Spike Hughes

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Biography

Patrick “Spike” Hughes (1908-1987) was a British jazz musician, composer and music journalist. Spike was a wonderfully multi-dimensional musician, playing the double bass, composing operatic scores, arranging jazz recordings and writing books on topics ranging from gardening to Toscanini’s music.

Hughes’ small recording group was one of the earliest artists signed to Decca Records in England, spanning the period from 1929 to 1933 … , culminating in his visit to New York City where he arranged 3 historic recording sessions involving members of Benny Carter’s and Luis Russell’s bands with Coleman Hawkins and Henry “Red” Allen from Fletcher Henderson’s band. These 14 legendary sides were mostly Hughes’ own compositons. Though not released in the U.S. at the time, they have become known as classic black jazz masterworks.



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  • LondonLouis

    Having refreshed my memory, by playing ten-or-so of Spike's tracks, I remain impressed. He wasn't an Ellington, but his arrangements would be somewhere up there around or just below Fletcher Henderson. If he had been working in the States with a regular Black band, he would have become one of the major arrangers of the swing era.

    5 May 2009 Reply

  • LondonLouis

    If ever someone was born in the wrong place, Spike was the guy. From the evidence of these tracks, recorded in the early 1930s, he was an inspired Big Band arranger - but he was based in the UK, where the jazz tradition was weak. Working with people such as Benny Carter (a very decent arranger in his own right) and Coleman Hawkins, he produced these small gems. If he had been working in the States, he could have built on this work, and would have been well-placed to benefit from the Swing explosion later in the decade. Spike's work should be known more widely.

    5 May 2009 Reply

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