In another post on this blog, I was wondering if you would dance swing and Lindy Hop in good (small town in the province of Pontevedra) in the years 30 and 40... without being able to specifically answer that question, digging a little, Yes, I have found some information about the history of swing dancing in Spain.. Given the popularity of these North American roots dances currently in many corners of the peninsula, It is normal to wonder if our grandparents danced to this, the youth of the “swing era” in Spain.
The first reference I found to swing dancing in Spain in the postwar years was in Carmen Martín Gaite's book, The uses of love in the Spanish postwar period where he talks about the girls swing o topolino girls (more on this later) and the virulent reaction to swing dancing in some quarters:
«Is it that we have to do caprioles like any beer clown from those “over there”?…Of every hundred pieces played by the orchestral combination, at least eighty-five are boogie-boogie, “swing” and such arrivals from the dynamic country of Lie Sherindan… It is not in good taste to imitate the savages of central Africa or the men of color who flaunt the freedoms they enjoy at the foot of New York skyscrapers.» (The time, 1 March 1947, quoted by Gaite).
This reference intrigued me and I wanted to find out what exactly was danced at that time and if it could be similar to what we dance today. Most of the information in this post I have found in the book by Jose María García Martínez Del fox-trot al jazz flamenco: jazz in spain 1916-1966 (the first great jazz retrospective in our country), The trace of jazz in Spain from Jorge Garcia and Welcome Mr.. USA!! by Ignacio Faulin Hidalgo (I include the bibliography at the end). There is a shortage of materials on the Lindy Hop specifically, but along the way I have discovered some treasures like the swing fever of the Gracia festivities, dancers like Harry Flemming, charlestones of dubious taste, the dangers of swing according to Francoism, subjects of swing español and the famous Swing Gypsies, among others, for which I apologize for the detours in answering the question in the title.
Swing a Barcelona
Jazz entered Spain with force in the years 20 y 30, accompanied by a series of North American dance fads such as the cake-walk, the fox-trot, the black bottom and the charleston, that had great popularity, as Faulín details in his journey through this history of popular music and dance inWelcome Mr.. USA!! . Barcelona was, then as now, the main entry point for jazz and swing music in Spain (other neuralgic points in the years 20, 30 y 40 were Madrid and San Sebastian). Today Barcelona is one of the capitals of European swing with the most Lindy Hoppers and swing dance schools, with a geographical epicenter in the Gràcia neighborhood where there are three or four schools and a lot of dancing in the street.
That Barcelona was a hotbed of jazz in the pre-war years is evidenced by the long list of swing and jazz orchestras listed by García Martínez in his book Del fox-trot al jazz flamenco: jazz in spain 1916-1966. According to the author, to this the mighty bourgeoisie contributed, its situation well connected by sea and land with the European vanguards, and being frequented by musicians and orchestras: «Barcelona, anyway, was the epicenter of the earthquake hot that devastated the Peninsula in the thirties». So, swing became part of the Barcelona cultural sediment, to this day.
This chronicle of the major festivals of Gràcia, of the magazine Rhythm and Melody of 1944, which could well refer to more recent parties that take place in this neighborhood, gives us an idea of the swing atmosphere of that time, including some favorite theme of Lindy Hoppers as Sweet Georgia Brown:
"rivers of people press together. everyone dance. Those who wished, first intention, dance, and those who only wanted to pass but have to dance by force because of the jostling… Bonet and his musicians, with the formidable performance of Sweet Georgia Brown gave, maybe, the highest note of musical quality of all the festivities. The tenor sax and the violin in the respective hands of Bonet and Jaime Vila made the entire square vibrate wildly, in a beautiful cry. Street outfits have defended themselves like lions. He took the cake for his vigor, his soul and his good repertoire, the Sunday Savoy...All Gracia, in these endless nights, seethes and burns with a strange thirst, That wouldn't be enough to put out the innumerable barrels of beer in the innumerable bars of Gracia...! orchestras, churros, vocalists, heat, shout, swing points black, fate planets, screams of street vendors, human snakes of six or seven lively young, red lanterns in the dark...:Tutti Frutti!». (quoted in Garcia Martinez)
dances and music
From the beginning, dance and jazz music grew hand in hand., although with exceptions, less attention is usually paid to the history of the dance. musicians, orchestras, music magazines, the discs, radio and cinema, they all played an important role in this jazz fad, el swing, lo hot and the black, but the dance was key to his popularity. According to Faulín and García Martínez in the years 30 the swing by Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton or Paul Whiteman was heard on records released by La Voz de su Amo and in the new medium of radio. American musical movies also helped popularize tap and other jazz dances. (including Fred Astaire, Shirley Temple, Bill Robinson and the Marx Brothers were on the bill in the 1950s. 30 y 40).
Josephine Baker, that became an icon of the years 20 in Paris, spread the fever for his wild Charleston with his tour of Spain 1930, and there were many impersonating dancers. We are lucky to have a recording of Josephine Baker dancing her Charleston with unmatched energy.:
Dancer and producer Harry Fleming, with his show Blue Birds and his dance troupe The boys of the Savoy it was also particularly influential in Spain. Julián Ruesga Bueno has investigated a little more in the hHarry Fleming story and includes a chronicle of the ABC of Seville of the 20 october 1929 of his time at the Ibero-American Expo of the 29:
«Last night the group of black artists directed by the famous dancer Harry Flemming performed in Seville. The boga of Negroid art has featured very notable artists, like the one we saw last night at the Cervantes and like Luis Douglas, known and applauded in all the theaters of Europe. Flemming is an extraordinary dancer. His agility and his sense of rhythm and dance have earned him a great reputation. With it comes a magazine company, composed of blacks and whites. Little Esther is a part of it, the little bold girl who became popular in the cinematograph; Florence Miller, Elena Cooke y Ellington, the dancers Quitty Morán and Sleet, the famous comedian Bob Wolly and many other dance and song artists. They represented the magazine 'Hello-Jazz', in which a humorous and choreographic vision of New York neighborhoods is offered and picturesque New York customs are reflected.»
we have to talk about Sam Wooding, one of the biggest names in introducing authentic jazz and swing to Spain, a musician of American origin who played with his orchestra the Chocolate Kiddies on various tours of Europe and Spain in 1926 y 1929 (in Madrid, Barcelona and San Sebastián among other places) to whom we can listen in top form here:
black was in fashion, which does not mean that this "Negrismo" was not tinted with certain stereotypes and racism, as we can see in this charleston Mother buy me a black of 1929:
In short yes, The influence of jazz also reached outside the big cities. you have to aim, as indicated by Faulín Hidalgo, which in the early years was known as jazz band o jazz band to any ensemble that incorporated percussion, that was a great novelty, so we must be cautious when we see the billboards and the large number of orchestras that define themselves with the term jazz or jazz band. These ensembles used to play a combination of danceables, fox-trots, pasodobles, rumbas and romantic themes, that often had little to do with jazz. El jazz, in a broad sense, coexisted at all times with other styles of great popularity such as the copla, the zarzuela or the magazine.
Jazz sounded in Madrid, Valencia, Saint Sebastian, Seville and many more places. To give a close example, in your article And Compostela was seduced by the jazzz Alberto Cancela Monte reveals the influence of this music in Santiago de Compostela and the main venues where it was played. He tells us that in the years 30: «The festivities of the Apostle also have orchestras such as the Melody Jazz Orchestra that stands out “in the fast-paced sound of jazz, the hot, swing and all those degenerations of music that the deviant taste of modern youth demands for dances and gatherings.”».
In 1936 before the start of the civil war there was a real heyday of jazz in the peninsula, with concerts by great figures such as Django Rheinhardt or Benny Carter.
The Era del Swing and the war
The Era del Swing Americana is usually dated between 1935 y 1945, at the end of World War II, about; Although it cannot be considered that an equivalent phenomenon existed in Spain, some authors place the Spanish swing era somewhat later over the years. 40.
Naturally the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) affected the development of the budding swing here. There is a widespread idea that the war put an end to swing in Spain, however, in his book Welcome Mr.. USA!! Faulín Hidalgo shows us evidence that it was not really like that, and that during the war the inhabitants of the cities continued to seek escape through music and dance. That did stop the production of records, but the orchestras continued playing in Barcelona and Madrid, and swing was present on the radio and in the movies, since after all swing was in fashion worldwide.
postwar swing: ban girls swing
Swing and jazz did not fit well with the post-war Falange and Francoist ideology, just as it did not fit well in the Germany of the time, for its libertarian essence that prevails improvisation, individual and creative expression. Apart from the fact of being a musician of African-American origin, swing was rejected for being American, a country that seems to have caused antipathy and fascination in equal parts in Franco's new Spain. Carmen Martin Gaite in Amorous uses of the Spanish postwar masterfully portrays the environment and the official ideology of that time—with its rejection of everything foreign, modern, bourgeois, and of course American —and the exaltation of one's own, austerity, traditional roles and homeland. In a quote from the time:
«Let there not be on the blessed land of Spain other customs that are not ours.. And if this is a fierce nationalism, well better. And if this is a retrograde absurdity, better. we don't want progress, the romantic and liberal, capitalist and bourgeois, Jew, protestant atheist and freemason yankee progress. We prefer the backwardness of Spain, our delay.". (Amorous uses of the Spanish postwar)
This isolation and looking within takes shape in the prohibition, from 1940 «of the innovative and deforming use of foreign words in trademarks, labels and writing , prohibition that includes the "swing" ( Martin Gaite). The National Press Delegation, For example:
«will take care that in none of their information and criticism the newspapers use the words ballet and swing, substituting the first for bailes or danceables and the second for another equivalent in Spanish» (¡¡Welcome Mr USA!! p314).
In more explicit terms, jazz music and dance are rejected in this circular from the Press Delegation of 1943:
«For this reason, the development that the so-called black music can reach is viewed with well-founded concern... What we want to banish is the arbitrary wave of jazz, antimusical and we could say inhuman with which North America has invaded Europe for years. Nothing is further from our virile racial characteristics than those dead melodies, dulzona, decadent and monotonous... nothing is further from our spiritual dignity than those dislocated dances, bewildered in which the human nobility of the attitude, the selected gesture correction, descends into a ridiculous and grotesque contortionism.» (Welcome Mr.. USA!! p315).
But as Faulín Hidalgo vehemently defends, this official line seems to have zero effect on posts, recordings and radio programs of the time that are full of swing, hot y jazz, and of course, baile. There is a big difference between the official line and what was really heard and fashionable. There was little appeal to the young in the slogans of the time., in Gaite's words, «With hymn music it was beautiful, but who could relate to that at snack time??». The swing was what sounded worldwide and even sneaked into arch-franchist movies like Raza of 1941 (according to Iván Iglesias); One only has to look at the chronicle of the Gràcia festivities of ’44 that we mentioned at the beginning to see the popularity of swing at that time.
These circulars were right about something, that the American cultural influence spread thanks to music and cinema. A current ran contrary to the prevailing line in Spain at the time.: there were the "topolino" girls, the «girls swing», and the male equivalent of "swing chickens". The topolino shoes (in reference to a type of Hollywood-inspired platform shoe), out of step with the norms of the time and were characteristic of the phenomenon of young girls, of the new bourgeoisie, that imitated the American style. These girls were also called "swing girls" alluding to the new dance that entered the forties.. At a time when options for women were very limited, these airs of modernity were a rebellion. In the words of Gaite «Those knuckleheaded girls “out of place” in a society that exhorted women to stay in the background, not to make progress, not to attract attention for nothing ». Music, dance and American cinema offered much more attractive models of freedom for girls swing and the pollos swing (and precisely for this reason they caused so much suspicion in the society of the time).
One of the popular singers among postwar youth was Rina Celli, which we can hear with the Nocturnal Quintet in a recording of 1942 of one of those days (Some of these days) playing a little swing in spanish version. Rina Celli, Barcelona artist has been described as "the singer hot par excellence”. The compilation Histories of Jazz in Catalonia Vol 2 includes many more swing songs from orchestras such as Luis Rovira's and others of the time, and Faulín Hidalgo includes a discography of 51 themes of the years 40 in his book, highly recommended.
Las girls swing and the pollos swing They listened to American-influenced music., but it is difficult to know if what they danced was something similar to the Lindy Hop what we know today: did they do swing-outs, tandem charleston y shorty george For example? did not dance balboa y shag? There is little visual evidence of what was really danced in the forties in Spain and I don't know of movies or filmed material like there may be from Lindy Hop americano. Yes, it is quite documented that the Charleston and the fox-trot were danced, but it seems that the term Lindy Hop y jitterbug (name with which it was popularized lindy hop among young white Americans) they were not used much, Although there is still much to be investigated in this field.. I include some of the few references and images that I have found of the Lindy Hop specifically in the Spain of the years 40 (for now), where the Salón Amaya in Barcelona indisputably stands out.
«Music was inseparable from the various dances that are included within that style, and it can be said that musicians and dancers were its creators alike. In Spain, the dance that was mainly identified with swing was the lindy hop o jitterbug, an Afro-American dance that was born in 1927 at the Savoy Ballroom in New York Harlem and that had considerably influenced the big bands in the systematization of the new style of jazz [then goes on to describe in detail the basic step of lindy hop]» (ivan churches).
Besides, Iglesias and Faulín Hidalgo tell us that dance academies that incorporated new dances into their usual ballroom dances proliferated, and that swing displays by professional or semi-professional dancers also became popular.
Los Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers on their European tour of the year 1936-1937 they were in UK, Paris, Switzerland and even Dublin, but they did not visit Spain (which was already immersed in the civil war). In Spain instead, Yes, the Marx Brothers movie was released. A day at the races in 1940, so the Spanish public could know the Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, top representatives of Lindy Hop Worldwide, for his famous number in that movie.
If somewhere they danced swing and some form of Lindy Hop, it was in barcelona. The Salón Amaya in the Parallel was an emblematic place where swing and boogie-boogie dance contests were held (in the style of the Savoy contests) and where they danced "as well as in Harlem itself" according to some reviews of the time (Iglesias). It was inaugurated in 1943 and had its greatest splendor between 1945-46. There the Gypsies of Swing danced: «It is about both gypsy dancers and some non-gypsy who go there and make them enjoy with their gymnastic exhibitions. It's time for boogie, of the jitterbug, the lindy hop, based on black dances that appears in the swing era with high-level athletic displays», according to Faulín Hidalgo. Los Gitanos del Swing came to announce themselves in Madrid in 1948. His nicknames were the Sardineta, Sideburns, Batista, Yes, manes, Cook y Polla, they dressed in the swing aesthetic and were the seed of the Los Locos del Rock and Roll acrobatic dancers in the fifties. We have this image of the Amaya where they seem to be dancing lindy hop o jitterbug, in his modern dance contest ad: “hot” y “swing”.
The swing remained popular throughout the decade of the 40, And from 1945 the boogie-boogie enters with force, the latest dance style of the swing family, which is described as a wilder, more acrobatic dance style. In the 50 jazz ceased to be popular music, bailable, to evolve in other more minority directions such as bebop and hard bop; and Latin rhythms gained more prominence in social dancing (until the advent of rock 'n roll and twist). It will not be until the beginning of the 21st century that this dance with its infectious rhythm and free attitude will be danced again on the dance floors and streets of the peninsula., one more time, starting with Barcelona (But that is another story).
I am sure that there are still materials to discover and I hope that this post will encourage you to search in attics and archives, memories, clippings and films… what do you think? Maybe soon we can include a photo of our grandparents dancing swing.
Iglesias, Ivan, “(Re)Building the Spanish musical identity: Jazz and the cultural discourse of Francoism during the Second World War, HAUL, num. 23 (Autumn, 2010), pp 119-13.
Learn to swing dance in Jerez, Learn to swing dance in El Puerto, Learn to swing dance in Puerto Real, Learn to swing dance in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Learn to swing dance in Rota, Learn to swing dance in Cádiz, Learn to swing dance in Chipiona
