Like many deep cultural traditions, jazz can begin to feel like an insider’s language — shaped by history, protected by codes, guarded by those who know it best. Every living culture eventually builds walls: histories, hierarchies, unspoken rules. Jazz is no exception.
That kind of depth can be beautiful. But it can also be intimidating. Sometimes it takes someone standing just outside the circle to hold up a mirror — and remind us that the music doesn’t belong to a select few. It belongs to anyone willing to listen.
For more than four decades, British DJ, broadcaster, and tastemaker Gilles Peterson has played that role. He’s not a musician, he’s a listener. A collector. A connector. Someone whose curiosity has consistently opened doors between worlds that don’t always speak to one another.
Peterson came up as a DJ in London in the early 1980s, playing records before and between bands. As DJ culture grew, he found himself not just presenting music, but shaping how people encountered it.
“I loved the music,” he told me during Winter Jazzfest in 2020, “but I didn’t want to be part of that culture. So we created our own way of enjoying it.”
That instinct to reframe rather than reject, would change the course of his career. In the late ’80s, almost as an offhand joke, Peterson coined the term Acid Jazz, blending the energy of acid house with the spirit of jazz, funk, and soul. The name stuck. A genre was born. And jazz, once again, found its way onto dance floors and into the bodies of young listeners.
Peterson describes his life’s purpose simply: “To bring this music to a wider audience.”
And he’s done it by moving constantly between scenes, radio and records, clubs and concert halls, London and New York, acting as a kind of cultural ambassador.
That outsider’s perspective has also allowed him to hear familiar traditions with fresh ears. In Brazil and Cuba, he helped artists rediscover their own musical heritage by reflecting it back through a global lens which honors the roots while opening new pathways forward.
Now, more than forty-five years into his DJ career, Gilles Peterson still approaches music with the energy of a wide-eyed kid — curious, enthusiastic, and fully present. At Winter Jazzfest, where he curates nights each year, he moves through the jazz community not as an insider, but as a fellow traveler.
And that spirit will be front and center again this year. Gilles Peterson is hosting two special events at Winter Jazzfest:
First, a celebration of the 35.5-year anniversary of Giant Step, featuring DJ sets from Peterson and Ron Trent, plus a live performance by Kassa Overall. And later in the week, Gilles Peterson Presents: Liner Notes — an evening of music, stories, and conversation, co-presented with Giant Step and Worldwide FM.
Two nights. Two different frames. One guiding idea: that jazz and the culture around it is alive, porous, and meant to be shared.
For more information visit https://www.winterjazzfest.com/.
