Giorgio Gomelsky: Information from Answers.com

Worked With:

Formal Connection With:

Active: '60s, '70s
Genres: Jazz
Instrument: Producer

Biography

Giorgio Gomelsky is one of the secret heroes of British rock, and indeed one of the more important non-musicians in rock history. As a promoter and manager he was instrumental in launching the careers of both the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. His production credits adorn a number of significant recordings, particularly those by the Yardbirds, although his contributions were not merely purely technical expertise, but also inspired, off-the-wall ideas and morale-boosting. Although the Stones and the Yardbirds, of course, went on to become extremely influential and great bands with international hits, Gomelsky tended to work with acts that got more and more underground as time went on. In the late '60s these included cultish psychedelic artists like Julie Driscoll and the Blossom Toes, and in the early '70s early progressive rockers like Gong and Magma; he persevered into the new wave era with Material, Bill Laswell's first band. Born and raised in Continental Europe, Gomelsky moved to England in the mid-'50s to pursue a career as a filmmaker. During his early years in the U.K. he got involved with the British jazz scene as one of its most august supporters in the media. In early 1963, Gomelsky was an important figure in the just-emerging British R&B scene as the operator of the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, on the outskirts of London. The first band that came to fame via a Crawdaddy residency was the Rolling Stones; it was at the Crawdaddy that they really began to develop a rabid following. It was partly as a result of a short film Gomelsky planned to make of the band performing (never completed) that the Stones began to receive their first media attention. As an indirect result, Andrew Loog Oldham became aware of the band and almost immediately signed them to a management contract, although Gomelsky had been doing some unofficial management-type duties for them already. Although it's sometimes inferred that Gomelsky was the Stones' first manager, not too much should be made of this; both the Stones and Gomelsky have made it clear that there wasn't an official relationship in place. Still, he definitely made an important contribution in their early days. The band that took over the Stones' residency at the Crawdaddy, fortunately, were the Yardbirds. Gomelsky took a more active role in their career than he had with the Stones, as their official manager and their producer. The Yardbirds credit Gomelsky as a figure who helped fuel their ambition and experimentation; he even sings one of the low voices that form the Gregorian chants on their "Still I'm Sad." Although simpatico with many of Gomelsky's artistic sensibilities, the group were also aggravated by some of his publicity ideas, and fired him in 1966, when he was replaced by Simon Napier-Bell. Labyrinthine legal complications surround the material Gomelsky recorded with the Yardbirds, which in part is why some CDs have not been remastered from the best quality source tapes, and also why, perversely, dozens if not hundreds of compilations of work from this era clog the market. Gomelsky crossed paths with many up-and-coming British acts in the '60s, and recorded quite a few of them at live performances and demo sessions. Often he did so just before a group, or members of a group, became famous, and from the '70s onward some of these tapes have appeared on record. Among these are releases with tracks by the Animals, Graham Bond (with a pre-Cream Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker), the Yardbirds, Steampacket (with Rod Stewart and Long John Baldry), Soft Machine, and more arcane figures like Davy Graham and Gary Farr. Some of the musicians were not happy to see these releases, as the sound quality was not always professional, and performances were often not recorded with an eye towards ever being released. From a historical viewpoint, however, these are at the least often very interesting, and sometimes very musically good. The Soft Machine demos from 1967, for instance, capture the band at a much more pop- and song-oriented psychedelic phase than their more avant-garde 1968 official debut, and other than three 1967 tracks are the only Soft Machine sides to feature original guitarist Daevid Allen. Gomelsky seemed to be among the few figures in the industry with a realization that history was in the making, and that the music should be documented. Gomelsky was a sort of Renaissance man of stirring things up in the British music scene, in various capacities. He wrote some of the first articles in support of the Rolling Stones in the British press. He helped get blues and rock onto the bills at the National Jazz Festival at Richmond, which changed to the National Jazz & Blues Festival, and eventually evolved into the Reading Festival. He befriended the Beatles on some of their first trips to London in early 1963, and got them to see the Rolling Stones at the Crawdaddy Club. He helped the Animals in their early days by helping to arrange an exchange of sorts whereby the Animals would play on the Yardbirds' circuit in London for a while, while the Yardbirds went up to Newcastle to play on the Animals' hometown circuit. He founded and was managing director of a PR company, Paragon, in the late '60s which promoted music on the Polydor, Track, and Atlantic labels. In the late '60s Gomelsky formed the label Marmalade, which had Polydor distribution. Marmalade, like a few labels starting to sprout up in the U.K. at the time such as Immediate, Track, Harvest, and Apple, seemed to have an aesthetic which strove for innovative artistry as well as commercial success. Gomelsky being Gomelsky, Marmalade was not as commercial as any of the aforementioned labels, although it did get a Top Ten hit with Julie Driscoll with the Brian Auger Trinity's "This Wheel's on Fire" in 1968. More typical of their output was early solo work by John McLaughlin (whose Extrapolation Gomelsky produced), the eccentric underground pop-psychedelic group the Blossom Toes, and a super-brief association with Danish progressive rock band the Savage Rose. There were other acts even further removed from rock and pop, such as British trad jazz giant Chris Barber, whom Gomelsky had known since the '50s, and the avant-garde Spontaneous Music Ensemble. Gomelsky moved to France in the early '70s, and his interests would drift toward the more obtuse and avant-rock. He produced albums by Gong, whose Daevid Allen he had recorded with the Soft Machine. As manager of inscrutable French prog rockers Magma, he was instrumental in developing the French underground/alternative rock circuit by booking them into youth halls around the country, which in turn opened up new venues and audiences for progressive rock acts throughout Europe. Gomelsky moved to New York City in the mid-'70s, where he was involved with a label, Utopia, that would have had the same alternative- and innovative-minded focus as Marmalade did. However, Gomelsky fell out with his partner, and after the Utopia venture foundered, got involved in the nascent New York experimental "new music" scene. He encouraged the young Bill Laswell, and produced the early recordings of Laswell's band Material. He conceived and produced the Zu Manifestival in New York in 1978, which featured many avant-rock-experimental notables from the U.S. and Europe. In the hopes of creating a circuit similar to the one he had blazed in France with Magma, he made cross-country trips of the college and underground circuit with a bus of a couple dozen musicians such as Laswell and Fred Frith. He found it far harder to create such a network in the U.S., however, due to less support and vaster distances. In the '90s, Gomelsky shifted focus from working with music to working with computer technology. He does maintain a peripheral involvement in the music scene, letting out a floor of his building as inexpensive rehearsal space to New York musicians he finds promising; the most renowned one to take advantage of it was the late Jeff Buckley. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

Giorgio Gomelsky

Background information
Born	February 28, 1934 (1934-02-28) (age 75)
Origin	(former Soviet)-Georgia
Occupations	music manager, record producer
Years active	Mid-1950s - present
Labels	Marmalade, BYG Records
Associated acts	The Rollin' Stones, The Paramounts, The Yardbirds, Magma, Blossom Toes, Julie Driscoll Gong, Soft Machine

Giorgio Gomelsky (born February 28, 1934) is a filmmaker, impresario, music manager and record producer. He owned the Crawdaddy Club where The Rolling Stones were house band, and he was involved with their early management. He hired The Yardbirds as a replacement and managed them. He was also their producer from the beginning through 1966. In 1967, he started Marmalade Records (distributed by Polydor), which featured "Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and The Trinity", The Blossom Toes, and early recordings by Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, who became 10cc. The label closed in 1969.

Giorgio was also instrumental in the careers of The Soft Machine, Daevid Allen and Gong and Magma.

He now lives in New York City.

1 Early Years
2 Filmmaking in England
3 British Rhythm & Blues
4 The Crawdaddy Club
5 Production work
6 References
7 External links

Early Years

Giorgio Gomelsky was born in Georgia. His father was a medical doctor, and his mother was from Monte Carlo. The family left in 1938 and via Syria, Egypt, Italy, and in 1944 settled in Switzerland, the country where his father had trained.

Giorgio discovered jazz at the age of 10, while living in Italy. One Sunday he was caught out by the 4pm German curfew, so he stayed in the house of friends. Exploring their attic he discovered a gramophone and some jazz records. As a symbol of defiance he and his friends took to occasionally briefly blasting the music out of the window. Fortunately they were never caught. After the liberation, eventually black GI's arrived and furthered his jazz education,

He attended a Benedictine school in Ascona, near Locarno, Switzerland, With the war over, he was able to pool resources with friends to start a record collection. By 1946 the American Forces Network had been established and Giorgio was exposed to be-bop via the Cool City program on VOA. (In 1964, his father having died and left him some money, Giorgio would returned to Ascona and stage a jazz festival in a local airfield.) .

He attended a progressive private school, the School of Humanity run by Paul Gehheb, in the mountains of Switzerland. While on vacation, with friends, he travelled round Europe by bicycle. In post-war Germany, they found a thriving cellar-jazz scene in towns like Düsseldorf. They visited Milan, and pedaled all the way to Paris to see Charlie Parker perform at the Salon de Jazz.

His mother was a hat designer. Her father had worked for the Société des Bains de Mer - the casino operator - in Monte Carlo, a popular resort for the British, and so she spoke English and became an anglophile with a particular love of English literature. Thus her employer - Claude St. Cyr of Paris - sent her to run his atelier in London. She would send her Swiss schoolboy son the English music paper Melody Maker on a weekly basis, and that is how Giorgio learned English, and also became familiar with the British jazz scene.

There was still at this time limited opportunity to hear new jazz in Europe. Apart from Willis Conover on VOA. there was an Italian jazz radio show; Flavium Brosetti's show on Swiss Radio ran just 20 minutes a week; there was Charles de Lournay (sp?) jazz show on Europe 1 in Paris; and Charlie Fox on the BBC; and maybe a couple of German shows. There was a scene in Copenhagen. Aficionados in many cities set up jazz appreciation societies, and Giorgio and friends set one up in Locarno. A trio was formed, Roland Schramlei on bass, Bert Armbruster on piano, and Giorgio on drums. Resources were so limited that, only possessing a ride cymbal, Giorgio would have to hire a drum kit every time they had an engagement.

The main jazz magazine was Les Cahiers du Jazz from Paris, and there was also one in Italy. In both countries the magazines organized the local Jazz Societies into Federations which could then stage concert tours. Giorgio followed their model and formed a Swiss federation that staged concerts. In 1954, having been denied permission to stage a concert during the Zurich Festival by the city fathers, the Federation staged a daring protest on a Sunday - they publicly mooned the City Hall. The resulting publicity persuaded the City to reverse its decision, and thus the Zurich Jazz Festival was born (and exists to this day). ^[1]

Having become a Swiss citizen, Giorgio had to perform National Service, undergoing basic training with Swiss Air Force, where he flew Bucher bi-planes. Although a proficient pilot he deliberately failed promotion tests and, after rejection, was then free to leave the country.

Filmmaking in England

The weekly readings of the Melody Maker, and the lack of further documentation, convinced Giorgio that his vocation would be to film the burgeoning UK jazz scene. He had seen the 1948 film Jammin' The Blues and had formed forward-thinking stylistic ideas including synchronised fast cutting. He succeeded in obtaining a 500 UKP commission from a young Italian TV station and departed for the England.

In London he established a relationship with the National Jazz Federation, run by Harold Pendleton, who also managed Britain's top jazz star of the time Chris Barber. Despite Giorgio's inclination to shoot the avant-garde Johnny Dankworth, Pendleton prevailed on him to shoot Chris Barber. The resulting piece comprising four songs, intercut establishing and audience reaction shots from the Royal Festival Hall with a separate studio session footage. The studio footage, shot in one day, used cutting-edge technology like large Mitchell cameras with 'elephant' suspended mics that restricted camera movements in the small studio, preventing Giorgio from getting all the angles he had hoped for.

This first film was sufficiently well-received that two years later that Giorgio filmed Chris Barber for a second time - this time a 3 camera shoot in b&w Cinemascope.

Harold Pendleton had started the National Jazz Festival and Giorgio had participated as a volunteer helper at the first one in 1959. He was able to secure the rights to film the 1960 festival, A producer/backer was found - Frank Green, the owner of a facility on Wardour Street where Giorgio had edited his earlier films. Filming was with 4 b/w cams. Sound was recorded on the Levers Tich (sp?) synchro-pulse system, allowing separate recording of audio on magnetic tape^[2]. The intercom between the cameras was the Royal Artillery's system which, designed to be heard over cannon fire, was so loud that at times it would get picked up by the stage mics! Giorgio edited two pilots from the footage, including a piece of the new Alexis Korner Blues Incorporated with Charlie Watts on drums, but Green was unable to find a buyer. ^[3]

British Rhythm & Blues

Chris Barber's trad-jazz band had launched the skiffle craze, and their hit 'Rock Island Line' had made the band's banjo player Lonnie Donegan a star. As skiffle became passé, Chris, whose sets were structured around the history of jazz, began to feature blues in its place, utilizing his school friend vocalist/guitarist Alexis Korner, and harmonica player Cyril Davies. ^[4]

While the Barber blues set was strictly country style, Korner was set on expanding the sound to incorporate the more modern electric Chicago sound and an improvisational jazz approach. He formed his own group Alexis Korner Blues Incorporated and recruited musicians like drummer Charlie Watts and saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith.. Giorgio, then writing for Jazz News, became inspired by this to the extent of becoming evangelical. He coined the term BRB - British Rhythm and Blues, wrote articles, and bent the ear of anyone who would listen.^[4]

Alex and Cyril had a club in a pub upstairs room on Wardour St where blues aficionados would gather on Wednesdays but they needed a larger venue for the noisy big band. With some difficulty, and support from Barber, Giorgio persuaded Pendleton to run a weekly Blues Night on Thursdays at his newly opened neighboring club The Marquee. Korner's new band, and others, were duly booked. However the audiences were still limited to a small group of enthusiasts and the future was uncertain.^[4]

A Jamaican Blue Beat club just off Portobello Road (immortalized in the move Scandal) was one of the hottest spots in London at the time. On a visit Giorgio had a chance encounter with its most notorious clients - Christine Keeler & Mandy Rice-Davies. He invited them to visit the Marquee Blues Night and they showed up the following week. The publicity generated was enough to give the night sufficient cachet to become fashionable and successful.^[4]

Giorgio wanted to build on the success of The Marquee Blues night with more shows but Pendleton wasn't interested. He began to organize the bands, suggesting that they work co-operatively to obtain bookings and do other business, just as the Jazz Societies had earlier federated. Giorgio persuaded the Portobello Jamaican club to host a couple of blues bands, but the patrons were not impressed. ^[5]

Giorgio then discovered an alternative venue - the Cy Laurie Piccadilly Club in Ham Yard. Formerly a major London hotspot, it was now on its uppers. He was able to secure a Saturday night for a fee of $5 and proceeded to stage the first festival of British Blues. Bands appearing included Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, Blues By Six (which included Nicky Hopkins), the Rolling Stones. Although attendance was slight, as a promotional device Giorgio prevailed on a number of friends to stand in line outside to attract the attention of passers by, and give the impression of a larger crowd. Pendleton was not at all happy with this local competition for his club.^[5]

The Crawdaddy Club

Giorgio was certain that the vitality of the genre depended on attracting new young fans, and that attracting young fans depended on involving young musicians. Giorgio believed that residencies were the key to building an audience for the new bands and, in an example of the lateral thinking instilled him in the Switzerland mountain school, hit on the idea of eschewing central London and weekday nights altogether - to become so far removed that Pendleton could have no grounds for complaint. Thus the Richmond Blues Association was formed and he secured a series of Sunday nights at the Station Hotel in Richmond, a suburb of West London. What Giorgio knew, from his earlier be-bop interests, was that the nearby Kingston Art School was a fertile hotbed of musical enthusiasm, and also there already was an established blues club in the basement of the ABC Cafe in nearby Ealing. Another group having dropped out The Rolling Stones were given the first residency. The first night only attracted three people, attendance not being helped by Giorgio, in a typical malapropism, accidentally writing "Rhythm & Bulls" on the advertising sign outside the venue. Nevertheless the talents of the Rolling Stones, and a promotional scheme that gave complimentary admission to any patron that brought two friends, soon led to healthy crowds.^[6] Also, in order to liven up the proceedings, he convinced the Stones, whose repertoire was stretched by the demands of two 45-minute sets, to incorporate a 20 minute rave-up version of Bo Diddley's Crawdad as the finale of their show. ^[7]

In fact Giorgio had taken on much of the responsibility for managing and promoting the Rolling Stones. Looking to get press on the band, he prevailed on The Richmond and Twickenham Times, a conservative local paper owned by TV presenter Richard Dimbleby, to send a reporter to the Station Hotel. Eventually a reporter, Barry Gay, undertook to write an article and visited with a photographer. ^[7]

Giorgio also considered he could exploit his reputation as a jazz writer and film-maker to generate interest in the band and entice the jazz critics to visit the Sunday Richmond sessions. He announced that he would make a short promotional film of these "illustrious unknowns". As news spread first Norman Joplin, and then Peter Jones showed up, but no copy resulted. Peter Jones did, however, return bringing his friend Andrew Loog Oldham. ^[7]

Not having the facilities to film the band live at the club, he took them into the RG Jones recording studio in Wimbledon, one of the few independent studios in London at the time. Two songs were recorded and extra footage shot.^[7]^[8]

As Giorgio was editing he got a call from Gay, who was writing his article, asking how to name the club. Giorgio, on the spur of the moment, inspired by Do The Crawdad - the high point of The Stones' show, came up with another malapropism "The Crawdaddy". ^[7]

Somewhat to his surprise a full page feature duly appeared in the Richmond and Twickenham Times. Giorgio showed the article to acquaintance Patrick Doncaster, the music critic of the Daily Mirror, the largest circulation British daily newspaper. Doncaster was persuaded to, in turn, visit the club, and a half-page feature duly appeared in the next day's Mirror. The powers that be at Ind Coope Breweries, owners of the Station Hotel, were aghast at the degenerate behaviour displayed in the article and the club was evicted forthwith. ^[7]

Almost immediately Giorgio had to return to Switzerland for three weeks as his father had died. His colleague photographer Hamish Grimes went to Pendleton, who provided an introduction to Commander Wheeler, director of the Richmond Athletic Association. They had grounds, just a block away from the Station Hotel, where the National Jazz Festival was held. An arrangement was made for the club to move to a room, almost triple the capacity of the Station Hotel, below the grandstand.^[7]

Production work

The Soft Machine's first demos were recorded by Giorgio.
Gong's Flying Teapot and Angel's Egg (both 1973) were created under Giorgio's auspices.
Aphrodite's Child 666 (credited as "passing by")^[9]
Vangelis Hypothesis and The Dragon (1971) (unfinished - released later)^[9]

References

^ According to http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/index.html?siteSect=105&sid=899182 the Festival was founded in 1951 by André Berner
^ I can't find any reference for this, but possibly related to Direct Cinema.
^ None of this material is known to survive.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d MacFie, Joly (April 08, 2009). "Giorgio Gomelsky - The Birth of British R&B". Interview. Punkcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhRQgeVxx_0. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
^ ^a ^b MacFie, Joly (April 08, 2009). "Giorgio Gomelsky - The First London Blues Festival". Interview. Punkcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVAhST0neJs. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
^ Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Dora Loewenstein, Charlie Watts, Philip Dodd, Ron Wood (2003). According to the Rolling Stones. Chronicle Books. pp. 48-50. ISBN 978-0811840606. http://books.google.com/books?id=xP_S-fAnMXYC&pg=PA48.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g MacFie, Joly (April 08, 2009). "Giorgio Gomelsky - The Crawdaddy Club". Interview. Punkcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLwPcNVhinI. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
^ This film is also lost.
^ ^a ^b "Giorgio Gomelsky, working with Vangelis". Elsewhere and Odyssey. April 6, 2000. http://elsew.com/data/gomelsky.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-09.

James Phelge (April 2000). Nankering With the Rolling Stones. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1556523731.
plan for Beatles film

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Giorgio Gomelsky