Spike Hughes

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Patrick Cairns Hughes , called Spike Hughes (born October 19, 1908 in London , † February 2, 1987 ) was a British jazz musician (arranger, band leader, bassist), composer, journalist and writer.

Life

His father Herbert was from Ulster, Northern Ireland and was the editor of the Daily Telegraph , musician and founder of the Irish Folk Song Society . His mother had artistic ambitions and, as a child, traveled with him across Europe to theater and opera performances. Hughes himself became infected with opera and theater fever and wrote his first opera in 1923. He took private lessons in Vienna with the composer Egon Wellesz and was not only enthusiastic about the operas by Richard Strauss , but also heard the first jazz music by Arthur Briggs in 1924 , for whose band he also arranged. Back in England he planned to study at Cambridge first , but then went to London to immerse himself in (classical) musical life, where he also made the acquaintance of the composer William Walton . He wrote music reviews, but also began to be interested again in jazz music spilling over from the USA and taught himself to play the bass in 1928, with the ultimate goal of working as an arranger in dance bands. Walton arranged contacts with Decca , who wanted to start their own label band. He made recordings with his bands The three blind mice and Decca-Dents . 1931 he arranged and played in the 1931 Review of Charles B. Cochran . In the same year he became a critic (as "Mike") for Melody Maker (until 1945), which made him known beyond the borders of England. At the same time he continued to lead a Decca orchestra and arranged for the label. In 1931 he was bassist in Jack Hylton's orchestra , with whom he also toured Paris , Amsterdam and Brussels . In 1932 he composed the ballet High Yellow, which contained jazz elements, which was successfully performed in London, and a Harlem Symphony at the same time . In the same year he composed and arranged (with Hyam Greenbaum ) the music for Noël Coward's Words and Music Revue in Manchester . In 1933 he went to New York , mainly to meet John Hammond . He heard Bessie Smith , Art Tatum (whom he and Hammond brokered on Brunswick solo recordings), Benny Goodman and the Dorsey brothers at the Onyx Club, and Billie Holiday singing at Monette's Supper Club , where he heard her with John Hammond, the general is considered their "discoverer". With Benny Carter's band he recorded his own jazz compositions for Decca, which show him as a student of Duke Ellington who should not be underestimated.

After returning to England, he turned from jazz as a musician in 1934 to a career as a writer. He wrote mainly about classical music, but also wrote jazz reviews (which in the 1930s, for example, Duke Ellington made it much easier for the English audience to receive it). In 1946 and 1951 he published his autobiography. In 1954 he married for the third time and settled near Lewes in Sussex . He wrote knowledgeable and witty opera books, but also Coarse Guides (short guides ) about cricket and bridge, travel reports, culinary guides and worked regularly for BBC radio and reported on the Glyndebourne Opera Festival on television. He also wrote the history of the festival and regularly wrote it in their programs.

Literary works

  • Opening Bars - Beginning at Autobiography , Pilot Press Ltd 1946
  • Second Movement - Continuing the Autobiography , Museum Press 1951
  • The Toscanini legacy , New edition Dover 1970, ISBN 0486221008
  • Famous Puccini Operas 1962
  • Great opera houses - a travelers guide to their history and tradition , Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1957
  • Famous Verdi Operas , Chilton Book 1968
  • Famous Mozart Operas , as Mozart's great operas 1972 at Dover, ISBN 0486228584
  • Glyndebourne - A History , Methuen 1965, new edition David and Charles 1981, ISBN 0715378910
  • The Art of Coarse Travel 1957
  • How to survive abroad , Methuen 1971
  • The Art of Coarse Language 1974
  • The Art Of Coarse Cricket , Museum Press 1954, 1966
  • The Art Of Coarse Bridge , Hutchinson 1970
  • The Art of Coarse Entertaining , 1972
  • The Art Of Coarse Gardening- The Care and Feeding of Slugs 1968 (translated: Demolition of the Art of Gardening - The Care and Feeding of Slugs )
  • Out of Season - a travelers tale of a winter journey (travel report from wintry Italy 1955 while researching an opera book)
  • Cold food for all seasons
  • Gateway Guide to Eating in Italy - Menues and Market 1968
  • with Charmian Hughes A pocket guide to italian food and wine 2nd edition, Carbery Press, 1992, ISBN 0951871420

Discography

  • Spike Hughes and his All-American Orchestra ( Decca Records , 1933) with Coleman Hawkins , Dicky Wells , Chu Berry , Henry Red Allen and others. a.
  • Spike Hughes and Benny Carter (Retrieval, 1931–33)
  • Spike Hughes: His Orchestra, three blind mice and Decca-Dents (Kings Cross Music, compilation of British recordings from the 1930s)
  • High Yellow- All his Jazz Compositions 1930-33 (Largo)

literature

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ data from Bohländer u. a .: Reclam's Jazz Guide , 1989
  2. ^ John Chilton Who’s Who of British Jazz London 2004
  3. ↑ Dietrich Schulz-Köhn , Interview in Wolbert (Ed.) Thats Jazz , Darmstadt 1988
personal data
SURNAME Hughes, Spike
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hughes, Patrick Cairns
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English jazz band leader, composer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH October 19, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH 2nd February 1987