American Legendary Show Diva Grace Jones in L’eto

The period of the birth of Disco in the early seventies continues to generate immense interest across several generations. New York in the early seventies increasingly reminds us not only of a city where a completely new club culture, bohemia, drugs, glamour, and DJs blossomed in harmony but also of a crazy place where a new culture emerged. It fundamentally changed our current perspectives on music, entertainment, and legends that still allow us to hear and understand their immortal messages.
On July 9, Saturday, the L’eto project presents for the first time in Russia, the exclusive performance of the legendary show diva Grace Jones, accompanied by the legendary DJ Nicky Siano.
Grace Jones (her real name - Grace Mendoza) was born on May 19 in the early 50s in Spanish Town, Jamaica, and later moved to America, where she graduated from the theater university in Syracuse (New York, USA).
The career of this very tall (almost 1.90 m) singer and actress began in the mid-70s in the "blue" disco clubs of New York. In the bohemian crowd, Grace held a notable place: she performed constantly at "Studio 54," befriended Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mick Jagger, and David Bowie. Before starting her music career, Grace Jones was a runway star, frequently participating in Paris Fashion Weeks, and later collaborated with designer Jean-Paul Gaultier and genius artist and designer Keith Haring. Grace's film career began with several Italian films, and she made her big American cinema debut in 1973 with "Gordon's War." She gained fame as an actress with her roles as Zula in "Conan the Destroyer" with Arnold Schwarzenegger (1984) and May Day in the Bond film "A View to a Kill" with Roger Moore (1985). After recording a couple of successful disco albums like “Fame” (1978) and “Muse” (1979) and earning the title of “Queen of Gay Disco”, Jones wanted to express herself in new styles, and with the help of the dub duo Sly & Robbie, she recorded brilliant cover versions of songs by Iggy Pop, Tom Petty, The Police, and The Pretenders. Grace Jones's rendition of the song Love is a Drug, originally by Roxy Music, became significantly more popular than the original. A significant milestone for the singer and for global music culture overall was the album Island Life (1985). In the first months after its release, it conquered the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and the song from the album I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango) became a mega-hit and is still in rotation on most world radio stations. The record was produced by Trevor Horn, creator of groups like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Art Of Noise, and featured many stars, including Pink Floyd member David Gilmour. This epoch-making album set new standards in the genre of new wave and entered the world treasury of popular music. Subsequent musical works confirmed the singer's talent and had consistent success with the public, but the artist decided to step back from music and focus on cinema. Over several years she appeared in many films, the most notable being Vamp (1986), Straight to Hell with Jim Jarmusch, Siesta, and Boomerang with Eddie Murphy. Grace Jones's filmography includes 17 feature films. Recently, DJs and musicians such as Tricky, Funkstar De Luxe, Dimitri From Paris, DJ Hell, and others have successfully worked with the creative legacy of the singer. Green Velvet said of the singer, “I admire such people because they always knew what they were doing. She always brought something new to music, never guided by established rules. She did what society did not accept, and despite this, she always found success.”

Between 1970 and 1973, Nicky Siano, alongside Michael Cappello, Steve D’Acisto, Don Fondlay, Francis Grasso, Bobby (DJ) Gutadoro, Richie Kaczor, David Mancuso, David Rodriguez, and Ray Iitess, became a pioneer in the art of DJing. This group of music enthusiasts linked to insomnia birthed disco, and Siano rose the art of DJing to a new level of intensity; he was its primary and outstanding creator. Other guys continued to amass more gold records and awards for flyers, but everyone knew that Siano was the DJ of DJs and held that unofficial title from 1973 to 1977. He played in such a way that, to quote a contemporary, “you wanted to wear a skirt and swirl in dance.” And as the night drew to a close, he would sometimes sit down, take off his socks and shoes, and start mixing with his feet. As an extroverted individual with evangelistic tendencies, Siano always intended to step beyond the cozy borders of the music underground. He did this by breaking a hit into another hit and another hit, with a more serious play in commercial epicenters like “Le Jardin” and “Studio 54,” where he worked as an alternative DJ during the first four months of those clubs' existence. "At that time, we just had to expand," says Siano. "Larger clubs were opening, and Studio encapsulated everything. No one at 'Gallery' objected to a residency in the Upper West Side. It was the culmination of clubbing that lasted seven years."