there. There was a real mutual relationship between the two.

Abigail Adams (owner, Movin’ Records)

I’d know what Tony was playing, we’d know when it was coming, then we would have it in the store, and people would come in to buy it after hearing it at Zanzibar. Finally, Tony, Shelton Hayes and I decided bring some more focus to this great music that was coming out, this music that we had been starting to call the Jersey Sound. We did these parties at the New Music Seminar in 1989 and we were flabbergasted by the amount of people who came out – people from all over the world! I actually felt that the music was accepted much more overseas, places like England and Germany. They really liked the soulful, lyrical, spiritual-based sound – something that was different than what Chicago or Detroit that were doing. There was Smack Music, who worked with Kyze and Adeva; Back Room Productions with Jomanda; Boyd Jarvis, even though he’s from New York City; Ace Mungin, who put out “Let the Rain Come Down” as Intense; Paul Scott and Shank; and of course, Kevin Hedge and Josh Milan from Blaze. Kevin actually worked at the store in the early days. I can remember talking to Josh when he was struggling as to whether he should do secular music or not, and what it would like for someone who had come up through the church to be doing club music.

Jon Martin

Don’t forget, Zanzibar was in like a crack hotel, and if you went there at 11 PM, it was thugged out. If I got there early, I would feel uncomfortable. If it wasn’t for the fact that Shelton was on top of things, it might have been rough. But the room would get gayer and gayer as the night went on, and there would be no judgments. I actually went to Zanzibar for the first time in 1988 for [House of DuPree founder] Paris Dupree’s ball, Paris is Burning. I was the only white boy in the crowd, and they instantly had me “walk for face.” I won the trophy, which is what happens when you are young and gorgeous. It was fabulous, and from then until about ’92, I was going to Zanzibar on a very regular basis.

Abigail Adams

Considering the club was basically in the back end of a welfare motel, there were no issues. It was almost like a peace-and-love kind of crowd; it was all about the music and the scene.

Gladys Pizarro (co-founder, Strictly Rhythm)

I was going to Zanzibar every weekend, and developed a relationship with Tony that really helped me. Basically, I would give him a record, and he would play it. And if he liked it, he would not only play it – he would smash it. The first record I ever handed to him was “The Warning,” and he loved it. The second record was “Luv Dancin” by Roger S, and I think he played it three times. By the time I got to the office on Monday, I had calls from all over from people who wanted to license it.

Larkie Rucker

At some point, they brought in Billie Prest to run things.

Billie Prest

At first I was more like director of entertainment, but after Shelton left in ’89, I had the whole shebang. At one point, Zanzibar was slated to be demolished and converted into hotel rooms, which were going to be rented out to the state. They were going to give Miles quite good money. But I talked to Miles, and he gave me some time. Finally, on June 6th of whatever year that was – I think 1991 – I booked Crystal Waters when “Gypsy Woman” was rising in the charts. The line was at least a block long, and it was a great night. I always say that she’s the lady that brought Zanzibar back to life.

Barbara Tucker

I was blessed to perform my own “Beautiful People,” “Deep Inside” and “I Get Lifted” at Zanzibar. So I got to participate in that way – but I’m also a club head, so I’d find my way over to Jersey just to go to there with my friends. None of my New York friends wanted to make the trip, so I would just take the train, my Jersey friends would pick me up, we’d go to the club to party – I don’t drink or do drugs, but I do dance! – and I’d spend the night, and go home the next morning. I don’t remember seeing a fight there, ever. It was the kind of place where the music, house music, could generate a kind of love energy, so it was a wonderful place to be. The energy, the vibe, the music selection…it was all good.

Jon Martin

Tony would find the most amazing combinations of records – and then, he would play them three at a time. He’d have “New Jersey Deep” by Black Science Orchestra, and then here would come Michael Watford, and then Blunted Dummies’ “House for All” would be running behind it all. Somehow or another, on these Thorens, he would just ride them. A cappellas, sound effects... his technical acumen was unparalleled.

Danny Krivit

There was a finesse to playing on the Thorens. Yes, you’ll have some imperfections in the mixing, but the way Tony did it, it sounded really cool. He would do a lot of stuff like teasing bits of songs behind other songs, and all kinds of stuff like that. And he absolutely knew what he could do with them – that great music and those turntables – and he totally knew what could work in a long mix. He knew those tracks inside out.

Tony Humphries

I guess it was around 1990 when Danny Rampling and his wife, Jenni, came over and tried to get me to come over to London. I was like “Look, man…crazy schedule. Nothing against you guys.” Actually, I just really didn’t want to go. But they just stayed on me, and finally, I did go – and it was pure culture shock. The first place I played was Shoom, then High on Hope with Norman Jay, then Confusion with Kid Bachelor and Nicky Trax. It was mind-blowing. They were open to all this music. I got back to Zanzibar, I was like, “There’s another world out there – you have no idea what’s going on!” Finally, I asked Danny to bring me back over to England again, and instead of getting paid, I brought ten or 11 people over from the club. That was mainly so those people would believe me, and know that I wasn’t just talking crap. They were all blown away, and after that, the Zanzibar people were like, “Tony, you can play whatever you wanna play!” Nobody bothered me again.

Billie Prest

At some point, Tony had an invitation to go to London to be a resident at Ministry of Sound. He was insecure in his position at Zanzibar, and I had to let him know that no matter what, his position at Zanzibar was solid and he could always come back, even if he did go to London for a while. Finally, he went.

Tony Humphries

After I finally got back from that time in London, the club had changed a lot. It just wasn’t the same. They had finally decided to make it a very hip hop-friendly place, and changed the name to Brick City. It was sad, but by then I had the international thing going pretty strong...so it could have been worse.

Larkie Rucker

We were all like, “How can you change the name of a club that’s been around for so long?”

Gerald T

Once Zanzibar went hip hop, that was it. There was fighting, stabbings, all kinds of stuff. I was happy that was out of there by then.

Larkie Rucker

Not long after that, the club closed down; finally, in 2007, they demolished the whole place. When I look at the pictures of the building being torn down, I just remember all the good times I had there; we were like family.

Barbara Tucker

Tony is an unsung hero. He’s not out getting high, he’s not loud and he’s not out kissing people’s behinds, so maybe he’s not a part of that “it” group of DJs. But he is here, and you can’t move him; he is foundation, and you’ve got to pay him homage.

Gladys Pizarro

Before Zanzibar, I had been going to commercial clubs in New York, places like Studio and Xenon, and buying records like Lime and Bobby O. My friend said, “Gladys, this is corny! You gotta come with me to this club in Jersey.” I walked into the club and, oh my God – I had never heard a sound system like that. The song was “Move Your Body.” Tony was on the decks, and he just kept going. That was it; I was blown away. Zanzibar really changed the way I thought about music.

Tony Humphries

There are plenty of great underground parties around now, but it would be great to go back to what we had at Zanzibar. I do appreciate everything that’s happened since then, and I have become more of what I guess you would call a worldly DJ... but I have felt a bit like a fish out of water since then.

Gladys Pizarro

I get really emotional when I talk about it, but that club means everything to me. It was such a big part of my life, and it’s the kind of place that we’re missing today. The sound system, Tony’s mixing abilities, his programming…it just all added up to a great time. We’re missing that kind of vibe where everybody would just get together and have a great time. And to me, that’s really what house music is all about.

Special thanks to Vincent Bryant for the use of images from the book A Journey Through The House. You can find out more about the book at his website. The header image is copyright Vincent Bryant, 2014, and shows DJ Gerald T. Roney.