Crossing Over: Jazz in Spain

Depending on who you prefer to believe, jazz in Spain has either been in decline for twenty years or has never been so popular. The decline argument is one that forms the background to a current exhibition at Madrid's National Library dedicated to the history of jazz in Spain, and there are two main reasons for believing that there has been and still is a decline: one, an apparent loss of popularity in the early 1990s; two, a current-day problem with funding.

The argument doesn't really stand up, just as an argument which has it that jazz was repressed during the Franco era stands only so much scrutiny. The common belief is that jazz underwent a re-birth after Franco, having been popular prior to the Civil War. This belief requires the view that there was repression under Franco. There was during the earlier years, but so there was for mostly everything. The 1960s brought about significant change, and while Spanish pop music was generally rubbish and had to be happy, happy, touristy pap, jazz was treated with far greater respect. The first international jazz festival in Spain (Barcelona's) started in 1966, coinciding with a time when the world of jazz had edged into an era labelled "contemporary".

There were two fortuitous elements that helped to propel Spanish jazz into the general consciousness, but neither of them was Spanish as such. They were the titles of two recordings: Miles Davis's "Sketches of Spain" in 1960 and Chick Corea's simply entitled "Spain" in 1972. Purely by association and then also by imitation, jazz in Spain underwent a renaissance and Spanish jazz, or rather Spanish and Latin rhythms, were exported and crossed over into the contemporary world of jazz.

What is true is that jazz did enjoy a golden age of popularity in the later 1970s and 1980s, but the sudden explosion of jazz magazines, jazz programmes as well as more festivals (some of which still survive) has to be seen within the context of the cultural release and liberation that occurred in the years immediately after Franco's death. Its popularity was always likely to be difficult to sustain, however, just as it was elsewhere. The emergence of all manner of popular musical genres plus a probably inevitable burst of a bubble, formed in the 1970s by Corea, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report and others and which had helped to shoot jazz to unprecedented levels of worldwide interest, led to a waning in popularity.

What really happened in the 1990s, though, was evidence of the cyclical nature of music and of genres to re-invent themselves and to emerge in different forms. Jazz, partly because it is essentially freer in its form than other styles of music, is able to transform itself. It may not be "jazz", whatever the term really means, but in its ability to cross over and merge with other musical genres, it retains a jazz essence. Purists may not always appreciate this corruption, but fusion has helped to keep jazz popular, and in today's Spain its popularity remains undiminished. The loss of funding, as has been the case in Mallorca for both the Jazz Voyeur and Sa Pobla festivals, doesn't indicate a lack of popularity; it indicates unfortunate realities of economic life and of economies' inabilities to adequately support the arts and culture.

Crossover into flamenco, associated most obviously with Paco de Lucia, gave jazz a specifically Spanish flavour, though flamenco crossover had been attempted earlier, the American vibes player Lionel Hampton having introduced castanets, not exactly successfully, in the late 1950s. The more recent crossover and the subsequent further amalgamation of chill into the flamenco-jazz mix have created a hybrid of Ibizan club music and the tradition of Andalucía, the sound of which is de rigueur for any establishment claiming to offer "chill".

While flamenco has helped to breathe different life into Spanish jazz, other local musical traditions have also crossed over. Catalonian folk music is one such. But for all that jazz is popular in Mallorca, the same crossover hasn't really occurred here. An artist who has given it a go is Onofre Garcías, who on his 2011 album "Migration" took some Mallorcan folk music traditions, collaborated with Mike Oldfield, and ended up sounding not unlike Mike Oldfield.

What hasn't happened, as far as I am aware, is a genuine crossover using Mallorcan folk instruments, the pipes, the flutes, even the weird ximbomba. Yet there is no reason why not. Brazilian crossover jazz took off with the help of native instruments, so why not Mallorcan crossover? Despite the National Library's exhibition suggesting otherwise, jazz does retain its popularity, and a key reason why lies with how it has embraced other musical styles.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.