Hugues Panassié

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Hugues Panassié
Hugues Panassié, Red Prysock, and Tiny Grimes
New York City (circa 1946–1948)
William P. Gottlieb, photo

Hugues Panassié (27 February 1912 in

traditional jazz.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

Career

Panassié was born in Paris. When he was fourteen, he was stricken with polio, which limited his extracurricular physical activities. He took up the saxophone and fell in love with jazz in the late 1920s.[i] Panassié was the founding president of the Hot Club de France in 1932. He produced recording sessions in New York featuring Mezz Mezzrow and Tommy Ladnier from November 1938 to January 1939.

During World War II, the Germans occupied the northern half of France beginning June 1940. The Nazis regarded jazz as low music — music from an inferior people. Jacques Demêtre, in the 2014 book by Steve Cushing, Pioneers of the Blues Revival, said that people had expected the Germans to ban jazz entirely. But instead, they only banned American jazz and American tunes.[11] Demetre explained that many American standards were in French with alternate titles. Panassié, for example, managed to keep broadcasting American jazz on his radio station submitting to censors obtuse French translations of American song titles, and even relabeling records. Panassié's friend Mezz Mezzrow describes a particular example in his 1946 autobiography Really the Blues:

"[The Nazi censors] were shown a record labeled "La Tristesse de Saint Louis," which translates the "Sadness of Saint Louis," and Panassié offered the explanation that it was a sad song written about poor Louis the Ninth, lousy with that old French tradition. What Cerberus didn't know was that underneath the phony label was a genuine RCA Victor one giving Louis Armstrong as the recording artist and stating the real name of the number: "The Saint Louis Blues."[12]

Selected controversies

In a changing world of jazz, Panassié was an ardent exponent of traditional jazz — strictly

Jimmy Noone and Omer Simeon. Mezz Mezzrow became Panassié's lone example of a white musician who played jazz authentically.[15] Panassié dismissed bebop as "a form of music distinct from jazz."[14][ii][iii]

As an extremely gifted musician, Parker gradually gave up jazz in favor of bop …

He [Parker] could play fine jazz in his early days

A gifted musician [Miles Davis], but one who by now has entirely deviated from jazz to 'cool' music.

It would be truer to say that he [Thelonious Monk] was an initiator of bop—for whereas his music harmonically resembles bop, rhythmically it is not. He is an eccentric musician who has strayed far from jazz, but has never completely turned his back on it as the bop players have.

— Guide to Jazz (1956)

In 1974, he accused Miles Davis, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, and others as being "traitors to the cause of true black music," that, according to Panassié, they claimed to support.[iv]

Some historians opine that Panassié hurt musicians by creating a wedge between blacks and whites by his insistence that black jazz was superior. Some authors ridicule his harsh attacks against more open jazz critics, who he characterized in his Bulletin du Hot Club de France as being full of "crass ignorance," "thick incompetence," and "triumphant stupidity."[v] His ad hominem attacks included phrases that translate to "repugnant glavioteur,"[a] "formidable imbecile," and "donkey of the pen."[b][vi][vii]

Political views

In addition to being a strong exponent of Dixieland jazz, and a harsh critic of jazz musicians who strayed from it, Panassié was a far-right

monarchist who belonged to the anti-Semitic organisation Action Française and wrote a jazz column for the extreme-right magazine L'Insurgé.[15][16]

Discography

In 1956,

RCA Victor published an LP record, Guide to Jazz (LPM 1393), a compilation including 16 recordings by prominent jazz artists with liner notes
by Panassiè.

Books

Books by Panassié[1]

  • Le Jazz Hot (1934);
    OCLC 906165198
  • La musique de Jazz et le Swing (1943)
  • Les rois du Jazz (1944)
  • La véritable musique de Jazz (in French) (1946)
The Real Jazz (English editions)
English versions translated by Anne Sorelle Williams,[17][c] adapted for American publication by Charles Edward Smith
1st ed. (in English), (1942). Smith & Durrell, Inc. 1942 – via
OCLC 892252
.
1st ed.    (in English), Smith & Durrell, Inc., 5th printing (1946);
OCLC 221703551, 562846079
Rev. ed.  (in English),
OCLC 500347906
Rev. ed.  (in English),
OCLC 391887
.
Rev. ed.  (in English),
OCLC 795423457
Rev. ed.  (in English),
OCLC 495542043
Rev. ed. (in English), (1973).
OCLC 847383480, 701594
Rev. ed.  (in English),
OCLC 251717851
Rev. ed.  (in English),
OCLC 172977814
Guide to Jazz & Dictionary of Jazz (English editions)
English versions by Desmond Flower (1907–1997),[d] A.A. Gurwitch (1925–2013)[e] (ed.)
Beginning with 1956 English versions, intro by intro by
OCLC 35672666

Family

Panassié spent five months in New York City in the company of Madeleine Gautier, his assistant. In 1949, they married, returned to France, and settled in Montauban at 65 Faubourg du Moustier.

Notes

  1. bovine disease that, among other things, causes heavy mucus. A glavioteur, in slang, is one who issues a thick sputum
    while speaking.
  2. ^ Donkey of the Pen, translated from Panassié's expression, âne bâté de la plume, figuratively means an unsophisticated music critic who takes themselves seriously and believes they are carrying enlightening knowledge (for readers), when in fact, they are carrying knowledge gained by others — with no comprehension, perspective, or scope — producing ridiculous results; a donkey of the pen is an idiot or moron with good conscience, blissfully satisfied with themselves.
  3. ^ Anne Sorelle Williams (maiden; 1916–1989), was an artist and music editor for Columbia Pictures. She was married to Morris P. Glushien (1909–2006), a lawyer. Ruth Wedgwood, a lawyer, is one of their daughters.
  4. Cassell & Co.
  5. ASCAP. (Obituary: "Arnold "Andy" Gurwitch," Journal News
    , May 7, 2013)

References

Inline citations from

ISSN 0755-7272

  1. ^ No.  243, December 1974, pps. 16–18
  2. ^ No.    87, April 1959, pg. 39
  3. ^ No.  101, October 1960, pps. 6–7
  4. ^ No.  234, January 1974, pg. 7
  5. ^ No.  220,  January 1973, pg. 5
  6. ^ No.    89, July–August 1959, pg. 32
  7. ^ No.  242, November 1974, pg. 22

Inline

  1. ^ a b "Hugues Panassié" (biography), jazzpanassie.nuxit.net (retrieved April 13, 2015)
  2. ^ "Il y a 30 ans, Hugues Panassié disparaissait" (in French), by Étienne Gautier, La Dépêche du Midi, December 8, 2004
    Note: Etienne Gautier is Madeleine Gautier's son
  3. ^ The New York Times Biographical Service, Vol. 5, Nos. 1–12, New York: Arno Press (1974)
  4. OCLC 8626853
  5. ISSN 0006-3053

        Vol. 10: Sep. 1973–Aug. 1976 (1977);
    OCLC 24559911

        Vol. 11: Sep. 1976–Aug. 1979 (1980);
    OCLC 31441150
  6. Macmillan Publishing Co.

        5th ed., p. 1204 (1958)
        5th ed. with 1971 Supplement, p. 1204 (1971)
    ISBN 0911320628

        6th ed., p. 1284 (1978)
    ISBN 0028702409

        7th ed., p. 1715 (1984)
    ISBN 0028702700

        "The Concise", p. 942 (1988)
    ISBN 0028724119
    (U.S.)
        "The Concise", p. 942 (1988)
    ISBN 0671698966
    (U.K.)
        8th ed., p. 1361 (1992)
    ISBN 0028724151

        8th ed. "The Concise", p. 744 (1994)
    ISBN 002872416X
  7. OCLC 22382241
  8. OCLC 2698149
  9. ISSN 0360-1536

        Vols. 53–56 (1975);
    OCLC 650232246

        Vols. 97–100 (1981);
    OCLC 34002903
  10. ^ The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz
        1st ed. (2 vols.),
    OCLC 16804283

        1st ed. (combined in 1 vol.),
    OCLC 30516743
  11. OCLC 883632016
  12. OCLC 910105
  13. ISSN 0021-5643
  14. ^
    OCLC 847383480, 701594
  15. ^
    OCLC 701053921
  16. OCLC 62872303
  17. ISSN 0006-3053

        Vol. 16: Sep. 1988–Aug. 1990 (1990);
    OCLC 30326352
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