Cooper Hewitt says...
Charles Delaunay, the son of artists Sonia and Robert Delaunay, was born in Vineuil-Saint-Firmin, Oise, France in 1911. Although he began his career as a commercial artist, Delaunay’s life was transformed after attending a Jazz concert. In the early 1930s, he began to work as a Jazz promoter, and co-founded the Hot Club de France with Hugues Panassié. The Hot Club de France was both a concert venue and an association of jazz enthusiasts. Delaunay recruited a relatively unknown Django Reinhardt to join the Quintette du Hot Club de France. In the mid-1930s, Delaunay and Panassié co-founded Le Jazz Hot, which is now the world’s oldest jazz magazine. He organized recordings throughout the 1930s and 1940s with musicians including Bill Coleman, Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli, and Benny Carter. In 1936 Delaunay published “Hot Discography,” the first comprehensive jazz discography. For the next several decades, he continued to serve as the editor of Le Jazz Hot, authored a biography of Django Reinhardt, and later joined a French jazz label Disques Vogue as the director. Delaunay used his skills as a graphic artist to promote both concerts and his publishing ventures. He designed the branding for the music label Sing, which he founded in collaboration with Pathe Records. In 1939, he published a folio of limited edition prints featuring his illustrations of jazz musicians. Until the end of his life in 1988, Delaunay continued to promote Jazz in many forms.
