Monday 7 November 2016

Gilles Peterson - PB at New York Marathon

I love Gilles Peterson as a DJ, I know if I listen to one of his mixes or radio shows that there will be lots of great music that I have never heard before - in short I trust him, he has even helped persuade me that jazz is OK, at least at the funkier end of its spectrum!



Gilles ran New York City Marathon last Sunday in a PB of 4:19:40. He ran his first marathon (London) in 2011 in 4:43:09, of which he wrote:

'Running around the streets of London yesterday made me appreciate this great city and its people – I love it here. The crowd was so encouraging – amazing… and it was funny how it changed from Greenwich to Deptford to the Isle Of Dogs – posh to chavvy – classic… the bands playing along were great – a lot of jazz funnily enough… more thoughts of Steve Reid!… and a brilliant bit about 21 miles in just before Tower Bridge on the Highway – massive sound playing – Rhythm Is Rhythm – ‘Strings of Life’… I thought I was on one in a rave on the Lee Bridge Road in ’88… I was properly tripping by then – that was my existential moment of the marathon!'

Since then he has run London Marathon three more times (2012, 2013, and 2014).  Gilles was running in New York to raise funds for the Steve Reid Foundation, a charity he helped set up a few years ago to help musicians in crisis (Steve Reid was a jazz drummer who died in 2010, unable to afford the medical treatments he needed).  After running 26.2 miles on Sunday, Peterson went on to another marathon DJ set at a fundraiser in New York at Le Bain, along with Francois K, Louie Vega and others. The flyer promised that 'his DJ set will be the length of his marathon run' and apparently he put in the full four hours.

He's already raised more than £5000 from the run, but there's still time to donate at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/GillesPeterson2016



See previously:

Musicians in Motion -

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