Jazz Age Barcelona (review)

Jazz Age Barcelona introduces vital aspects of the Catalan capital during a period marked by the after effects of the First World War until the beginning of the Spanish Second Republic. Written with a captivating style, the reader becomes the inquisitive visitor of spaces that, though no longer in existence, significantly impacted the social fabric of the city. Davidson demonstrates the importance and aesthetic influence of jazz as an international phenomenon in Barcelona—the most cosmopolitan city of the Iberian Peninsula. In this vivacious cultural hub, diverse aggregates of displaced Europeans affected by the war intermingled with the locals and sought freedom, flamboyance, and solace; speculators also made easy money. Drawing on detailed analyses of newspaper articles, critical essays, novels, and photographs, the author claims that jazz played an important role in defining urban spaces: jazz music was revered by a variety of social classes—especially the bourgeoisie—and jazz cultural critique served as a way to provide intellectual and political commentary specific to the Catalan milieu.

Davidson divides his analysis into six compelling chapters, which transport us through the "spatial practice" of the Jazz Age. Central to his work are scenes from nightclubs, cocktail hours in hotels, the revue of the music halls, cabarets, brothels, and drug use, which help to illustrate the interplay between writing and images of a forgotten era. Surprisingly, such revelry occurred during Primo de Rivera's dictatorship under which the modernization of the country, the oppression of regional cultures, and state censorship were implemented. The first chapter, "Barcelona Boom Town," describes the city in its international context, comparable to Paris or Berlin. While the major European centers fought the war, Barcelona took advantage of its neutrality and experienced a rapid growth and expansion in the "Roaring Twenties" period that culminated with the International Exhibition in 1929. The second chapter focuses on a bold, eclectic paper, El Escándalo, which pierces "where others cannot or dare not tread," and also on a novel, Sangre en Atarazanas, by Francesc Madrid, one of El Escándalo's editors. Sangre is a collection of chronicles that depict the unrestrained nightlife in the red-light district. Both publications scandalously report on the most sordid streets and immoral places at a time of great censorship and repression—a time when everyone was at risk for what they did or said.

"The Spatial Aesthetics of Jazz Rhythm," the third chapter, connects the frenzied, syncopated beat of the American-born music to the rapid transformation of urban locales and activities as seen by the Catalan art critic and cultural commentator, Sebastià Gasch. New urban spheres of musical and visual artistic expression synchronously enmeshed to become part of the cosmopolitan metropolis. Novel innovation included the following: the advent of the cinema industry; symmetrical choreography from the revues; ad-lib jazz music; the physical transformation of the city—magnificent skyscrapers, telephones, subway, and street advertising; and the pervasiveness of cubism and surrealism. The fourth chapter, "Vantage Point: Barcelona's Mirador," is devoted to the study of a literary and artistic weekly paper informed both by Barcelona's international projection after the Exhibition of 1929 and its nationalistic impulse with the end of the dictatorship. Interestingly, Mirador is not defined only as a "European" cultural journal, but also as a paper with a political agenda of a Catalan nationhood that would not receive the expected support during the Spanish Second Republic.

"An Age in Pictures: Imatges (1930)" constitutes the fifth chapter, and includes many original photographs. Imatges was a graphic journal that delved into a culturally innovative age, when the visual perception of the city had been enhanced by the international exposition, technological advances, and the intensity of daily life. The final chapter, "The Colour of a Cocktail: J. M. de Sagarra's Aperitiu and Vida Privada," studies the culmination of the Age. This chapter analyzes a series of articles around the aperitif hour as the embodiment of modernity, and a recognized Catalan novel by the same author. The city is recreated in...