Albisiederplatz 6
1974–1979

After our first press orientation under the title "A Bazillus for Zurich" (1972), many people knew that Dieter Schärer and I had been looking for a suitable location for a long time.

My friend Jürg Grau, architect and trumpet player, called me on the 11th of July to tell me that a large sous-sol store in the property Albisriederplatz 6 was for rent. At that time, he was working as a freelancer for the architectural office "Wellmann" on the top floor.

Where the UBS branch on Albisriederplatz is located today, there was a car accessories store called Acar AG in the 70ies. The owner, Mr. Wullschleger, also owned the rear building no.6, where Acar AG had a repair workshop and a warehouse for the accessories in the sous-sol. A large part of his company then moved to a new warehouse and office building in Schlieren/ZH. We got a lucky break there because the basement warehouse was connected underground to the store at the front of the square, and there was a goods lift at the front of the store! Good prospects for a conversion! From the outside you couldn't see that a large space existed underground and under the parking lot.

So it was known that the owners of that house on the square wanted to rent out the basement room. But… a real jazz club was out of the question without an alcohol patent. So at least it could be a musician's center for workshops and rehearsals.

At the end of September 1974, I signed the lease and thus came to about 140 inexpensive square meters for SFr. 603.- per month.

By the way, there was Christian Ostermeier (prominently listed here in the archive), back then an apprentice working for architect Wellmann! We made a deal: he draws me a 1:100 plan for the building application and he gets the cellar key and may practice the flute down there.

With a handful of volunteers, we began to clean out the basement. Here are a few that come to mind:

When very soon after my building application had been submitted the first demands from the authorities started raining down on me, I had to be driven to the Neumünster hospital because of extreme stomach pains. When their senior physician said "we have to cut", I got better by the minute and to complete recovery within two hours. Clearly a psychosomatic attack…

The reason:

For 30 admitted persons a toilet facility for ladies and gentlemen with anteroom and lavabo had to be installed. 

In addition, a large ventilation system with fresh air duct supply from the vicinity of the 2nd floor. The exhaust air had to be led away over the old chimney. Soundproof windows, that was understandable…

For 30 people (e.g. big band) the room had to be one third smaller!! Where it would have been situated best, namely in the rear part, where the residents of the house would be less disturbed, we had to separate the room with an ALBA plaster wall! The result was a useless room of 25 square meters just because of a paragraph!

Here the proof photo of the official's wall of shame…

Just where the room was most spacious, a metal staircase had to be mounted across the room as an emergency exit. Art Blakey was virtually covered by this monstrosity at the live concert!

In late September '75 we opened the Bazillus Workshop.

At first I was looking for musicians who wanted to rehearse once a week and quickly organized the "Tuesday Session" with all kinds of Jazz and the "Saturday Session" around Rock. Unfortunately, I had not written down who played when at the club. All I found from that time was a list of people, who were there. Many of them had not played, but came to listen. (s the list at the end)

At first, I simply invited all my colleagues from 'Africana times' to the Tuesday sessions, and young musicians quickly joined in. It spread like a wildfire that there were hot sessions with very good musicians going on. The musicians came from Basel, St.Gallen, Lucerne and especially from Bern, including  many teachers of the Jazz-School Bern (except Bigler), because to jam with Sal Nistico was an event! George Gruntz had organized a big theater musical project with a jazz big band at the Bellevue in Zurich. So there were a lot of US musicians in town. Many of these cats came to the Bazillus workshops during many weeks. This in turn had the great effect of 'scaring up' almost the whole big band of the UOB ("Unterhaltungs Orchester Beromünster").

The stage area was still to the right of the entrance at the time. The next door neighbor had complained several times about the noise.

Photos by the then young photographer Christian Känzig of "Stage A":

In early June 1976, I got a call from Hugo Faas asking me if I could organize a concert with Art Blakey and his quintet in a few days, because the band was stranded in southern Germany and needed money. I agreed. Anne and I had immediately handwritten 150 envelopes and slapped on the stamps. The band was staying at the Stoller Hotel across the street. The only cat from the "old guard" was trumpet player Bill Hardman, also known from the "Bill Hardman - Junior Cook Quintet." During those years Blakey mostly came on European tours with his students. I already thought then that the "old fart" was kind of out. So there were a few young musicians in the band, who later made a career out of touring with Blakey. The fee was "on the door" and I could only put 500 francs into Blakey's hands. He took the money and left the musicians behind and they asked us if they could get anything to eat now. We all lived "low budget" or even "no budget" at that time. Marcel Bernasconi was the only one with money. At Albisriederplatz, the cheapest Swiss restaurant served the specialty "Älplermagronen", a mix of pasta and potatoes with apple sauce. We got that and beer for everyone.

Here are a few more photos from an Omnibus rehearsal (Project Runo Ericksson) with Pierre Favre, Irene Schweizer and others.

Afterwards some more pictures from the Bazillus workshop with Remo Rau, Hans Kennel, Andreas Vollenweider, Alex Bally, K.T. Geier and others.

In total there were about 85 sessions and 43 concerts. The entrance fee was Fr. 2.- which I collected myself. There was no bar. People brought their own drinks. At the end of 1978 I was given notice, because the owner Wullschleger of Acar AG wanted to renovate the whole house.

Conclusion:
This first Bazillus room was the basis for everything that followed later. I had quickly learned that it was important to get along with the authorities, although I still had an unbelievable rage in my satchel because of these building restrictions on the part of the authorities. Via Bernhard Uhlmann, at least the door to the presidential department was now ajar, and then in 1975, the city president Sigi Widmer even took over the patronage for the cellar. The first association made the place known through the press conference, and for the first time I had the feeling that we had now arrived in a good way at the authorities'. In addition, Hugo Faas ("Musig am Määntig" Uni Mensa), Maria Zehnder (as Claude Nobs' right hand back directly from Montreux), Jürg Woodtli (pioneer Theater Spektakel) and I had simultaneously organized a new edition "International Jazz Festival Zurich" in 1978/79/80.  All with the support of Bernhard Uhlmann from the former presidential department. The success was immense. But at that time it bubbled under the surface quite violently in Zurich…

There was a spirit of new beginnings in the city.

The repression of the authorities in the 1970s (in response to the '68 riots) then exploded in the summer of 1980.

The struggle of all those involved, who had fought for more free space from the mid-60s onwards, was rewarded and as a result the "Rote Fabrik", the "Kanzlei-Areal" and "Bazillus" could finally be realized in the early 80s.

This list also includes musicians' names I found on authentic notes.