Maxi Jazz, rapper and singer with Faithless, pioneers of the UK dance scene – obituary
His thoughtful lyrics helped the band to stand out as they established themselves with their euphoric live performances
Maxi Jazz, who has died aged 65, was the effortlessly charismatic frontman of Faithless, standard bearers for British dance music during the 1990s and 2000s and known for hits such as Insomnia and God is a DJ.
The band was formed in 1995 by Jazz (born Maxwell Fraser), who took on vocal duties with Jamie Catto, Rollo Armstrong, who oversaw production of their songs, and the keyboard player Sister Bliss (Ayalah Bentovim). It was she who wrote most of their music, to which Jazz would usually add lyrics.
These were often rather poetic and unusually thoughtful for the genre, delivered by Jazz in a spoken style akin to chant. He was a practising Buddhist and Bliss described him as the opposite of the egocentric lead singer or superstar club DJ. “Maxi’s a modern-day preacher,” she said. “He tries to illuminate life and share what he’s learnt.”
Jazz himself said he did not begin to make money from music until he was almost 40 and credited this for keeping him level-headed. “This is my church/This is where I heal my hurts” begins God is a DJ, referring to the clubs where Jazz felt part of a like-minded community. The group forged a reputation for euphoric live performances, with Jazz – a strikingly lithe figure who seemed taller than his 5ft 8in – the besuited officiating minister leading his flock of thousands towards strobe-lit communal nirvana.
Faithless began to gain attention in the summer of 1996, as the DJ Pete Tong played their trance-like track Insomnia ceaselessly in the clubs of Ibiza. When released as a single the previous year, it had only reached No 27.
Yet its refrain – “I can’t get no sleep” – chimed with late-night clubgoers kept awake by their pharmaceutical intake, while the full-length version, which came in at nine minutes, built towards the heady release of its third-act riff, now a classic of the era.
Second time around, Insomnia got to No 3 in the UK charts, to No 1 in the US dance charts and sold more than a million copies.
The album Reverence, and the half-dozen which followed at intervals over the next 15 years, among them Sunday 8PM (1998) and No Roots (2004), all enjoyed huge chart success.
Meanwhile, the social consciousness of their songs – which addressed issues such as the war in Iraq or the example of Muhammad Ali – gained fans such as REM’s Michael Stipe and the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl.
Both God is a DJ (1998) and We Come 1 (2001) reached the top five in the UK singles chart. Their greatest hits LP, Forever Faithless (2005), went quadruple platinum, outsold at the time only by the Rolling Stones.
Faithless headlined the Coachella festival in 2007 as the electronic dance music of which they had been harbingers swept the US. They also played memorable gigs on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury, in 2002 and 2010, being seen by more than a million people during their tour that latter year.
Catto had left the group in 1999, and in 2011 Armstrong – who had found arguably still greater success producing the albums of his sister, Dido – and Sister Bliss decided to concentrate on bringing up their families. Jazz also went his own way, returning to Faithless for a series of concerts in 2015-16, with their last ever being at Ibiza Rocks.
Maxwell Alexander Fraser was born on June 14 1957 in Hackney, east London. He was brought up by his parents, who were Jamaican immigrants, in Croydon, and attended Selhurst High School.
His first musical influences were the white rock bands liked by school friends and it was only when he began going to clubs that he was exposed to music by artists such as James Brown. During his twenties he worked as a DJ on pirate radio stations, supporting himself with jobs as a telephone engineer and municipal gardener.
In 1984, he started the Soul Food Café Band, and by the early 1990s had toured with Soul II Soul and Jamiroquai. He also appeared with Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart.
After leaving Faithless, Jazz formed the E-Type Boys, a group which played the kind of rootsy, guitar-led music that had been his first influence. He also had more time to devote to his prized collection of cars and to watching Crystal Palace FC, of which he became an associate director in 2012.
Following his death, the team ran out for their Boxing Day match against Fulham to the strains of Insomnia.
Maxi Jazz, born June 14 1957, died December 24 2022