DJ Pierre

Nathaniel Pierre Jones, raised in the Chicago suburbs and widely recognized as DJ Pierre, served as both a pivotal disc jockey and inventive studio craftsman who helped forge Chicago’s acid-house sound. His subsequent role as an in-house producer for Strictly Rhythm Records steered New York’s house style toward a more pronounced disco flavor.

Early on, he absorbed the rapid dance megamixes broadcast by the Hot Mix Five, the innovative radio DJ collective that dominated Chicago airwaves in the first half of the 1980s. Although Jones began performing as a DJ himself and gravitated toward Italian disco rather than the soul-and-American-disco mixtures favored by local figures such as Ron Hardy, a trip to the Music Box arranged by his friend Spanky altered his direction. Hearing Hardy play in person persuaded him to shift toward the emerging house aesthetic.

With Spanky and another associate named Herb J, he started experimenting in off-hours using an older drum machine and several synthesizers. One instrument was the Roland TB-303, a bass-line generator that had appeared only recently yet already turned up cheaply in pawn shops. After extended trial and error, the three discovered that raising the device well above its usual pitch range produced a distinctive, squelching psychedelic texture. The effect animated their recordings so effectively that Ron Hardy began spinning one piece from his reel-to-reel at the Music Box, where it became known as “Ron Hardy’s Acid Tracks.” In 1986 the trio, performing as Phuture, issued the track commercially as “Acid Trax,” a landmark house single that gave birth to the acid-house style. Within a short time, countless copycat records flooded the local scene and the originators faded from view.

DJ Pierre stayed active, forming Pierre’s Phantasy Club with Felix Da Housecat and delivering the enduring house classic “String Free” under the Phortune name, before exiting Phuture and relocating to New York in 1990.

His first Gotham release arrived via Photon Inc. with the dance-floor powerhouse “Generate Power,” issued on Strictly Rhythm and marking the introduction of his Wild Pitch technique, a method that employed a swiftly back-spun sample to create a sharp, lightning-like impact akin to the earlier acid squelch. The approach quickly appeared throughout his own remixes and productions as well as those of many other artists. He continued supplying remixes and original tracks for Strictly Rhythm and Twisted/MCA, scoring additional club successes with Audio Clash’s “Live & Die,” another Photon Inc. cut titled “Love,” Aly-Us’s “Follow Me,” and Joint Venture’s “Sound Blaster.” Throughout the 1990s he also assembled numerous mix compilations.