Disco History: How Poussez! and Alphonse Mouzon Turned Jazz Fusion into Dancefloor Gold

The Twelve Inch 162 : Come On And Do It (Poussez!)

The success of Saturday Night Fever flipped the disco world on its head. What had started as an underground movement exploded into a global music industry almost overnight. Nightclubs with flashing, illuminated dancefloors sprang up everywhere, and people rushed to sign up for dance classes to learn the moves John Travolta made famous.

Suddenly, everyone wanted in. Record companies flooded the market with disco releases, some brilliant, some forgettable. The strategy was simple: throw everything at the wall and see what stuck. For musicians and producers, it was open season. If you could lay down a beat, you had a shot.

One of those artists was Alphonse Mouzon, a respected jazz fusion drummer. In 1979, he entered the disco arena with a project called Poussez!, a bold move that raises some fascinating questions: What convinced him to make the leap? How were these one-off disco studio projects put together? And why did some, like Poussez!, feature white models on the cover instead of the …