John Morales

John Morales, a Bronx-born trailblazer in the art of mixing whose contributions earned him strong consideration for Dance Music Hall of Fame induction, first entered the music world before his teenage years through a part-time job at a record store. Records he acquired there occasionally found their way onto turntables at his father’s bar, sharpening the DJ skills that soon secured him slots at key Manhattan discos including the Limelight and Studio 54. Unhappy with the usual three- to four-minute runtime of singles, he began fashioning medleys and edits, a handful of which appeared in extremely limited quantities on the Sunshine Sound label.

Morales developed a partnership with producers Patrick Adams and Greg Carmichael, supplying mixes for Universal Robot Band’s “Dance and Shake Your Tambourine” and Musique’s “In the Bush,” although formal recognition did not arrive until his work on Inner Life’s “(I’m Caught Up) In a One Night Love Affair.”

Sustaining that close association with Adams and Carmichael, he prepared mixtapes for Frankie Crocker’s WBLS program and there met music director and fellow DJ Sergio Munzibai. The pair maintained a prolific collaboration through the late ’80s, resulting in hundreds of mixes frequently listed on sleeves as “M&M Mix.” Among the tracks they substantially reworked for heightened club impact were the Fantastic Aleems’ “Get Down Friday Night,” Class Action’s “Weekend,” Lime’s “Angel Eyes,” Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F,” Jocelyn Brown’s “Somebody Else’s Guy,” El DeBarge’s “You Wear It Well,” and Club Nouveau’s “Why You Treat Me So Bad.”

After several years away from studio work, a stretch that included time at audio software and hardware company Steinberg, Morales handled the “Love Man” sessions for Hip-O’s expanded reissue of Marvin Gaye’s In Our Lifetime. In the years that followed he compiled three two-disc M&M anthologies for the BBE label, released in 2009, 2011, and 2013; several selections were previously unreleased versions drawn from his extensive private collection, while others were newly created. He continued mixing, delivering fresh versions for CD reissues of Margie Joseph’s Knockout! and T.S. Monk’s Human.