by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

These afternoons, George Durst sits in his east-end office overlooking the river from his sprawling Paramount warehouse, a kingdom of novelty junk ranging from papier maché elephant heads to fake suits of armour. Hanging out in a building full of bizarre items is somehow fitting for the city’s original nightclub Svengali, a man who launched several of the city’s first modern dance clubs in spite of an enduring and avowed indifference to partying.

Somewhere else in the city sits Charlie Biddle, a fellow local nightclub titan whose work, personality and charisma have done as much as anything to give this city its solid reputation as a centre for jazz. Unlike Durst, Biddle is one of Montreal’s most recognizable icons. His face adorns T-shirts. He sometimes must choose between dining with the premier and the PM. But Durst, the hard-nosed businessman, is, in fact, Biddle’s boss and has been for 25 years. One friend of both describes their working relationship as “two great rams butting heads.”

Admittedly, this rocky relationship rates no higher than a three on a scale of one to 10 as far as local nightclub controversies go (What do I give a 10? The incident in which a young Dean Martin was sent packing from town by the El Morocco’s manager—and famous wrestling impresario—Eddie Quinn, who disapproved of Martin’s impregnating a very young Westmount fan. But let’s get back on topic).

Durst, who maintains a heavy Alsatian accent, came here to dodge the Algerian war in the ’50s. His forestry degree helped persuade Canada to allow him to work in our outback, where he stayed for a year before coming to the city to sling drinks. Durst saved his nickels and soon opened the Don Juan disco with Hungarian hippie Johnny Vago.

Durst, who once nourished his profile by toting an ocelot, would sell his clubs as soon as they got popular. “I got bored,” he says. “I knew a trend. I was in the business of making people dance.” After launching and selling a series of other downtown clubs, Durst opened Alfie’s in Old Montreal, where he capitalized on the enormous popularity of wheeler-dealer Alfie Wade, who became the city’s first celebrated DJ.

Durst next opened an all-in-one joint. “People don’t want to park their car and then eat and then have to drive somewhere else and park again to go see music,” he says. So he took the club he opened in 1967 at Sherbrooke and Aylmer—named ever-so-humbly George’s—and changed its format.

This happened around the time bulldozers claimed the legendary Rockhead’s Paradise at Mountain and Notre-Dame, so Durst’s club was seen as a sort of successor jazz club. Biddle’s Jazz and Ribs was named for the bear-like Charlie Biddle, who had came to Montreal in the ’50s with a small group of New York expats who enjoyed the relative lack of racism up here.

Although many might understandably assume that Charlie Biddle owns the club that bears his name, Durst has consistently refused to sell Biddle even a fraction of it. The two shook on an agreement long ago where Durst pays Biddle a small base salary, plus extras for other tasks. Durst doesn’t feel obliged to justify his refusal to deal a share to his front man, but it’s clearly one that has cost him some popularity.

Biddle has recently fallen ill. He’s been absent from the club since January, where a series of portraits stand in for the real thing. Business, however, remains brisk in Biddle’s absence, as Johnny Scott fills in ably and the bar enjoys the extra commerce brought by fawning exposure in the Bruce Willis comedy The Whole Nine Yards.

Divvying up the profits and glory is the tricky part of any partnership. But in this case, the city and the jazz world have gained immeasurably since these two battering rams put their heads together. :

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca