Hugues Panassié (27 February 1912 in Paris – 8 December 1974 in Montauban)[1] was a French critic, record producer, and impresario of traditional jazz.

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.

[13][14] In his book, The Real Jazz, Panassié ranked Benny Goodman as a detestable clarinetist whose sterile intonation was inferior to black players Jimmy Noone and Omer Simeon.

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.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.

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.