1968 – Politicization Begins: An Enormous Force
I’ve gone beyond civil rights and human rights to creation rights.
– Eldridge Cleaver
The ’68 Movement in Switzerland began on June 29th, 1968, with the Globus riots in Zürich. Schweizer was not particularly interested in what was happening politically in Zürich, probably because, as she says today, she was still oriented towards England and was traveling a lot as a musician. Nonetheless, it was the beginning of her own political awakening. “The Platte 27 in Zürich was interesting, it was a club whose legality was dubious, where we musicians could play and the demonstrators would come after the riots. Mani, Uli, and I played there. That was the most important place in Zürich for me, because it was where politics and culture met. The Africana wasn’t a political meeting place; people came to listen to music and that was it. When the Globus riots happened, I was just a bystander in the streets when the demonstrations and then the physical confrontations took place. I didn’t even know what the students were demonstrating about. I had nothing to do with them.”
“Through the music and through meeting Black musicians, I learned about discrimination against Black people and the Black Panther movement. That interested me more than Swiss politics. Down Beat magazine was a real source of information for me, and I read Eldridge Cleaver’s book, Soul on Ice. When I heard the Archie Shepp Quintet in Donaueschingen in 1967, the Black musicians were an incredible experience for me—their expressiveness and also their aggression, but in a positive sense: they were fighting not just for a new music, free jazz, but also against racial discrimination in the US. That gave them enormous power. This feeling I got from Black musicians, of being fully committed to something, shaped my further development as a musician.” (In: Nigg, pp. 56–66).
Pierre Favre Trio 1968: Typing and Playing for Paiste
Pierre Favre had met Schweizer in 1967, and between 1968 and 1970 she was on the road with him and Peter Kowald as the Pierre Favre Trio. “Pierre had a wife and children and he took a job with Paiste, and he was looking for a secretary. And I thought, ‘Why not go back to work?’ So I went to work for Paiste. Paiste is the company in Nottwil that makes cymbals for drummers, so all the important drummers came there. Paiste had a huge practice room where there was a grand piano and a lot of drums and cymbals. That was the first time Pierre and I played together as a duo, and we were both very enthusiastic about it. I liked the way Pierre played right away. Paiste had a lot of drums sitting around, and sometimes I played with Pierre in a drum duo.”
“In the beginning I was commuting. I got the apartment later. Sometimes I stayed with Pierre and his family. Anyway, Peter Kowald got wind of it somehow. One day he showed up at the door and wanted to play with us in a trio. Pierre wasn’t so happy about that, because he didn’t really know what to do with these German free jazz musicians. He was introduced to the scene by Brötzmann and Kowald, but he never really wanted to play like that, and he still doesn’t. He wasn’t interested in that kind of free playing. With his groups he always made completely different music. I was kind of in between, and I had a good free duo with George Mráz. I was more a part of the German free jazz scene than Pierre was, but we never thought we had to emulate that. And we were put off by the chest-beating aspect of it.”
Pierre Favre adds: “I was at Paiste, a company that makes cymbals, and Irène was looking for a job, so we hired her as my secretary. It was very nice and free, I could do whatever I wanted and so we started playing. It worked right away, a real meeting from the very first moment. I was responsible for sound development, for quality control, and for contacts with drummers all around the world. I had to travel a lot and went to all the festivals as a representative for Paiste. Irène always went along, and we had chances to play. I traveled with her throughout Europe. During the day I’d show the Paiste line to drummers and in the evening we’d play in a club. If it weren’t for Paiste, we wouldn’t have been able to do this. Our first concert was in 1967 in Hungary, I remember. Our bass player was George Mráz (at that time he was still called Jiří Mráz). When he emigrated to the USA, Peter Kowald showed up.” Irène says that she played more freely with Trepte and Neumeier towards the end than with Mráz and Favre. “I had discovered Paul Bley and I enjoyed playing Carla Bley’s pieces very much. I found the way Paul Bley improvised incredibly beautiful and harmonically rich.”
EXCURSUS Peter Kowald: Playing Was Essential for Life
In Sounds like whoopataal: Wuppertal in der Welt des Jazz, E. Dieter Fränzel reports that 1966 was the crucial year for the then 22-year-old Peter Kowald: “Kowald goes on tour with Carla Bley’s quintet. After that, nothing is the same. He sees how Brötzmann is pulled off the stage in Solingen and beaten. In Hildesheim, a furious audience hits Carla Bley on the head with the microphone. After that there’s no returning to bourgeois life. Kowald gives up his studies shortly before his examinations—the topic of his doctoral thesis had already been decided—and embarks on music as a profession. And he slips through the cracks of the system. He’s supposed to do obligatory military service, but after his language studies he stays out of the country until he’s 27 and his conscription period has expired. Refusing military service would have meant recognizing the system. He goes to Switzerland.” (p.186).
“We played with Peter for a very long time,” says Favre. “Irène and I worked together at Paiste for about four years. Peter Kowald moved near us, to this little town in Switzerland, and we played together every day. He brought his wife and child and they lived in Sursee. That’s near Nottwil, where Paiste is based. The Americans always laughed because of Nottwil: it means ‘lunatic asylum,’ and it’s way out in the countryside. But we stuck together, we traveled a lot, we were young and having a good time. It was vital for us to play, we wanted to play, to find things out—who am I, how do I play, how do I react—and this experience with Irène was very special. It was a time of great change. We wanted to break up these petrified harmonic structures; we couldn’t hear things that way anymore, it was much too conventional for us. For Irène, there was also the Women’s Movement; she wanted to fight for that. It all started in 1968.”
When Favre and Schweizer were working in Nottwil near Paiste, they both lived in Sursee, just a few kilometers from Willisau, so it was very easy for Niklaus Troxler to talk with them and organize concerts. He remembers: “Irène and Pierre had their jobs and their income at Paiste, and Peter Kowald was living in an inn, playing bass there, practicing and waiting for the next gig. As far as I know, they always paid him a little more so they could keep him around. Kowald was traveling a lot with his little station wagon. I was also traveling a lot, but Kowald always got there before me, even if he wasn’t on the program. He wanted to meet the musicians; he was very proactive about it. Irène got along very well with Buschi Niebergall; then Rüdiger Carl and Louis Moholo came along.”
Peter Brötzmann says: “When Peter Kowald moved to Sursee, that was exactly when I started playing with Buschi Niebergall, and at the time I was more interested in Buschi. Kowald of course knew that. Kowald probably saw the move as a chance to get ahead, and back then you could risk that. Today, I think, making that kind of move is a lot more difficult if you have children and a family; it’s just a completely different financial burden. But, apart from that, Kowald always went for what he wanted. His later visits to New York certainly had a big influence on the New York scene, because he brought a lot of European ideas to New York. That was the beginning of an exchange that is taken for granted now.”
Rüdiger Carl remembers Kowald’s diplomatic skills: “He was very flexible and could do all kinds of things: he had studied languages, did translations, was turning up everywhere, was able to chat with the cultural officials. He was really good at it; he made it work. He was a kind of artist of life. He always had a Ford bus or something to run around in. With the exception of Louis Moholo, who just didn’t come if he couldn’t afford the flight, we all somehow managed it—if