Hugues Panassié (1912 - 1964)

[Durium]

Hugues Panassié was one of the first to publish in 1934, 22 years old, a book about jazz music entitled Le Jazz Hot and gave this music a place in Europe, or better said, in France. He was one of te promotors of Jazz in France, together with Charles Delaunay and their Hot Club du France organisation. Georg Lankester wrote a short biography about this Hugues Panassié as part of a series blogs, dedicated to the Hot Club de France: the first Jazz organisation in the world.

Hugues Panassié (1912-1964)

Durium

[Big Beat Steve]

As stated correctly at the very end of the entry in your blog, Hugues Panassié died in 1974, not 1964.

I own and have read several of his books published in the very early post-war years (as well as his later "Bataille de jazz") in their original French version (important as far as I can see because who knows what might get lost in translated editions?) and find them very interesting in their assessments of the music, musicians and styles but they do need to be taken with a TRUCKLOAD of salt (or should only be read if you have a good deal of prior knowledge). Yet they are interesting if seen as ONE man's personal opinions.

As for his involvement in the 30s French jazz scene and as for who accomplished what up to the big schism of 1947, I suggest reading this book (in addition to the earlier "New Orleans sur Seine"):

http://www.amazon.fr/Charles-Delaunay-jazz-France-ann%C3%A9es/dp/2915118574/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329903535&sr=8-1

Apart from the credit is due Hugues Panassié for bringing back a few forgotten heros of classic jazz in the 30s, another point of merit is how, for all his narrow-mindedness when it came to the evolution of jazz into modern jazz, he did manage to acknowledge the lineage and see the musical links and continuity of a lot of 50s R&B and R&B-oriented "middle jazz" at a time when most of the oh so erudite highbrow jazz critics saw fit to denigrate anything that even remotely reeked of that oh so lowly "rock'n'roll". Hugues Panassié, OTOH, did realize that one mission that jazz after all still was entitled to accomplish was to provide music for pure, simple and unpretentious entertainment or dancing as an ongoing tradition reaching back to 20s jazz and that jazz even by the late 50s/early 60s was not all about concert hall atmosphere. So in his record reviews he for one acknowledged the work of R&B artists such as Fats Domino or the late 50s R&B-tinged Decca recordings by Cootie Williams that would likely have been given short shrift by other reviewers.

[brownie]

Panassié was too often a narrow-minded person. But his love of the jazz he liked was undeniable.

I grew up listening to his radio shows which invariable opened with Armstrong's 'Cornet Shop Suey'.

Every time I listen to that recording takes me back to those glorious radio days!