Charles Delaunay (pictured top right), founder of "Jazz Hot", the world's oldest jazz magazine, sent the 1945 Guild recording of "Salt Peanuts" to his colleague Hugues Panassié (pictured top left), co-founder and editor-in-chief of Jazz Hot and President of the Hot Club de France.
Panassié, who had spent the war isolated from developments in music in southern unoccupied France, was known for his conservatively purist views and was reportedly outraged by the recording. He refused to accept it as jazz and considered Gillespie's and Parker's venture into bebop a betrayal of African American musicians as it required learned musicianship, which he saw as a "white" contamination of "authentic [1920s Dixieland and Chicago-style] jazz". Panassié was likewise furious about Delaunay's support for the new music, later dismissing him as Secretary General of the Hot Club and declaring a "schism" in the Association of Hot Clubs movement. A few regional clubs sided with Panassié but the Hot Club in Paris backed Delaunay. In November 1946, Delaunay, composer/arranger André Hodeir and jazz critic Frank Ténot formally declared Jazz Hot's independence from the Hot Club.
Panassié had been a passionate advocate of and writer about early jazz, writing hundreds of articles for Jazz Hot (editor, 1935-1946) and other periodicals and also several books, including "Le Jazz Hot" (1934), "an important study that was among the first to treat jazz seriously" (Grove). In 1938 Count Basie dedicated to him and recorded a composition called "Panassié Stomp". After moving to Europe, the tenor saxophonist Don Byas also composed and recorded "Blues for Panassié". However, his reputation became tarnished by his rejection of bop and his extreme conservatism.
In October 1949, during a two-year stay in Paris, Kenny Clarke recorded with Hubert Fol and his Be-Bop Minstrels (image, bottom left), including a tongue-in-cheek musical send-up of Panassié, composed by Hubert Fol and entitled "Assy Panassy". After moving to Paris for good in 1956 Clarke recorded in October/November that year his excellent "Plays André Hodeir" sextet sessions (image, bottom right), featuring Hodeir arrangements of compositions by Monk, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Tadd Dameron and others.
Musical references:
A charming "jazz mime" by Hugues Panassié (on "Tootin' Through the Roof" by Duke Ellington)
Sources: Discogs, Allmusic, New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Wikipedia and citations (Jazz Hot, Charles Delaunay, Hugues Panassié, André Hodeir)
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