More Tian Just An Impresario Derek Jowell peats the experiment. - - PDF document

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I first met Robert Paterson in 1965. I’ve forgotten what he said exactly, but it was something like: “Tiere’s this man Azna- vour - you’ve heard of him?” I had indeed though I’d never seen him perform. “Well, he’s rising 40, a little guy, crinkly-faced, a funny scratchy voice, but he gets through to women, and men too, in a fantastic way. When he sings, he seems to know what worries them, what they remember, what their hopes are. You ought to go and hear him in France, talk to him. He’s going to be very big here and in the States”. So I flew over to the Olympia in Paris. And Robert Paterson was right. Aznavour

• n record was only a hint of Aznavour in

the flesh, spellbinding the matrons and teenagers too; and a man who talked very uninhibitedly. He made a marvelous story; and he did become very big indeed in London, New York, allover. But Robert Paterson was as much of a discovery as Aznavour. Paterson, at this stage, I could scarcely believe in. Most of the impresarios I knew then were intense, bonhomous, cigar smoking and middle-

• aged. Paterson was all these things, except

he was 25 and had started life as a pro- moter a couple of years earlier by ringing up Robert Craft, amanuensis of Stravin- sky and asking if he could bring the great composer to Europe. He did too. It was the first concert Paterson had ever pre- sented. To start that way takes nerve bordering on impertinence, which is a quality I guess many great showmen have had. But with Paterson, as I soon began to learn, nerve is allied with al almost fanatical determina- tion to achieve what he sees as his artistic

• ends. Tie profit motive is within him, cer-

tainly, but he has motivation much more subtly constructed than that. Tiis, I think, is why he has been so successful so early. He has to feel for the artists or at least the art he presents. Sometimes he makes mis- takes - I mean in terms of affinity with artists - but when he does, he never re- peats the experiment. Box-office losses he will accept when he believes in an artist. He persevered with Jacques Loussier for a long time in England before the French Bach-with-jazz trio succeeded. He is still in the process of winning over the Eng- lish provinces to the unique art, now ac- claimed in New York as well as London,

• f Cleo Laine. And he didn’t exactly make

his fortune when he first toured Duke El- lington in Britain. More Paterson qualities: He will flog himself unstintingly for his artists and ac- companies them personally on tours more than most impresarios. He never seems to stop working. He wakes up with calls from Japan or Australia and goes to bed with calls from California. “Tiis is a per- sonal service business and you can never really switch off,” he says. He was once telephoned from the Far East with the complaint that the hotel he’d booked an artist into didn’t have a socket that fitted the guy’s razor. He didn’t blow his top; just switched the hotel booking. Paterson doesn’t fish for compliments

• though. “Tie promoter’s always the bad

guy,” he once said almost mournfully.

More Tian Just An Impresario – Derek Jowell

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“Impresarios have got to be wrong in the artist’s eyes, haven’t they? If you sellout the show, they feel you haven’t paid them

• enough. If you don’t sellout, then they feel

you haven’t done your job of promotion

• properly. Artists are difficult but very, very
• fascinating. Either you love the business

and you put up with it, or you quit.” If all this makes Robert Paterson sound like a paragon of virtuous modesty, then he is not that. Tie tension of his life-style

• ften shows. He can grow angry when he

is stretched. He knows how, in a tough business, to drive a tough bargain. He has had his share of legal hassles. But to extend professional contact into friend- ship with him has not been difficult, be- cause he is fundamentally fair and straight and is a man with immense respect for art- ists and the arts. I have never known him attempt to take professional advantage of

• friendship. He has never murmured about

the bad reviews I have on occasion writ- ten on his artists. And in terms of stories about artists, he never gives a writer a bum

• steer. He telephones seldom; and when he

does the artist is always one worth both- ering about. I’ve sometimes regretted not taking an early interest in a new artist he’s enthused about - the incredible gypsy guitarist Manitas de Plata was one mem-

• rable example - but cannot recall being

disappointed in any Paterson lead I have followed up. Above all, what has been satisfying in ob- serving the growth of Paterson’s career has been to watch his taste in art and enter- tainment judiciously expand until he must, at 33, rank high among the most catho- lic impresarios even the bizarre world of show business has ever seen. He began, as I’ve explained, with Stravin- sky - and that relationship is worth a very long story in itself. He continued the classical vein, which had been nurtured by early friendship with the late Julius Katchen, when he presented André Pre- vin, Leontyne Price and many more. He was instrumental in bringing a new gen- eration of European stars to the wider market of Britain and beyond. Aznavour was only one of his firsts. He first ena- bled audiences outside Europe to hear the Swingle Singers, Jacques Loussier, Juliette Greco, Jacques Brel, Manitas de Plata and Gilbert Bécaud among others. Tien, around 1968, he ‘began to move into lighter (if that’s the word) music generally. Andy Williams and Henry Mancini were brought to Britain. One night - and it’s among the few ways I believe I’ve ever in- fluenced Paterson - I rang him and fulmi- nated about Duke Ellington not having been to Europe for a long time. Paterson jumped on a plane to San Francisco and signed Duke within 36 hours. He was the first jazz artist Paterson had ever present- ed, but now Duke’s a close friend - and so is Benny Goodman, who was lured back to Europe in 1971. “He’s so shy and says nothing - a terrifying man to meet,” Paterson says. It took four years to persuade him to come. He always said he wanted to play classical music. But at his 60th birthday party in New York, all the old members of the band came back and played with him. I think that’s what changed his mind.” By 1970, Paterson was into rock too. He was tipped off that Creedence Clearwa- ter Revival were coming to Europe, did another of his fast hops to San Francisco, and signed them. Tiey were not the rock group I’d have chosen for him to begin with, and the empathy didn’t work be- tween artist and promoter at all, but this

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hasn’t deterred him from bringing over to Europe Paul Simon, Gordon Lightfoot, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Chicago, San- tana, David Cassidy and many more. Tie list seems endless. He presents Marlene Dietrich, Shirley Bassey, Petula Clark and Nana Mouskouri. He brought in the fan- tastic Russian gymnasts, including Olga

• Korbut. He’s gone, with Jarvis Astaire
• king of closed-circuit TV boxing pro-

motions in England - into leasing out the Earls Court arena in London as a major rock venue. He’s into boxing, too, through links with Astaire; he was co-promoter

• f the closed-circuit presentations of the

Frazier-Foreman fight last January. Sometimes, I fear that Paterson will burn himself out, for I’ve never known him present any artist he hasn’t seen and heard. But his pace has had to slow. “I used to live in aircraft, but after two or three near- misses I took a decision a year ago not to

• fly. I’ve stuck to it so far, too - but I’m

afraid I’ll have to start again. I want to bring in the Moscow State Circus and the Peking Acrobats. I want to make movies, all kinds of things - and how can you do all that except by plane?” So far I’ve talked of Paterson only. But really much of his work is Paterson plus his wife, Sybille. She’s German-born, has spent most of her life in Sweden, France and Europe, and is marvelous at looking after many of his artists, especially the women stars. “Bassey speaks more in a year to Sybille than she ever does to me.” Sybille, blonde and very beautiful, seems the anchor and the point of balance of his life. Tiey married five years ago and they met through Jacques Loussier, whose cousin was dating Sybille at the time and later challenged Paterson to a duel

• apparently seriously, since when he was

searched at London Airport he was found to be carrying two dueling pistols. He needs - a personal judgment, I admit

• the urge towards peace which his wife

gives him, though she shares his enthusi- asm too, for his life is inevitably much filled with stress. He is haunted by the memory

• f a concert by the rock band Chicago in

Milan when the 40,000 audience became unwittingly involved in a tear gas battle between the police and political marchers who demonstrated outside the stadium. In the surging panic, two people died. “Sy- bille and I, together with Shirley Bassey and a lot of other friends, were trapped backstage terrified. I still feel guilty that a concert I presented should have resulted in the deaths of two people.” He still has to walk a moral tightrope at times; now he often seems to veer towards being safe rather than sorry. Tiat perhaps is no bad trait in an impresario these days when it’s not unknown for violence to out- weigh artistry at so- called music presen-

• tations. Nor is his remark about loss-mak-

ing artists, which in his mouth sounded neither like eyewash nor mouthwash: “Sometimes you’ve got to put back and not just take.” Robert Paterson is more, I think, than just an impresario.

Derek Jewell has for eleven years been jazz and popular music critic of Tie Sunday Times

• f London – a job which he says is his therapy

amidst a full-time career as Publishing Director

• f Times Newspapers Ltd, the English com-

pany that produces both Tie Times and Tie Sunday Times. In this latter post he’s a publish- er of books, of newspapers and of microfilmed archival material. He’s involved in radio and TV,

• n both of which he performs regularly. His

first novel, ‘Come In Number One, Your Time Is Up’, was published by Doubleday in the USA and comes out in paperback from Ballantine in August. (1974)