Hughes Panassie Boulevard

[PDEE]

A TRUE jazz critic.

Mezz lives.........

[shawn·m]

I hadn’t heard the name before so I looked it up on AMG:

Without question the first great non-American jazz critic, Hughes Panassie studied saxophone and began writing about the music at 18. He was a founder and later president of "The Hot Club De France" and edited Jazz Hot from 1936 to 1947. He also wrote the book Le Jazz Hot, a mid-'30s treatise that was a leader among periodicals in addressing the music as a serious art form. Panassie organized a series of small-group recording sessions in 1938 with Mezz Mezzrow, Tommy Ladnier and Sidney Bechet that reportedly led to Eddie Condon's famous comment that "he didn't go over there (to France) and tell him how to stomp a grape." Count Basie recorded "Panassie' Stomp" that same year. Panassie recorded and produced a swing date led by Frankie Newton in 1939. But he was an avowed, unrepentant anti-bebop scribe, repeatedly denouncing the form as the antithesis of jazz. He continued the charges until his death in the mid-'70s. Panassie's extensive private collection now resides in the Discotheque Municipale at Villefranche-de-Rougergue. –Ron Wynn

Sounds like a colorful and controversial figure.

[peter rh]

Shawn - only a little off subject but, have you been
" Colyered"yet?;)

[shawn·m]

Not yet, but I suspect the groundwork is being laid.

[LeMo]

Some kind of racist who wanted that jazz stay as a "primitive" music (because black musicians was so marvellously "spontaneous") and never move from its original form.
During the second world war, he was a great supporter of Vichy and Maréchal Pétain.
Like I say, a racist in his own way.

[shawn·m]

Ah, yes. I think I remember a reference from sometime back. Something about blacks having a natural ability for jazz in an out-of-the-mouths-of-babes way. If we’re talking about the same guy, no wonder he’s little more than a historical footnote.

[AllOrNothingAtAll]

". . . [Panassie is] little more than a historical footnote." [shawn-m]

Even though much of Panassie's polemic was terribly misguided, in the history of jazz criticism he is a very important chapter - very much more than a mere footnote.

[shawn·m]

AONAA, consider my comment a misguided footnote in forum history.

[Chris A.]

I used to get letters from Panassie whenever I produced albums that pleased him--very nice letters, that I have kept. Stan Kenton told me that Panassie picked him up at the airport when his band first visited France. As they rode into Paris, Panassie asked Kenton if he couldn't play some of the better known material.

Kenton asked him to be more specific. "You know, 'Royal Garden Blues,' 'Sweet Georgia Brown'..."

Yes, definitely no mere footnote.

[PDEE]

I started this as a bit of a tongue in cheek shot at the Stanley Crouch Corner....

But actually Hughes was one of the first European Jazz critics.. or at least the published ones..

His first book, in 1934, HOT JAZZ was based on his discovery of Jazz which was mainly about the white jazz musicians he had heard via recordings Red Nichols, Frankie Trumbauer,Bix, Ben Pollack etc.

His second book, The REAL JAZZ 1942 ( i think) was based on his discovery of Armstrong, Ellington etc..

Statements from the preface to that book illustrate his reaction to the 'discovery"

" Since Jazz is created by coloured people, it is very difficult and almost impossible for a white man to get to the heart of it at the first shot. A period of slow assimilation is required and this might take several years."

" I did not realise until some years later after the publication of my first book that, from the point of view of Jazz, most white musicians were inferior to coloured musicans."

LeMo these are hardly " racist" comments, unless negative commentary about white people by white people is racist.

Crow Jim maybe;)

He still retained a huge positive attitude towards Mezzrow.. hey when you're friends with a musician, and possibly take tea with him, perceptions are altered.

Chris.. I liked your Kenton story.. more please, if they come to mind.. even if they are about Ken Colyer...write your memoirs.. I'll buy a copy for Shawn and Peter rh

[AllOrNothingAtAll]

I wish I could remember the name of the book I read that has at least a few pages about the relationship of Panaisse and Delaunay and their falling out and reconciliation, if I recall correctly.

Also, what is the source that Panaisse was loyal to the Vichy , as was posted previously?

And how is that Reinhardt, a jazz musician and a "gypsy"(!), was spared the Nazi's ultimate wrath?

[brownie]

Panassie, as unfortunately quite a number of people in wartime France, was indeed a supporter of Petain. Have not heard or read much about him being anything more than that. However in May 1944 (a few weeks before D-Day), Panassie adressed a conference at the Interior ministry in Vichy with a number of German officers attending. The conference dealt with jazz and Panassie attacked the discrimination against negroes in the USA, one of his favorite subject.
Charles Delauney who was organising jazz concerts and who was able to travel around France - a very rare privilege at the time - was part of a movement that helped escaped British prisoners, traveled to Montauban in southern France to ask Panassie for help. Panassie declined because of his dislike of Britons.
Against all odds, jazz was very popular in occupied and non-occupied WWII France. Jazz concerts were numerous and attended by vast bumbers of jazz (swing) fans
And Django Reinhardt was one of the most popular entertainer in France at the time. He was a star with an apartment on the Champs-Elysees avenue although his favorite home was his everpresent horse-drawn trailer in the Paris suburbs.
Discrimination laws against gypsies in France were not as harsh as laws against jews.
Reinhardt was thus able to travel in and outside France. He played concerts and made numerous records in Belgium.
Reinhardt was so popular that at some time there were rumors that the German Kommandantur was about to ask him and the then Quintette du Hot Club de France to give concerts in Germany! Reinhardt who did not want to set foot in Germany tried to enter Switzerland but the attempt failed. The German concerts tour bever materialised.

[PFunkJazz]

CHRIS A - Of course, Stan Kenton is on record with numerous racist remarks too.

Do you excuse people of that generation, because social attitudes weren't so 'advanced' then?

If so, would you go so far as to make excuses for, say, Leni 'Triumph of the Will' Reifenstahl?

And do you suspect that there is much the same degree of racism about today, but that the perpetrators are better at keeping their mouths shut and disguising their opinions?

[PDEE]

Not wishing to turn this into a racist discussion.. but for Pfunk

Have you heard any of the Ellington Treasury shows?

in his bond promotions he refers to the JAPS...... in somewhat derogatory terms.

One can argue that the pieces were written for him, one can certainly argue that they were comments of the time

My wife finds them extremely offensive

She was born in a prison camp in Wyoming

Ellington was a Racist?????????????????????

Do you excuse him??????