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'"Parisomania"? Jack Hylton and the French Connection'

This is the first substantial article (20,000 words) on the music and activities of the British dance bandleader Jack Hylton (1892–1965), based upon much primary-source historical research undertaken in Lancaster University’s Jack Hylton Archive. It is the first product of a project on Jack Hylton and France, which was funded by PALATINE and Lancaster University. Its research process has involved detailed engagement with (and French translation of) early press cuttings and programmes, plus interpretation of several French-related manuscript band arrangements (and 78rpm recordings) in the text and their extensive cataloguing in the Appendix (pp. 308-17).

The article develops an understanding of the forgotten role of the dance band in interwar Europe which challenges the American norm focused upon Paul Whiteman. Through his concert tours of France and nostalgic recordings with Chevalier, Hylton forged a connection which peaked at the Paris Opéra. But, despite his large French-related repertory and affection for Paris, the article argues that the impact of Americanization (plus a measure of Britishness) meant that Hylton’s style was ultimately international. More widely, it interrogates relations between musical types, especially popular music and jazz. At the request of Université Paris-Sorbonne, the article has since been translated into French: ‘“Parisomanie”? La French Connection de Jack Hylton’, in Vincent Cotro, Laurent Cugny and Philippe Gumplowicz (eds.), La Catastrophe apprivoisée: Regards sur le jazz en France, Jazz en France (Paris: Outre Mesure, 2013), pp. 67-99. It has led to a further chapter in Mawer’s new monograph on French Music in Conversation with Jazz, 1900-1965: From Debussy to Brubeck (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming autumn 2014). As signalled in the text (p. 295, n. 99), it has also led directly to Mawer_04.