Jimmy Barnatán

Biography

Jimmy Barnatán was born in Madrid, but his heart is divided between the capital of Spain, Santander and New York. Since its early years, he showed great admiration for the performing arts, and soon experienced the desire to get on the stage of a theatre. His claim was answered in 1992, when he was just 11 years: then, the young Jimmy managed to join the cast of Les Misérables, a musical produced by José Tamayo and Plácido Domingo, in association with Cameron Mackintosh, which was presented on September 16 in the New Apolo Theatre in Madrid, as an adaptation of the classic that inspired the novel by Victor Hugo. The success was overwhelming.

After that experience, Barnatán landed on television and performed sketches on entertainment programs as The Worst Week Program (El Peor Programa de la Semana) (1994) or Innocent, Innocent (Inocente, Inocente) (1995). That year took place his leap to the big screen thanks to director Alex de la Iglesia, who entrusted him the role of possessed child in the iconic film The Day of the Beast (El Dia de la Bestia). In 1996 he started in television fiction with Milk Brothers (Hermanos de leche), sharing cast with actors like Jose Coronado or Juan Echanove, and, a year later, he returned to the theatre, to represent Between two shores (Entre dos orillas) (1997) at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville. Since then, Jimmy has been part of a lot of projects in all formats, highlighting Torrente, the dumb arm of the law (Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley), Heart of the Warrior (El corazón del guerrero), The Biggest Robbery Never Told (El robo más grande jamás contado) and Los Serrano, a TV series that gave him an enormous popularity thanks to the role of Chucky.

He has participated in several short films, being director of three of them from 1998 to 2005. He did the same in a documentary (Racing Blues. History of a feeling) (Racing Blues. Historia de un sentimiento) (2007) in which, alongside Fernando Guisado, he narrated the adventures of an historic Spanish football team, the Racing de Santander.

In music, the journey of Barnatán also began in New York, where he used to go due to family reasons. One day, he had the opportunity to get on a stage surrounded by black Blues singers, and his intervention was warmly applauded by them. Jimmy said in an interview with daily El País:

Since I was a child, I used to go, first with my grandmother and, later, alone, to a Harlem church to hear gospel. I started to be interested in black music and, one day, at 16 or so, I slipped with a friend at Arthur's Tavern, mythical place, to see a concert. When it finished, it started a jam session and I started to sing... the musicians liked the way I did and they summoned me to return whenever I wanted. From there, everything ran.

In Spain, he began his career as a vocalist with Caronte's Ferry, and later went on to lead the San Telmo Blues Band, covering in both formations the great American classics. In 2010 he released his first studio album with the title Black Note, showing the influences received from those vinyl of Lionel Hampton, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong that he listened to at home. It was a subtle tribute to all those legends of Jazz, Blues and Soul that saw him grow. The album was presented at the legendary Sala Clamores of Madrid, causing a pleasant surprise to those who, until then, had enjoyed her performance in the big screen and in television. Soon after, he began recording with Back Door Band what turned out to his second album, After the blue Times (2011), this time with the seal of Warner Music Spain. While preparing the above releases, the multifaceted artist had time to write two novels: Atlas (2005) and New York Blues (2012). After that, he continued his career in the music scene constituting the group Jimmy Barnatán & The Cocooners, with whom he has released Room 13: A Blues Tale (2013) and Motorclub (2015).

Meanwhile, Jimmy has continued exercising his profession as an actor in projects like The Hurd, land with a soul (Las Hurdes, tierra con alma) (2015), documentary still unreleased for which he has also composed the soundtrack. Musically, he toured Spain accompanying the Texan guitarist Carvin Jones, and drew up part of the soundtrack of My big night (Mi gran noche) (2015), the new film by Alex de la Iglesia. Moreover, he has already prepared what will be his third novel, The Topper of Memphis (La Chistera de Memphis), whose publication is expected for the coming months.

Full-length films

Short films

As an actor

As a director

Medium length films

As a director

Television

Theatre

Music

With the San Telmo Music Factory

With the Back Door Band

With Jimmy Barnatán and The Cocooners

Works

Awards