In 1935, Spanish composer and musicologist Baltasar Samper presented a series of groundbreaking lectures on jazz at l’Ateneu Polytechnicum de Barcelona and Discòfils at Associacio Pro-Música. Antoni Pizà is preparing a print edition of these lectures from Samper’s own notes. As a teaser, we have prepared a YouTube playlist of all of the recordings referenced in Samper’s talks.

Jazz recording began in 1917, but it did not become widespread until the late ’20s and early ’30s. The Hot Club of France was founded in 1931 and immediately helped to introduce a European audience to these North American records. The Hot Club of Barcelona was founded in 1935 and smaller local clubs spread throughout surrounding towns, in spite of the nascent Franco regime’s view that jazz was dangerous. You can learn a little more about the spread of jazz and blues through Catalonia in Jazz and Totalitarianism, ed. Bruce Johnson.