"Jazz and cinema: love story" at the House of Culture of the Diputació de Girona

The House of Culture of the Diputació de Girona presents, from November 25 to December 23, the exhibition Jazz and cinema: love story, which reviews the historical relationship between these two artistic expressions so representative of the 20th century and of what has passed of the 21st century The exhibition is curated by the popularizer and jazz critic Jaume Tauler, and will remain open until the 23rd of December to continue traveling through various towns in the regions of Girona.

The exhibition includes graphic material such as photographs, original posters, programs and film magazines where jazz is the protagonist, as well as first editions of records from the most successful soundtracks. Through this material we want to take a tour of different aspects of the relationship between image and music, of the relationship between cinema and jazz.

The exhibition narrates the journey of two disciplines that were born at approximately the same time, during the years from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, and which have followed parallel lives with many points of contact, which are the ones they explain in the exhibition.

During the silent film years, screenings were accompanied by live music, usually performed by a pianist. The fashionable music at that time and the most popular was jazz. It is no coincidence, in this sense, that the sound cinema began precisely with a musical film entitled The Jazz Singer ("The jazz singer"). From that moment on, the relationship between cinema and jazz has been constant, a true love story. Jazz has provided many film soundtracks, but it has also been the framework for the narrative action of many stories. Jazz stars have filled the screen and signed great compositions.

A relationship that can be explained based on the elements collected in the exhibition, divided into different areas, among which it is worth highlighting the one dedicated to the figure of the film director Juli Coll Claramunt, born in Camprodon in 1919. Coll worked with the composer Xavier Montsalvatge in his first works, and he is considered the introducer of jazz in our cinema, since in 1958, in the film Un vaso de whiskey, he assigned the central theme to Josep Solà , a musician born in Mollet del Vallès with a more popular style than that of Montsalvatge.

The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Ramon Garriga and Pere Colomer, two people who lived jazz with intensity and who made it reach many people, each in their own way, with a vocation to spread the word. Both passed away in September 2021, leaving us a valuable legacy for future generations.
The opening ceremony will end with a small concert by the modern music students of the Isaac Albéniz Music Conservatory of the Diputació de Girona: Elisenda Post, piano; Bernat Batrons, trumpet; Joan Gañan, drums, and Luis González, keyboard.