Julio Diamante y el jazz

Although he will be remembered as a filmmaker of proven interest within the Spanish audiovisual industry of the 1960s/70s, with films by the magnificent entity Tiempo de amor and El arte de vivir, Julio Diamante's work transcends this field, through a multiplicity of chores so extraordinary that they establish him as one of the most singular personalities, as well as consistent and admirable, of the Spanish artistic-cultural environment of the 20th century. In particular, Diamante's efforts for music make up a substantial, crucial and inexcusable block, within the various concerns or multiple facets of him. Within this facet, this book focuses on Jazz and Blues, although without completely excluding Diamante's other musical love, Flamenco, and breaks down and contextualizes, through the decades, said fondness, without the which the artistic-human personality of the polyhedral filmmaker cannot be conceived or studied. Film and music historian, as well as novelist, Carlos Aguilar enjoyed a great friendship with Julio Diamante for some twenty-five years, a relationship that has facilitated access to unpublished materials to date, included in this book; Among them, the project for a series on Jazz for TVE stands out, and the script for a crime film written by Diamante together with Jesús Franco. This book, full of unusual images of all kinds, from magazine covers to Afro-American poems, as well as snapshots of performances expressly provided by prestigious photographers, makes a special contribution both to the historiography of Spanish cinema and to the literature on Jazz and Blues in our country.