You wouldn’t believe how much jazz you can find if you know where to look — even here, under the Andalusian sun, where olives dominate the landscape and flamenco rules the night. But let’s go back first. 1957. The year Spain briefly flirted with saxophone duels that no one seems to remember.
Now, you hear “tenor battle” and you probably think of those famous duels in New York or Chicago — Gene Ammons vs. Sonny Stitt, or that absolute slugfest between Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray. But there was a quiet offshoot down here. A bizarre, almost underground scene — as underground as you can get when Franco’s boys are watching.
See, after the war, Spain’s doors were closed to a lot of things. But American military bases started sprouting — Rota, Torrejón, Zaragoza. And with the Yanks came their music. That’s how people like Johnny Griffin or Don Byas — both expats at different times — would pass through or influence players here.
The ‘57 scene was built on visiting servicemen, ex-pats hiding from IRS agents, and a handful of brave local players who got their hands on bootleg Parker and Coltrane records. In Cádiz, where I now sit sipping frankly undrinkable coffee, there was a legendary — and I mean mythical — series of tenor battles at a club called El Pescador Azul. The place burned down in 1962, so don’t bother looking.
Word has it that José María “Pepe” Bernal, a local reed player from Sevilla with a tone somewhere between Getz and a chainsaw, would face off against visiting U.S. Navy saxophonists — usually kids who grew up on hard bop but were now stationed in southern Spain, desperate for a fix of real music. No charts. No setlists. Just: “You take the first chorus.”
The battles went long into the night. Pepe had stamina — built from playing dance halls with terrible acoustics and even worse pay. The Americans? They brought technique, fast fingers, licks stolen from Sonny Rollins and Hank Mobley. Sometimes the language barrier led to hilarious breakdowns — one sailor reportedly shouted “Let’s trade fours!” and Pepe thought he meant drinks.
This scene never made DownBeat magazine. No one recorded it. No liner notes exist. All you get are whispers from old men who still remember that once, for a few golden months, Cádiz had its own tenor battle circuit.
Why does this matter? Because jazz history often gets flattened. New York, Paris, Tokyo — sure. But places like Cádiz? Forgotten footnotes. Yet for the people who were there, who soaked it in, who staggered home at dawn with their ears ringing — it was as real as Birdland.
I think about this every time I sit outside at night here. The breeze off the bay. The faint clatter of some teenage kids butchering reggaeton somewhere in the distance. And if you listen hard enough, and maybe squint at the stars a bit, you can almost hear Pepe and that anonymous sailor locking horns again. One last chorus.
