The record "Archie Shepp and the New York Contemporary 5" was released on the Savoy label in 1964. At the age of 19, I was totally hooked on this sound and on Shepp anyway. There was an unknown alto sax player who I immediately took to my heart with his wonderful sound: John Tchicai, who I assumed was American.
When I went to Copenhagen in 1967, I met Anne Christiansen (voc) and Ole Thilo (keys). Ole was a member of the free group Cyklamium and Anne was a singer a few times. At that time one of the few Free groups in Denmark.
Only then I had learned that Tchicai was born in Århus to Congolese-Danish parents. In the sixties was formed successively larger orchestras in the genre of Charlie Haden's Liberty Orchestra. Thicai's big band called Cadentia Nova Danica (on Polydor), however, was stylistically more along the lines of "The New York Contemporary 5".
WIEBELFETZER WORKSHOP's 1971/73/82 organized and devised by Beat Kennel - Ole Thilo - Anne Christiansen
Line-up of orchestras whose sound had inspired and been in our heads since early on:
1960 Black Liberation Music - Max Roach «We insist!“1961 «The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra«
1963 «The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady« Charles Mingus
1965 Ascention – John Coltrane
1965 Jazz Composer’s Orchestra Carla Bley & Mike Mantler
1966 Globe Unity Orchestra 1966
1970 Cadentia Nova Danica – John Tchicai
1969 Liberation Music Orchestra LP Charlie Haden Carla Bley
1970 Centipede - Keith Tippett
1971 Wiebelfetzer Workshop - Bazillus – Doppel-LP
1971 Kreismusik- 50 Musiker. 4 Bühnen -Publikum in der Mitte - Music Ole Thilo
1972 Escalator over the Hill - Carla Bley
1966 Globe Unity Orchestra - erste LP 1973 – Live Wuppertal
1975 The Only Chrome Waterfall Orchestra Mike Gibbs
In the early seventies George Gruntz became musical director at the Schauspielhaus Zurich. For the play, "William Shakespeare's 'naked' Hamlet" 1971 (director: Günther Büch. dramaturge: Peter Rüedi) Gruntz had brought the musicians Pierre Favre, Peter Warren and John Tchicai on the Pfauen stage. Tchicai's condition: he wanted to go through with it only with the Danish organist Ole Thilo, who consistently played on an original Farfisa organ, (an instrument frowned upon in jazz, which at that time was actually only used by Italian entertainment musicians in tourist hotels…). Gruntz wanted to send Thilo back home, but Tchicai threatened Gruntz to quit the project. This episode resulted in one of the most modern groups, which unfortunately existed only for a short time: the "Naked Hamlet Ensemble". An LP was never produced but fortunately there are still a few excerpts from a concert in Willisau.
Gruntz had called me and told me that all their artist apartments at the Schauspielhausen were occupied. He had heard that we would live in Hütten (SZ), above Richterswil in a Residential community (pianist Marcel Bernasconi was the tenant) in a Wander Restaurant. So it happened that first Tchicai and Thilo lived there for a longer time. Then the bass player Peter Warren joined them. In the former Hiker restaurant many rehearsals were held, also in later projects (Kreismusik).
At first I wanted to use Pierre Favre as the main drummer. Pierre had too many gigs on his hands and suggested to consider one of his best assistant at the "Cymbal-Zentrum Paiste und Co" in Nottwil. It was the then 23-year-old Lucerne Fredy Studer (OM), who then also brought the electric bass player Klaus "Gogo" Thalmann to the workshop. Klaus could read music very well, which was important for the compositions of Thilo-Tchicai and Ericksson.
We were very close friends with Irene Schweizer. Of course I knew her very well from "Africana times" and she then also played at our first "Bazillus Festival Zug" (Openair 1970). Jürg Grau, also an "Africanaer". We played together often in the 60's and Jürg was always there with his extraordinary playing style in all the years to come. Important to mention: Grau was part of the first "Globe Unity Orchestra" in 1966. The American double bass player Peter Warren was an excellent note reader and also a powerful, wild bass player who mastered all styles of music. Ole Thilo turned out to be a shrewd composer and he wrote the most beautiful handwritten scores. He later became a professional score writer and then worked for George Gruntz… and various Danish large orchestras. For Wiebelfetzer I he wrote "Abrikosmos", "Bazillus Infection" and he also arranged a piece of mine, which I played to him on a bass flute. Irene also brought ideas for a piece and Ole then wrote it all down for the band. Tchicai wrote his composition "Force Ichha" during his stay in Hütten. Eriksson also got into the swing of things and wrote the composition "Viodo" at the same time. Favre, as we know, once worked in the UOB (Beromünster Entertainment Orchestra, also called Radio Big Band). When we asked him if he knew a bass trombonist, Pierre recommended the Swedish trombonist Runo Ericksson. Runo was classically trained and could "sight read." Eight-and-a-half-fourths themes? No problem! Stephan Wittwer played briefly in our hippie band "Schlüntz" in 1969, but we never performed publicly. He brought the first weird guitar sounds to the scene as a 18-year-old. The tip on Wittwer came from the artist Anton Bruhin. Who had produced the LP "vom Goldabfischer" with Wittwer shortly before. The "crocodile drummer" Düde Dürst was a good friend anyway. He had been at almost all the concerts we organized from 1969 on. He was used by us as a conga player.
Shortly before the concert in the "Weissen Wind" we had a first rehearsal with all musicians in the "Drahtschmidli".
One day before the concert on April 27, 1971, there was a dress rehearsal in the small hall of the «Weisser Wind».
The stage of the «Weisser Wind» was too small for the whole band. That's why I ordered four pieces from the scaffolding company Indupro AG, which the erectors set up for us according to my ideas. The recordings of the live recording were made by Peter Pfister with his mobile recording studio.
The concert was sold out.
The concert was a great, important experience for all of us. The audience was patient and very attentive and also enthusiastic.
The double LP "Wiebelfetzer Live" (1971) was my first record production. At that time I didn't really know what to do with such a product at all. First and foremost, we just wanted to document the live concert.
Anne Christiansen and I started our work as freelance illustrators and graphic designers at that time, and we had no money to build up this shipping business properly. On the contrary; we had to take over the deficit from the live concert and the LP production ourselves.
In our "direct distribution" maybe 150 discs were sold. The largest shipment of 300 went to Denmark to a music distributor. The bill was never paid, because the owner, in order to get money from the insurance company, had deliberately set fire to his whole warehouse = «Fondue à la Vinyl».
Somehow a few people from the scene had noticed that this was a pretty weird production. There were a few positive reviews, where the evidence unfortunately disappeared in the course of time.
In addition, we were awarded the "Grand Prix du Disque de Jazz Montreux" for this double LP at the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival, under the "Special Award" category. We got enough stickers to show off on every record…
In the last 10 years we were amazed what prices were offered for the album on the portal discogs.com. Once it was 570.- francs!
Two more Wiebelfetzter workshops followed in 1973 and 1982.
At the very end:
How did I get the name «Wiebelfetzer»…
At the end of the 1950s, our eldest brother Maurice sent us the first MAD paperbooks from New York. We absorbed all the material and soon knew a few passages from these booklets by heart. There was talk of a "Veeblefetzer Corporation". This became a running gag in our youth clique when it came to describing a somewhat obscure company (group, institution, etc.). Because all local rock groups used English group names, I had Germanized the name "Veeblefetzer" ten years later to "Wiebelfetzer Workshop" as a kind of protest.
