Johnny Hess

Swiss pianist and singer Johnny Hess is best known for the Charles & Johnny duo he formed with Charles Trenet, and for the name "zazou" in some of his songs. Born in Engelberg, Canton Obwalden, on December 31, 1915, he grew up in Levallois, France, where his parents settled in 1920, and studied at the École supérieure de commerce de Paris. Classically trained, he began playing the piano in cabarets in 1931, and the following year met Charles Trenet at the College Inn jazz club in Montparnasse. Their friendship soon blossomed into an artistic duo, named Charles & Johnny, who enchanted the French music hall for several years, from 1933 to 1937, with songs such as "Sur le Yang-Tsé-Kiang", "Le Fiancé" and "Sous le lit de Lily", as well as others such as "Vous qui passez sans me voir" for Jean Sablon, "Monsieur Saint-Pierre " for Édit Piaf and "Les Jours sans ma belle" for Tino Rossi. Composer of "Je suis swing" in 1938, Johnny Hess popularized jazz, introducing it to French chanson and coining the term "zazou" to designate the elegant youth enamored of this music, after an onomatopoeia by Cab Calloway in "Zaz Zuh Zaz" (1933). The name was taken up again in "Ils sont zazous" (1942), which was very much in vogue at the time. In addition to the repertoire he put together after Charles Trenet's separation, the pianist and performer opened his own cabaret, Le Jimmy's, where a young artist named Henri Salvador performed. Johnny Hess died in Saint-Maurice (Val-de-Marne) on November 14, 1983 at the age of 67, leaving behind a body of work summarized in several compilations, includingIntégrale 1938-1951, released by Frémeaux & Associés in 2004.

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