The pioneering DJ brings three and a half decades of downtempo beats, hip-hop, acid jazz and crate-digging culture to Miami for a special Halloween celebration.
Long before playlists could manufacture a mood in seconds, Mark Farina was building one by hand.
The Chicago-bred DJ began Mushroom Jazz as a cassette series: carefully assembled journeys through instrumental hip-hop, soulful downtempo, acid jazz, dusty grooves and the house music that first drew him underground. Thirty-five years later, the project has grown from an alternative soundtrack for Chicago’s back rooms into an internationally recognized musical movement.
On Saturday, October 31, 2026, Farina will celebrate the 35th anniversary of Mushroom Jazz with a special Halloween edition at ZeyZey Miami. He will be joined by longtime touring partner Nutritious, while vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Chuck Love will accompany Farina during his set.
The anniversary gathering promises something increasingly rare in contemporary nightlife: an unhurried musical journey built around discovery, instinct and the art of the blend.
From Chicago’s Back Rooms To A Global Movement
Farina’s musical education began inside Chicago’s underground. At 16, he found his way into the legendary all-ages club Medusa’s. A chance encounter with Derrick Carter at the record store Imports Etc. would soon connect him with the DJs and house pioneers shaping the city’s sound.
By 1988, Farina had secured what would become a defining residency at Smart Bar. The following year, he co-produced “Mood,” widely credited as the first ambient house track.
But Mushroom Jazz came from a desire to create space beyond the harder house and techno dominating clubs at the time. Farina began drawing connections between the Chicago music of his youth, West Coast jazzy beats, acid jazz, De La Soul, disco and the increasingly influential sound of 1990s New York hip-hop.
“Mushroom Jazz started out in B-rooms in Chicago clubs as an alternative to the house and techno being played in the main rooms,” Farina explains. “I wanted to share my love of hip hop, trip hop, acid jazz, dusties and eclectic beats with people looking for a chill vibe on a club night.”
Farina initially recorded the mixes onto limited-edition cassettes, which reportedly disappeared within minutes whenever they arrived at Chicago’s Gramophone Records. By the time OM Records officially launched the Mushroom Jazz CD series in 1996, Farina had already cultivated a devoted underground following.
“Thirty-five years later, it’s grown into this thing I never could have imagined back then,” he says, “and I’m grateful to everyone that continues to support this music I love playing so much.”
That audience has only expanded. Farina now performs more than 100 shows annually and hosts the Mushroom Jazz show on YouTube in collaboration with Defected Records. When Mushroom Jazz 8 arrived for the project’s 25th anniversary, it debuted at number one on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums chart.
Nutritious Brings His Own Liquid Lineage
Joining Farina in Miami is Nutritious, a DJ, producer and lifelong crate-digger whose approach shares Mushroom Jazz’s resistance to rigid genres.
Self-taught on cassette and vinyl, Nutritious moves through deep house, indie dance, Balearic sounds, nu-disco, rare funk, soul and leftfield electronic music. Rather than simply moving from one finished track to another, he treats three or four decks and effects as live instruments, reshaping songs in real time.
The result is best experienced through an extended set, where tempos and musical eras can slowly dissolve into one another.
“Having learned by playing weekend-long parties, my favorite is the extended set where I can meld tempos and styles into an evolving journey,” Nutritious says. “There’s no wall between a soul record and a deep house track when there’s enough time to explore the full spectrum.”
As the founder of Liquid Culture Records and a founding member of the psychedelics-focused community DoubleBlind, Nutritious also works at the intersection of embodied listening, psychedelic culture and nightlife. His catalog stretches from the kaleidoscopic debut Divinity to his new Liquid Culture album, Solarmaxxing.
His performances have taken him from Ultra, Pikes and IMS Ibiza to New York Fashion Week, Jam Cruise and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He has also toured the Mushroom Jazz circuit with Farina throughout the United States and internationally.
Together, Farina and Nutritious represent two generations of the same crate-digging philosophy: music as an evolving conversation rather than a collection of easily labeled genres.
A Halloween Home At ZeyZey Miami
ZeyZey’s open-air Little River setting feels naturally suited to the occasion. Part tropical garden, part neighborhood gathering place and part late-night dance floor, the Miami venue pairs foliage and string-lit palms with the Zaku Stage and its intimate Tima Disco.
It is a space designed for the kind of exploratory evening Mushroom Jazz has always offered—communal, immersive and unconcerned with rushing toward the next moment.
Limited-edition 35th-anniversary Mushroom Jazz merchandise will also be available exclusively at the event, offering collectors a physical connection to a series whose story began with scarce cassette tapes passed between listeners.
Thirty-five years deep, Mushroom Jazz is still digging.
Mushroom Jazz 35th Anniversary Event Details
What: Mark Farina’s Mushroom Jazz — 35th Anniversary Halloween Edition with Nutritious
Date: Saturday, October 31, 2026
Doors: 6PM
Music: 8PM to close
Where: ZeyZey Miami — Zaku Stage and Tima Disco
Tickets: Free to $64.15
Table Reservations: Zaku Stage or Tima Disco
Genre: Dance/Electronic
The anniversary event is presented by Liquid Culture in collaboration with ZeyZey and Mark Farina/Mushroom Jazz. Learn more at Liquid Culture Records.
