Jazz appeared in Spain almost at the same time as it did in the United Kingdom, France, and
Germany, usually considered its main centers in Europe. The first musical “jazz” performances
in Spain, as described by contemporary papers, took place in Madrid and Barcelona between
late 1919 and early 1920. The term was soon linked to dances such as the one-step, the ragtime,
and the foxtrot, which had appeared in Spain before jazz reached the country. The spread of
jazz in Spain was initially modest, especially in terms of its social base: its first listeners were
mainly aristocrats and intellectuals. However, from the mid-1920s, jazz was leaking extensively
into musical theatre and cinema, helped by the enthusiastic reception of the charleston and the
success of Sam Wooding’s, Josephine Baker’s, and Jack Hylton’s performances. Jazz’s spread
continued during the Second Republic (1931–1936), mainly in Barcelona, where the large and
exclusive Hot Club was founded in May 1935. This association edited a prestigious Jazz
Magazine and managed to bring Benny Carter’s big band and the Quintette du Hot Club de
France to Barcelona in January 1936. It was also a model for the creation of further small clubs
in other Catalan towns, in Madrid and Valencia. But the military revolt in July 1936 and the
Civil War violently dislocated Spanish social and cultural life. General Francisco Franco’s victory
in 1939 established a dictatorship that would survive almost forty years.
This chapter analyzes the relationship between jazz and Franco’s Spain up to 1968, when
this music underwent a crisis and adjustment to new institutions, practices, and audiences
directly connected with the subsequent transition to democracy.
