National Jazz Centre
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National Jazz Centre was a project set up by the Jazz Society Centre in the eighties in the UK. The ambition was to establish a national centre for jazz.
"An ambitious project to build a national jazz centre is foundering because of gross mismanagement. It may now never be completed, though almost pounds 3m, most of it public money, has already been spent on running the scheme and converting a warehouse in London's Covent Garden.
The project was launched in 1968 with the backing of eminent jazz enthusiasts. Money was poured in by the Greater London Council, the English Tourist Board and the Arts Council, together with many private donations. Today the building - originally intended to be opened in 1981 - is still only two-thirds finished; debts of pounds 750,000 have been run up, and a further pounds 1.6m is needed to complete it.
The patrons include Yehudi Menuhin, Andre Previn, Dudley Moore and John Dankworth, and the board includes such eminent musicians as Humphrey Lyttleton. Last week Dankworth, the world-famous saxophonist, who resigned from the board three years ago, said that the jazz centre had become an embarrassment: 'Many musicians are very angry. I think this whole thing should be investigated. '
The Sunday Times has investigated the management of the project, and discovered a catalogue of financial incompetence and managerial buck-passing:
A charity, the National Jazz Centre, cannot account for hundreds of thousands of pounds given in grants from public funds and covenanters, because the records are said to have been lost. Cash granted specifically to complete the building was instead used to pay off outstanding debts.
The management team consistently let expenditure far outstrip income and ran fund-raising events which actually lost more than pounds 100,000.
At least five opening dates were announced when it was unlikely the building would be finished in time. Bands were booked for the openings and paid off when they were postponed.
Bodies approached to finance a rescue package for the centre say they will not co-operate 'until heads have rolled' - they first want the resignation of the board.
The sorry saga of Britain's failed attempt to establish a national jazz centre began 18 years ago when the Jazz Centre Society was formed to raise funds and find a suitable site. Many in the jazz world felt that their music needed a national institution to give it a respectability comparable with that of opera, ballet and classical music. It took the society 10 years to find the ideal venue - a prime site in Floral Street, Covent Garden, leased to them by the GLC.
The plan was to build and open the centre in three stages, the first part becoming operational in 1981. However, building did not start until April 1982, and no sooner had work started than the society's financial consultants told the board that it would be insolvent by August of that year. The administrator, Charles Alexander, resigned and was replaced by a temporary three-man management team, John Cumming, Tim Whitwort and Peter Luxton, who believed that they could rescue the foundering project.
Their first step was to separate the jazz centre building project from the other activities of the Jazz Centre Society. A charity was formed, the National Jazz Centre Ltd. When it started trading, hopes were high that the project, heralded by one board member as 'a dream palace for jazz', would at last come to fruition.
But the project was beset by shoddy building work and rocketing costs. The building needed far more extensive and expensive work to convert it than had originally been realised. Cumming said last week: 'I don't think anyone had a real conception of the problems of that building. '
Last year, three years after joining the project, Cumming and Whitworth resigned, leaving behind a building two-thirds completed and enormous debts. Accounts for the National Jazz Centre were not filed until March this year. In a letter leaked to The Sunday Times the auditors, Touche Ross, said: 'We have been unable to satisfy ourselves that proper accounting records have been maintained and controls operated over expenditure incurred in connection with the building project. '
In the same month the GLC, which gave pounds 740,000 to the National Jazz Centre, said in a confidential report that the story of the jazz centre was 'a chapter of disasters which mounted in their seriousness as the project fell further behind and deeper into debt'.
One disastrous episode cited was a three-day fund-raising festival in Brixton in 1984. Cumming and Whitworth organised the event, which lost nearly pounds 100,000. The GLC covered the loss and later estimated that it had subsidised those who attended the event by more than pounds 65 a head.
Cumming, however, blames the GLC for the fiasco: 'It was part of the abolition campaign. They chose the venue and asked us to put together a budget for a particular type of event. The promises made by the GLC about publicity never transpired. ' Whitworth said that because the GLC was a major benefactor they had no choice but to comply.
Earlier this year Jack Norton, the chairman of the centre, reported that 'the contribution of the so-called management team could be measured only in such terms as inadequacy and incompetence'. However, Whitworth and Cumming claim that the blame lies with Norton and his colleagues, who did not grasp the serious financial state of the jazz centre and failed to act to raise funds sufficient to keep their company afloat. Whitworth said: 'The board just didn't do their job. They had a knowledge and a responsibility but did not discharge it. ' He added: 'I find it utterly staggering that the board was incapable of raising money. '
Norton refused to comment and has told his directors not to speak to the press. The jazz centre is now anxious for a further large injection of public funds. The Arts Council said last week that a possible rescue was imminent but 'negotiations are on a knife edge'.
Even if the money needed to open the building is found the future of the project is still in doubt. The building was originally leased to the jazz centre by the GLC; its ownership is likely to revert to the London Residuary Body, which is responsible for winding up the abolished GLC's assets. If it decides the jazz venture is defunct it may use the site for a different project, or sell the property.
The residuary body's chairman, Sir Godfrey Taylor, said on Friday: 'It is not for the LRB to consider the merits of the scheme on an artistic basis. We are looking for the best investment for London and Londoners."
"The chairman of the National Jazz Centre will tomorrow present his books to the official receiver as the compulsory winding-up process gathers pace and another, probably final, chapter of the centre's ill-fated history is opened.
The project, to establish a national jazz centre in a converted warehouse in Covent Garden, London, has been dogged by problems since work started in 1982.
An investigation by The Sunday Times last June revealed that the charity could not account for hundreds of thousands of pounds given in grants from public funds and from private donors because the records were said to have been lost. Cash granted specifically to complete the building was instead used to repay debts.
Now, after five years and an estimated pounds 3m, the building is still only two-thirds finished and it will probably be sold to pay the centre's pounds 650,000 debts.
The main creditors, Lloyds Bank, which is owed pounds 450,000, and the Musicians' Union, owed pounds 100,000, called in receivers in November.
The London Residuary Body, which took over the building when the Greater London Council was scrapped, says: 'The future of the building is down to us. Our lawyers are looking at the legal position and the options available. The building may be sold. '
But Jack Norton, the board chairman, who has now had his power removed, and other jazz enthusiasts still hope the centre can be saved through a commercial deal.
This would involve a partnership with a catering firm or brewery, and the expansion of planned bars and restaurants in the building. Norton describes accusations of the board's past mismanagement as 'absolute hogwash', and claims that it would take just a further pounds 650,000 to complete the centre."
"The National Jazz Centre, planned for Covent Garden, central London, was compulsorily wound up in the High Court.
Mr Registrar Bradburn made the order on a petition presented by the NJC's directors, on the ground of insolvency.
The Arts Council-backed centre, whose patrons included Andre Previn and Yehudi Menuhin, was pounds 1 million short to complete the project. Building work stopped after Westminster City Council began High Court action to block a grant."
