Danny Krivit

American disco & electronic DJ, producer/remixer.

Born: 10 April 1957 in New York City, New York, USA.

Krivit grew up in in the 1960s in Greenwich Village, New York City, and was surrounded by music. His mother was an accomplished jazz singer and his father was the manager of legendary jazz trumpeter Chet Baker before going on to open up "The Ninth Circle"; a Village hot spot, where Danny worked as a boy. Here, Krivit met many influential music scene people; Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Mingus*, John Lennon, and Yoko Ono, amongst others.

Krivit's home was also a hotbed of musical inspiration, with [a=The Mothers Of Invention] living down the hall, and Sid Bernstein (manager of The Rascals) living upstairs, regularly popping down to the Krivit household to practice their future hits on the piano. At school a close friend and classmate was the son of Creed Taylor, the production genius behind many artists who recorded on the Verve, Verve, and Verve labels, and another close friend was legendary soul guru [a=Nile Rogers].

By 1970 Krivit was already a vinyl junkie and an amateur DJ, but DJ-ing as a profession wasn't realised until 1971, after another neighbor and friend of his (vice president of Verve) introduced him to one of his artists (the legendary James Brown), who gave Danny white-label promo copies of his "Get On The Good Foot", and "Think" by Lynn Collins. Soon after he started DJ-ing at "The Ninth Circle" which by now had been transformed into a disco. In 1975, his father opened his second club called "Ones", with Krivit being their sole DJ through 1977. From this he started promoting and DJ-ing at his own after-hours club down the street. By now, Krivit was becoming part of the underground scene, club-hopped a lot, met some of the greatest DJ names of the time, including Nicky Siano (of the Gallery), Walter Gibbons (of Galaxy 21), Tee Scott (of Better Days), David Rodriguez (of The Limelight), Richie Kaczor (Club Hollywood), and [a=Bobby DJ] (of Le Jardin), et al. – although one party host stood out amongst the rest: David Mancuso (The Loft parties).

The Loft was a musical center and mecca for DJs, a unique place and home of the original Record Pool. Here Krivit began his long time friendships with DJs Larry Levan and François Kevorkian (aka François K). In 1977 when he started DJ-ing at "Trude Heller's", he also become an avid roller skater, and with his girlfriend ([a=Daphne Rubin Vega]) would regularly skate over to the Paradise Garage club, where Levan would let them skate around the club while he would check out some of the new records that week on the sound system. The Garage remained Krivit's main stomping ground until it closed in 1987.

His list of DJ residencies steadily grew throughout the 1970s, and in 1979 after DJ-ing at the opening of the Roxy club, he became their resident DJ for the next 4 years. In the early 1980s the Roxy was the home of some of the best hip hop DJs of the day like "D.S.T", [a=Grand master Flash], and [a=Africa Bambaata]. Being one of the few white boys who could scratch mix, so he became known as 'Danny Rock'. Throughout the 1980s, the list of residencies and guest spots expanded: Area, Danceteria, The Ice Palace, Laces, The Limelite, Red Zone, Save The Robots, Studio 54 (Virgin Islands), Tracks, The Tunnel, The World, and many others, including one guest spot at the legendary Paradise Garage.

Since the late 1970s, trade magazines including Billboard, Cash Box, Record World, Dance Music Report, have listed Krivit's playlists and his mix tapes had been getting airplay on radio stations WBLS, WKTU, and Kiss FM.

The 1980s saw the beginning of Krivit's studio work, working on tracks featuring James Brown "Soul Power", "The Funky Drummer", "Give It Up And Turn It Loose"; [a=Ecstacy, Passion & Pain] "Touch And Go"; [a=Brenda And The Tabulations] "Let's Go All the Way"; and Gloria Gaynor "Casanova Brown".

Moving into the 1990s, he inherited The Ninth Circle club night and continued to DJ at clubs such as Mars, Tracks, The Choice, Palladium, Shelter, Sound Factory Bar, Twilo, and The Warehouse. At its inception in 1996, Krivit joined Francois K and Joe Claussell at their "Body And Soul" night at club Vinyl and has regularly DJ'd both in the US and internationally in various clubs in New York, Japan, and elsewhere. In 1999, a highlight was DJ-ing for a 15,000 strong crowd at one of three special Body And Soul event for "Summer Stage" in Central Park, NYC.

Krivit's reputation outside New York has grown immensely, and he has hosted two special international Body And Soul events in London for "Angels Of Love" and Giorgio Armani. His reputation continues to grow, much like his 50,000-strong record collection, and he also VJ's with a collection of over 5000 rare soul performances on video from the 1960s to 1990s.

Married to Akemi Kakihara aka AK.