Pete Isaac is best known as the DJ promoter behind the seminal southwest club-night Jelly Jazz since January 1993. In its early days during the height of the southwest's rave culture, Jelly Jazz started out to provide a weekly diet of soul, funk, latin, hip hop and break-beat all with a jazz twist to them. The blend worked and the unpretentious, 'sweat dripping off the walls', 'dance till you drop' attitude and atmosphere driven relentlessly by the musical passion of resident DJ's Pete Isaac and Griff soon became a major force in Southwest club-culture. Fairly soon Jelly Jazz developed an international reputation and was attracting the likes of Gilles Peterson, Norman Jay, Mr. Scruff, Quantic, Patrick Forge, Chris Goss, Andy Smith, Russ Dewbury, Rainer Truby, Jazzanova, and DJ Format as guest DJs.

Branching out Jelly Jazz ended up having residencies in Exeter, Falmouth, Totnes, Truro, the Eden Project as well as many guest spots around the country and in Europe plus tours of New Zealand and Canada. One residency that really took off was the 5 year run at Newquay’s Koola nightclub, a truly fantastic, exciting and riotous few years that was! Whilst the Plymouth Wednesday-night club sessions became one of the longest running jazz based club residencies in the world, running weekly for 14 years straight, with ad-hoc events still happening around the SW to the present day. Jelly Jazz celebrated its 30th year in 2023!

As promoter of Jelly Jazz, Pete ventured quickly into live music as well and was the first in the southwest to book many of the early acid jazz acts such as Mother Earth, Corduroy, Izit and The Federation. From small gigs in the Quay Club, to 1200+ people at a time to see acts like latin legends Pucho & The Latin Soul Brothers at The Dance Academy in Plymouth to huge shows at Cornwall’s spectacular Eden Project. Many of those concerts are now legendary in the southwest. The list and the quality is remarkable: The first ever show in Europe from Sharon Jones & The Dapkings, Lou Donaldson (Blue Note), The New Mastersounds, The Quantic Soul Orchestra, Afrodizz, The Bamboos, Sugarman 3, Snowboy and the Latin Section, The Boogaloo Investigators, Manteca, Kokolo Afrobeat Orchestra, Saravah Soul, Ugly Duckling to name a few.

In recent years, Pete has been running 2 stages with Jelly Jazz and 45 Live at the infamous Masked Ball in Cornwall. The Jelly Jazz stage in particular was widely regarded as one of the best on site with queues to get in all night long to see DJs including Nightmares On Wax, Norman Jay, London Electricity, Luke Vibert, Mad Mats and loads more.

As a DJ, Pete is known for energetic, hard-driving combinations of dancefloor jazz, soul, funk, afrobeat and latin cut up and mixed with all their modern derivatives in hip-hop, breakbeat, house and drum and bass. In an era when most club-nights tended to play one genre of music, at one tempo all night, Jelly Jazz defined itself with variety.

The signature sound of Jelly Jazz is bongos, beats, and bass-lines with scratchy guitars, wholesome horns, and wailing organs. Above all it's got to be funky!

Pete’s other main musical focus is creative director of 45 Live. A global community of 7” single fanatics with events from the UK to Los Angeles, a radio show on Dublab and record label. Since its inception in 2015, 45 Live has been running stages at various music festivals in the UK and Europe with an international team of DJs playing strictly 100% 7” vinyl singles.

So far 45 Live has hosted stages at The Masked Ball - UK - May 2015/16/17/18/19, Halloween Masked Ball - Oct 2016/17/18/19, Glastonbury - June 2016/19, Boardmasters - UK - Aug 2016/17/18/19, Reasons - Jersey - July 2016, Vintage Festival - UK - Sept 2017, Castlepalooza - Ireland - Aug 2017/18 - Lemonfest - UK - June 2018, Jardin Sonore - FR - July 2018, Great Estate - UK - May 2019, Festival Crossover - FR - July 2018/19, TAPS - UK - Sept 2018, Acontraluz - FR - Sept 2018, Pointu Festival - FR - July 2019, Cooksound Festival - FR - July 2019 and Valley Fest - UK - Aug 2019.

Playing a wide variety of music from acid house to funk to soul to hip hop to jazz and everything in between, as long as it’s on a 7” it’s fair game. Expertly put together by the 45 Live team which includes Jon More (Ninja Tune/Coldcut), DJ Woody (2 x times ITF world champion), DJ Format, DJ Food, Boca 45, Andy Smith (ex-Portishead), Mr Thing, Greg Belson (Block 9) + many more from UK, Europe and USA.

The 45 Live Radio Show is based in Los Angeles on Dublab, broadcasting on FM in the LA area as well as via the internet worldwide. The show, hosted by Greg Belson, and produced by Greg and Pete features a 1 hour mix every show from one of the 45 Live DJ crew and was a finalist in the Mixcloud Radio Awards in 2018.

Pete also runs 45 Live Records, naturally a label that releases ONLY 7” singles! With no boundaries apart from vinyl format, the label has released gems like the acid house monster ‘Analog Acidbath’ from Type-303, golden era UK hip hop from Outlaw Posse, dancehall beats from The Nextmen, hiphop/soul from Boca 45 and hip hop from Andy Cooper & DJ Format.