Frank Ténot, one of the foremost jazz authorities in France, died of esophageal cancer on January 8 in Paris. He was 78.
Ténot started as a writer for Jazz Hot in the late ’40s and, in 1955, became a jazz DJ on Europe No.1 with Daniel Filipacchi, starting a partnership that lasted practically a lifetime. Ténot and Filipacchi purchased the ailing French journal Jazz Magazine in 1957 and, around that publication, built a solid publishing company that included a teenage magazine, Salut les Copains, that sold more than a million copies monthly for a couple of decades, and Lui that had, in 1972, an American version called Oui.
In 1981, when Filipacchi Publications merged with Hachette, Ténot became president of the unit and executive president of Europe Europe No.1.
When Filipacchi and Tenot sold their interest in Hachette to Lagardère Group in 1998, Frank kept Jazz Magazine and started a successful jazz radio station, TSF.
A bon vivant and charming man devoted to jazz, Frank Ténot, who had produced scores of records and concerts (in partnership with Norman Granz), was still writing a monthly column for his magazine at the time of his death.
Originally Published