Beyond Sketches of Spain Tete Montoliu and the Construction of Iberian Jazz

Few musicians shaped Iberian jazz more than pianist Vicenç "Tete" Montoliu i Massana (1933-97). Fascinated by the modernist aesthetics of mid-century jazz, Montoliu was known for a carefully crafted mix of lyricism and dissonance, a penchant for discordant crashes, and a development of highly original compositions. Over the course of his career, he boasted some 100 recordings spanning Denmark, Germany, Holland, Spain, and the United States, and performed with the most notable jazz luminaries including Lionel Hampton, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, and Archie Shepp. In drawing from the Black American jazz form, Montoliu fashioned an adjacent critical space shaped by his experiences as a Catalan and a person with congenital visual impairment living under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

Beyond Sketches of Spain: Tete Montoliu and the Construction of Iberian Jazz explores the artist's life, musical production, and international reception within a cultural studies framework, invoking Fumi Okiji's notion of gathering in difference. In its investigation of this impressive and often overlooked transnational jazz legend, the book moves beyond mere sketches of Spanish nationhood, challenges conventional scholarly narratives, and recovers links between the United States, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, and Europe.

Benjamin Fraser is Professor of Iberian Studies at the University of Arizona. He is the author of ten monographs, including The Art of Pere Joan: Space, Landscape and Comics Form (2019), Cognitive Disability Aesthetics: Visual Culture, Disability Representations and the (In)Visibility of Cognitive Difference (2018), and Toward an Urban Cultural Studies: Henri Lefebvre and the Humanities (2015). Fraser currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Hispania, Founding and Executive Editor of the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, Senior Editor of the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, and Founding Co-Editor of the Hispanic Urban Studies book series.

Acknowledgments
Dedication
Selected Tete Montoliu Vinyl Discography
Note on Theodor W. Adorno and Jazz Criticism

Introduction

Tete's Musical Biography
Anti-Jazz Attitudes and Transnational Encounters in Spain
Jazz as Gathering in Difference

Chapter 1 - Sketches of Flamenco

Sketches of Spain, Francoism and Regressive Listening
Vibing with Lionel Hampton on Jazz Flamenco (1956)
To The European All Stars 1961 and Beyond

Chapter 2 - The Urban Soundscapes of Modern Jazz

Jazz and the City
Tete and the Speed, Spontaneity and Shifting Conditions of Urban Modernity
Europe's Urban Jazz Circuits, Kirk in Copenhagen (1963), and Lliure Jazz (1969)

Chapter 3 - Performing Catalanism

Jazz Age Barcelona and the First International Jazz Festival
Tete's Catalanism, A tot jazz (1965), and the Nova Cançó
Catalan Jazz Composition and Catalonian Folksongs (1977)

Chapter 4 - Blues, Braille and the Metanarrative of Blindness

Disability, Impairment and Tete's Musical Education
Blues Traditions, Sighted Culture, and Disability in Modern Music
Album Covers and the Visual Business of Listening to Jazz

Epilogue - The Jazz Artist in Transnational Popular Culture

Notes
References
Discography and Further Listening
Index