Around the corner based at Kettners in Romilly Street, was Peter
Boizot, founder of the Pizza Express chain and jazz lover. Brian and I were the
very first customers at Kettners when it opened as Boizot’s latest champagne
bar, We were walking past and Peter ran out and said you must come in I’m
opening this place in half an hour and so it was that when it opened, we were
already there. It became my local and throughout the 1980s it was like a second
office for me and hosted many of my birthday lunches (these were music business
lunches and in some cases lasted for days).
Peter became a friend and we discovered odd connections, such as his mother had been an old friend of my grandmother in Batley in Yorkshire. His ma was a formidable creature, who used to tour around chauffeured in Peter’s Rolls Royce with her friend who was also a dame d’un certain age.
I recall sitting with Peter when she appeared and boomed at
our table in a loud Yorkshire accent! “Peter, y’ know you told that Finchley
Road lot that they couldn’t put any other brands’ signs up? Well I drove past
and it were up – a tell ye ….it’s down now.”
It was rumoured that Peter was planning a Soho Jazz Festival
though little was known of it. When there was around 10 days to go before it was due to
start, passing Kettners, an agitated Boizot ran out and grabbed me – “Where
have you been I’ve been trying to get hold of you?” The upshot of this
encounter was that he wanted me to step in and organise the Soho event. I
protested that it was due to start the following week, but he persuaded me to
take a look….
There are fundamentals in event organising such as DATE,
VENUE, ARTIST. A cursory glance at the paperwork had artists contractually booked
to appear at a venue which had been booked for a completely different day.
So I stepped in along with Cindy Hacker….. Now if there were ever to be a Duchess of Soho then it would have to be Cindy, We had worked together on many Capital Radio events already and her administrative credentials are flawless and her knowledge of Soho matters legendary.
So we set to work and, despite some of Peter’s protestations,
we pulled it off.
Many successful people believe that their success in one genre is transferable to another when that tends to be the exception rather than the rule.
Peter was a genius in creating the Pizza Express brand and
the modus operandi of their many
restaurants, but he was a rank amateur when it came to the production of
complicated events and the marketing required to attract hundreds of people to
multiple venues.
Having solved his logistical nightmares of dates/times/travel
and tech specs by the Tuesday (the event due to start on the Friday) we needed
some serious publicity.
The Problem.
Peter flatly refused to consider programme leaflets - his
solution being that people would go to posters and make notes of what they
wanted to watch. He was immoveable on this. So Cindy, me, Ronnie Scott’s and a
few others designed printed and paid for (all overnight) 50,000 leaflets that
were out and about all over W.1 by the next afternoon (2 days to go to the festival
start)
Peter happened to pick one up and went berserk! With a purple
face of rage he crashed into our Festival Office at Kettners screaming – “how
dare you defy me” and then stormed out banging doors as he went, like a spoiled
child.
Some said at the time – we should have let him perish, but
our team were and still are dedicated professionals
I sat him down later and told him to his face that he had
hired me to save his event from disaster: I was going to do that but I would
never do what he had demanded as it was abjectly stupid and if he wanted to be
surrounded by people who only agreed with him then next time he could hire
them. On this occasion we will deliver but keep out of my way until this event
is over.
If he’d fired me there and then it wouldn’t have mattered we
would still have completed. He failed to understand that our reputations were
on the line just as much as his.
He did keep out of the way, it did happen - with more notice
it would have been much better.
At the end Peter was mollified and indeed we carried on
thereafter as friends and I remained a regular Kettners attendee until I left
for the next phase of life in Ireland in the 1990s
A Film was shot of the Festival which is quite cute it aired on Channel 4 shortly after the event. VIDEO LINK. Andy
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