Wim Wigt: 'In the mid-1970s I was approached by Sue Mingus, then the manager of Charles Mingus and his fourth wife. They were two very different personalities. Sue was a bit posh.” (Text by Bert Vuijsje for Jazz Bulletin)
Ria Wigt: 'She also had a magazine at that time, Sue's Changes, and Mingus named a composition after it. 'Wim: 'The only one who toured with bands like Mingus at that time was the American booking agent George Wein. And in the summer Alberto Alberti in Italy, and then also Simone Ginibre in Paris, France, but she was not really a booking agent. Mingus did not want to always depend on George Wein; that's why Sue had to organise her own dates which was very difficult for her. It just wasn't well coordinated.”
Ria: 'Wim always thought very carefully about the routing; we were actually particularly good at that. 'Wim: 'The fact that she came to me, I think, also had to do with the first major tour with American musicians I did in March 1975: the Cedar Walton quartet with Clifford Jordan, Sam Jones and Billy Higgins, 28 performances in 28 days. As a result, I quickly gained the reputation of: I can do all that. I then made a deal with Sue where I could do all the performances. But then I had to deliver the band to Pescara, Italy, on such-and-such a day. ”Ria: 'And Sue also had something for the days that followed.'
Wim: 'Then we booked Mingus at the Bimhuis, Amsterdam, on July 4, 1975, for 3000 Dutch guilders. It was sold out with 700 people. But a ticket cost 2.50 guilders, so you can do the math. I remember Willem Breuker nagging at me all evening, saying that a lot of money was needed and that that shouldn't be allowed, you know. He kept going on about it.” Ria: 'While he had agreed to it himself.' Wim: 'Or together with Hans Dulfer, the committee that ran the Bimhuis at the time. But they had never seen the venue that full.” Ria: 'The Bimhuis had not even been open for a year.’
Schweinebraten
Wim: 'We then mainly booked performances in Germany, such as two or three days in the Domicile in Munich. We drove the band around in a van.” Ria: 'Our red van; you drove that. I just got my driver's license, after a few attempts, and I had to drive Wim's big Citroën CX. I could just about make it work. I would ride with Mingus next to me; that was amazing. Mingus was a cool guy. Every now and then he wanted to show that he knew it all. Then he made all these little jokes, but we had pretty good vibrations.’ Wim: 'I don't remember any arguments with Mingus either.’
Ria: 'Mingus suddenly started eating strawberries. I said, “Oh, that's healthy.” Then he would say, “Order from Sue.” But then we would drive through Northern Germany, and you pass Raststättes and go for something to eat there. So Mingus would be queuing at the buffet and he wanted the fat meat. I said: “But you said you promised Sue…” But he the he would say: “Schweinebraten. Schweinebraten, Ria.” He knew the word, and then he grinned.” Wim: 'He stood at the front of the queue and as soon as he had the food together, he immediately walked away. We were still in line and when we finally got to the checkout, he would’ve joined the line again! He looked very guilty in our direction and then took another portion. ’Ria: 'Sue was in New York; she had delegated it all, actually. There was no road manager either, just the band.” Wim: As a result, we had very good relationships with all the musicians during that tour: Jack Walrath on trumpet, George Adams on tenorsax, Don Pullen on piano and Dannie Richmond on drums.’
Ria: 'The only one who kept moaning was Don Pullen. He would occasionally sit in the back of the car with me, and he would constantly tell me that I was not doing this right. Typical Don Pullen. Dannie Richmond could also be a bit sharp at times, but you just had to be able to handle that. And George Adams was always nice.”
Big pile of sand
Wim: 'So our part of the tour went well, and then we drove a hell of a long way from Munich to Pescara, where the band arrived right on time for the festival. The next day a gig in La Spezia was booked; that is in Cinque Terre, north of Livorno on the coast. Alberto Alberti had not arranged the transport from Pescara to La Spezia, almost 600 kilometers, and so we were hired for that.’ Ria: 'We had already been confronted with quite a few road tolls on the way to Pescara, which we had not thought through enough. As a result, we would not end up with the agreed amount. Wim was like: we didn't get enough money, so then I will have to be a little careful. These were our younger, inexperienced years. So he took out the roadmap and said: We're going to avoid all that toll.' Wim: “The plan was to leave the highway at Bologna and then take the road down to the coast. But I hadn't thought about the fact that there were the Apennines mountains there, and so we ended up on certain types of roads…' Ria: 'You have to imagine, Mrs. Wigt, who has just got her driver's license, in a big car on all those small roads. Don Pullen was in the back and of course he went crazy. At one point we were in a village and we had to stop because there was a huge pile of sand in front of us. We had to go all the way back again.’ Wim: 'We finally arrived in La Spezia fifteen minutes before the start of the concert. The problem at that time was of course that there was no mobile phone yet. So you never knew with the bands that were on the road. Nobody knew where you were. You couldn't report where you were either.’
Ria: 'The next day there was a performance in Digne, France, which Sue Mingus had also arranged herself. Alberto Alberti had rented a large coach for this purpose, with a driver who spoke only Italian. Afterwards we heard how it went.’ Wim: 'They left La Spezia early in the morning at eight or nine o'clock, and the bus got lost in the mountains. So the driver didn't speak English and at one point the musicians tried to ask him how far it still was. Then he just held up two fingers so they thought it was still two o'clock. But those two hours remained two hours the entire time. Ultimately, they only arrived in Digne after the concert, so that performance did not take place at all. To probably save her face in front of Mingus, Sue tried to play it in such a way that we were responsible for it going wrong. But that was not the case.’
All chaos
Ria: 'That's when Wim showed me for the first time what it was like to really organise tours. That it doesn't work if you do it separately with different people.’ Wim: 'That's why we did the Mingus tours all by ourselves. I think there was another one with George Adams and Don Pullen. Then came the line-up with Ricky Ford and Bob Neloms.
And then I formed the George Adams/Don Pullen quartet. I got the idea because they were the two stars within the Mingus band. And perhaps we already started to realise that Mingus had had his day. George and Don wanted to continue with Dannie and I suggested bassist Cameron Brown as fourth member. I had individual agreements with all four of them separately. So officially they didn't know what each earned. Don and George received the same, Dannie a little less. I brought in Cameron Brown because he had impressed me in terms of organisation when he played with Archie Shepp. He was the only one there who kept an eye on everything. Everything else was chaos, so I thought: Cameron is the right man.” Ria: 'He was always very willing. All you had to do was give him the dates and everything would go well.” Wim: 'But none of those four were used to being a band leader, so then I thought: I'll just be their leader. I had already made a Timeless record with George Adams, Paradise Space Shuttle, in December 1978, without Don Pullen. I invested in those recordings with the first money I got from Japan and from Muse, from Joe Fields. And in August 1980 we recorded the George Adams/Don Pullen quartet's first Timeless LP: Earth Beams. That became a whole series of a total of six Timeless albums with Adams/Pullen. Partly because of our activities, they received that contract with Blue Note in 1986.’ Ria: 'We were very fond of George and Don musically. We had a good feeling with their music.”
Pretty positive
Wim: 'So we continued with Mingus: his new band with Ricky Ford on tenorsax and Bob Neloms on piano. Jack Walrath stayed and so did Dannie Richmond. But Mingus unfortunately died in January 1979. I then continued under the title Dannie Richmond and the Last Mingus Band. With Cameron Brown instead of Mingus. I toured the band alternately with the George Adams/Don Pullen quartet at different times of the year. We also made the Timeless record Dannie Richmond Plays Charles Mingus with that band in August 1980, two weeks after Earth Beams.
I think the nice thing is that Sue Mingus never objected to me continuing to use the Mingus name in the band title. She really could have done that. Sue had now founded the Mingus Dynasty, and she also sent them here to Europe. But she never said: “Wim, this is not possible.” It was just allowed.’ Ria: 'Wim thinks it is also because Mingus was quite positive about us.’ Wim: 'Afterwards we heard from musicians that Mingus had already told them in the beginning that I would become the biggest jazz promoter in Europe. I think that's why I never had any problems with all those people around Mingus. Charles was always respected for his vision.”
Ria: 'We did quite a lot of concerts with both bands, Dannie Richmond and Adams/Pullen. You saw that a lot of people thought they were both fantastic. Almost everyone wanted the George Adams/Don Pullen quartet. We still often hear that people can't find the Earth Beams record. We actually should press more copies again. People loved Earth Beams.”
Wim: 'As far as I know, I was the only one who made deals where I paid them per week. Then my problem was what I received for the concerts. That usually went well, but not always. Some performances would running at a loss for us.’
Ria: 'Dannie Richmond was very sharp. And he often said that he had… how do I say that… been through quite a lot. Then I would sometimes say: “Hey Dannie, you look so sharply dressed.” And then he said: “Oh, I know everything. I know how to do this. I learned it in jail. The jail press.” So how to keep a good appearance even under difficult circumstances. ’Wim: 'In March 1988 we would tour again with Dannie Richmond and the Last Mingus Band. Dannie first went from Greensborough, where he lived, to his mother in New York to sleep there. So he was going to the airport and I called in the morning to find out if he had left on time. I got his mother on the phone and she said: “Dannie is gone.” I understood: Dannie has left for the airport. But she meant that Dannie had died suddenly. He was only 56 years old. I don't know if that tour took place after that.’ Ria: “Yes, it did.”
Regular jazz
Wim: 'Between 1975 and 1980, until the dollar went up, we made a fair bit of money.’ Ria: 'Well, we did a lot of tours, worked hard.’ Wim: 'Most of our performances were in Spain, France and Italy. Geneva and Paris were actually the center of our tours. At a certain point, free jazz was identified with the left-wing parties. Then Alberto Alberti convinced the Christian Democratic party in Italy that they should present regular jazz instead of free jazz. Then we received a phone call from him in mid-November: “Wim, we have to do forty concerts in Bari before the end of the year, and the first is in three days.” Ria: “So then all the people had to come from New York.” Wim: 'Because the money for jazz still had to run out that year. I experienced the same thing with André Francis from Radio France. He had to do all kinds of concerts in December to use up the money, because everything that was not used would be deducted from the following year's budget.’ Ria: 'And then they came to us.’
Wim: 'That was also the reason why I made the founding of the New Morning, a large jazz club in Paris, France, financially possible. If I couldn't book a band for a while, I could always park them there. So I lent them a significant amount of money, which I have yet to get back to this day. But without that money, the New Morning in Paris would never have been founded. We already had very good contact with the people from the original New Morning, a small jazz club in Geneva, Switzerland. Ria: 'That was a certain Alain Farhi, whose father and stepmother came from Egypt and lived in Paris. He was married to a woman from a fairly well-to-do family from Bremen, Germany. At one point Alain also wanted to start a New Morning in Paris. He had the opportunity to get a space and we had already secured some money for him. But then things got out of hands. The entire space had to be arranged in such a way that the neighbours would not complain. And all kinds of hassle with permits, etc. It was turned out much more difficult than it had seemed. So we were approached for that money. We had to pay our deposit. Ultimately, New Morning was opened, but it turned out that Alain was heavily on drugs and was no longer able to properly manage his affairs.’ Wim: 'Alain's stepmother, who was already quite old, Mrs. Eglal Farhi, had to take over from him to run the entire club.' Ria: 'At one point she said: “Oh well, we'll book your bands.” Then money came in, but we didn't get all of it, because they also had to pay a lot of costs. So we did have a good place to book, but it actually didn't yield much for us.’ Wim: 'I felt obliged to keep New Morning alive. Even on dates that I could sell bands well, I still occasionally put them in the New Morning. I was a kind of a co-investor.” Ria: 'What also played a role: "Yes, those Wigts are far away and they don't need it that badly anymore." Which wasn't very nice.’
Managers with briefcases
Wim: 'Then things started to shift a bit, partly because we started doing all of Chris Barber's bookings. A lot of Dixieland, especially in Germany.’ Ria: 'There were also many artists who died. And we started to see a lot of young American musicians with managers with suits and briefcases and so on. That made us a bit fed up with that attitude.’ Wim: 'Wynton Marsalis was always neatly dressed.’ Ria: 'And everyone had to be like that.’ Wim: 'He was the opinion leader of that very young jazz scene.’ Ria: 'We were very happy with what we did with Art Blakey and all those musicians, who were of course on drugs or drinking every now and then, but who were fully committed to good music. And if at a certain point you see that all those young guys are only busy with nonsense, with complicated and so called important things, while it meant nothing... Yes, that would discourage you.’
Wim: 'With Chris Barber came a huge amount of work and then all those other British Dixieland bands were added. Mr. Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball and then Papa Bue's Viking Jazz Band from Denmark and the Dutch Swing College Band from the Netherlands. 'The Three B's' were always a very popular combination: Chris Barber, Mr. Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball. We held very large concerts in the UK and Germany with them. Royal Festival Hall in London, entirely on our risk. Those things went very well. We actually got too busy with that, so then everything else got pushed aside a bit.'
Timeless 'Mingus' recordings
Mingus Dynasty: click here
George Adams/Don Pullen Quartet: click here
Dannie Richmond and the last Mingus Band: click here