From the Chotis to the Charleston: Jazz in Spanish Films until the Civil War

Abstract

The arrival of jazz in Spain contributed to modify some customs and forms of leisure in the process of modernisation of the country. Jazz was not just to listen, enjoy and dance, it was also to watch, becoming a powerful iconographic theme. This explains the presence of jazz in silent film. Until well into the 1920s, filmmakers in Spain initiated a hard-fought battle with popular musical theatre, particularly zarzuela (Spanish operetta), that showed a great capacity to absorb and disseminate foreign musical fads, including jazz music, sharing the stage with cuplés, zambras, tangos, flamenco, chotis and pasodobles. The presence of jazz rhythms (providing a visual landscape through dance) along with native music made the assimilation of jazz more natural. After the arrival of sound films, Spanish Republican cinema continued with the popular genres of the previous decade, including adaptations of zarzuelas and folkloric musicals. However, comedies and musical comedies with an American taste were also very successful, articulating discourses of modernity and cosmopolitanism. As in the 1920s, modernity could and should coexist with traditional elements of Spanish popular culture, which explains the relevance of popular music in films, from copla to jazz. Famous theatre and zarzuela composers ( Jacinto Guerrero and Francisco Alonso) or jazz musicians such as Daniel Montorio became film composers, while jazz found an appropriate place in Spanish comedy.