Samba (), also known as samba urbano carioca (''urban Carioca samba'') or simply samba carioca (''Carioca samba''), is a
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
ian
music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from ''musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are some ...
that originated in the
Afro-Brazilian communities of
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
in the early 20th century. Having its roots in
Brazilian folk traditions, especially those linked to the primitive rural samba of the
colonial and
imperial
Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism.
Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to:
Places
United States
* Imperial, California
* Imperial, Missouri
* Imperial, Nebraska
* Imperial, Pennsylvania
* Imperial, Texa ...
periods, it is considered one of the most important cultural phenomena in Brazil and one of the country's symbols. Present in the
Portuguese language
Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and ...
at least since the 19th century, the word "samba" was originally used to designate a "popular dance". Over time, its meaning has been extended to a "batuque-like circle dance", a
dance style
This is a list of dance categories, different types, styles, or genres of dance.
For older and more region-oriented vernacular dance styles, see List of ethnic, regional, and folk dances by origin.''
African and American
*Bolojo
*Cakewalk
*Pa ...
, and also to a "music genre". This process of establishing itself as a musical genre began in the 1910s and it had its inaugural landmark in the song "
Pelo Telefone
Pelo Telefone (English: On the Telephone) is a song attributed to the Brazilian guitarist and composer Donga and considered to be the first samba song to be recorded in Brazil, according to records at the National Library of Brazil,PICCINO, Evald ...
", launched in 1917. Despite being identified by its creators, the public, and the Brazilian
music industry
The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, ...
as "samba", this pioneering style was much more connected from the rhythmic and instrumental point of view to
maxixe than to samba itself.
Samba was modernly structured as a musical genre only in the late 1920s from the neighborhood of
Estácio and soon extended to
Oswaldo Cruz and other parts of Rio through its
commuter rail
Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...
. Today synonymous with the rhythm of samba, this new samba brought innovations in rhythm, melody and also in thematic aspects. Its rhythmic change based on a new percussive instrumental pattern resulted in a more "batucado" and syncopated style – as opposed to the inaugural "samba-maxixe" – notably characterized by a faster tempo, longer notes and a characterized cadence far beyond the simple ones palms used so far. Also the "Estácio paradigm" innovated in the formatting of samba as a song, with its musical organization in first and second parts in both melody and lyrics. In this way, the sambistas of Estácio created, structured and redefined the urban Carioca samba as a genre in a modern and finished way. In this process of establishment as an urban and modern musical expression, the Carioca samba had the decisive role of samba schools, responsible for defining and legitimizing definitively the aesthetic bases of rhythm, and
radio broadcasting
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
, which greatly contributed to the diffusion and popularization of the genre and its song singers. Thus, samba has achieved major projection throughout Brazil and has become one of the main
symbols
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
of Brazilian
national identity. Once criminalized and rejected for its Afro-Brazilian origins, and definitely working-class music in its mythic origins, the genre has also received support from members of the upper classes and the country's cultural elite.
At the same time that it established itself as the genesis of samba, the "Estácio paradigm" paved the way for its fragmentation into new sub-genres and styles of composition and interpretation throughout the 20th century. Mainly from the so-called "golden age" of Brazilian music, samba received abundant categorizations, some of which denote solid and well-accepted derivative strands – such as
bossa nova
Bossa nova () is a style of samba developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is mainly characterized by a "different beat" that altered the harmonies with the introduction of unconventional chords and an innovativ ...
,
pagode
Pagode () is a Brazilian style of music that originated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as a subgenre of Samba. Pagode originally meant a celebration with food, music, dance, and party. In 1978, singer Beth Carvalho was introduced to this music, liked ...
,
partido alto
Partido Alto refers to a type of samba with a number of particularities. In the world of samba subgenres and in samba reunions, partido alto songs (informally called ''partidos'') can represent a time for improvisation and (humorous or not) dispu ...
, samba de breque,
samba-canção
Samba-canção () (literally 'samba song') is, in its most common acceptance or interpretation, the denomination for a kind of Brazilian popular songs with a slow-paced samba rhythm.
History
It appeared after the World War II, at the end of the ...
,
samba de enredo and samba de terreiro – while other nomenclatures were somewhat more imprecise – such as samba do barulho (literally "noise samba"), samba epistolar ("epistolary samba") ou samba fonético ("phonetic samba") – and some merely derogatory – such as sambalada, sambolero or sambão joia.
The modern samba that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century is predominantly in a
time signature
The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value ...
varied with the conscious use of a sung chorus to a
batucada rhythm, with various stanzas of declaratory verses. Its traditial instrumentation is composed of percussion instruments such as the
pandeiro,
cuíca
The cuíca () is a Brazilian friction drum with a large pitch range, produced by changing tension on the head of the drum. ''Cuíca'' is Portuguese for the gray four-eyed opossum (''Philander opossum'') which is known for its high-pitched cry. I ...
,
tamborim,
ganzá and
surdo accompaniment – whose inspiration is
choro
''Choro'' (, "cry" or "lament"), also popularly called ''chorinho'' ("little cry" or "little lament"), is an instrumental Brazilian popular music genre which originated in 19th century Rio de Janeiro. Despite its name, the music often has a ...
– such as classical guitar and
cavaquinho
The cavaquinho (pronounced in Portuguese) is a small Portuguese string instrument in the European guitar family, with four wires or gut strings.
More broadly, ''cavaquinho'' is the name of a four-stringed subdivision of the lute family of instr ...
. In 2007, the Brazilian
National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage declared Carioca samba and three of its matrixes – samba de terreiro, partido-alto and samba de enredo – as
cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...
in Brazil.
Etymology and definition
![Batuque](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Batuque.jpg)
There is no consensus among experts on the etymology of the term "samba". A traditionalist view defends that the etymon comes from the
Bantu
Bantu may refer to:
*Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages
*Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language
* Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle
*Black Association for National ...
was in the ''Diário de Pernambuco'' in 1830. The term was documented in the publication in a note opposing the sending of soldiers to the ''c''ountryside of
Pernambuco
Pernambuco () is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. With an estimated population of 9.6 million people as of 2020, making it seventh-most populous state of Brazil and with around 98,148 km², being the 19 ...
State as a disciplinary measure, as there they could be idle and entertained with "fishing of corrals
raps to catch fish and climbing coconut trees, in whose hobbies viola and samba will be welcomed ". Another old appearance was recorded in the humorous
Recife
That it may shine on all ( Matthew 5:15)
, image_map = Brazil Pernambuco Recife location map.svg
, mapsize = 250px
, map_caption = Location in the state of Pernambuco
, pushpin_map = Brazil#South A ...
newspaper ''O Carapuceiro'', dated February 1838, when Father Miguel Lopes Gama of Sacramento wrote against what he called "the samba d'almocreve" – not referring to the future musical genre, but a kind of merriment (dance drama) popular for black people of that time. According to Hiram Araújo da Costa, over the centuries, the festival of dances of slaves in Bahia were called samba. In
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
, the word only became known at the end of the 19th century, when it was linked to rural festivities, to the area of blacks and to the "north" of the country, that is, the
Brazilian Northeast
The Northeast Region of Brazil ( pt, Região Nordeste do Brasil; ) is one of the five official and political regions of the country according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Of Brazil's twenty-six states, it comprises n ...
.
For many years of the Brazilian
colonial and
imperial
Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism.
Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to:
Places
United States
* Imperial, California
* Imperial, Missouri
* Imperial, Nebraska
* Imperial, Pennsylvania
* Imperial, Texa ...
history, the terms "batuque" or "samba" were used in any manifestation of African origins that brought together dances (mainly
umbigada
Umbigada (from Portuguese ''umbigo'', "navel") is a dance move in various Afro-Brazilian dances. Sometimes translates as "belly bump" or "belly blow", it is performed as follows: a dancer opens her arms and extends her navel towards another danc ...
), songs and uses of
Black people
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in s ...
instruments. At the end of the 19th century, "samba" was present in the
Portuguese language
Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and ...
, designating different types of popular dances performed by
African slaves
Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa in ancient times, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Indian Ocean sl ...
(xiba,
fandango, catereté, candomblé,
baião) that assumed its own characteristics in each
Brazilian state, not only by the diversity of the ethnic groups of the
African diaspora
The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were e ...
, but also the peculiarity of each region in which they were settlers. In the twentieth century, the term was gaining new meanings, as for a "circle dance similar to batuque" and a "genre of popular song
The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1913 in the "Em casa de baiana", registered as "samba de partido-alto". Then, the following year, for the works "A viola está magoada" and "Moleque vagabundo". And, in 1916, for the famous "Pelo Telefone", released as "samba carnavalesco" ("carnival samba") and regarded as the founding landmark of the Modern Carioca Samba.
Roots
Rural tradition
During a folkloric research mission in the
Northeast Region of 1938, the writer
Mário de Andrade
Mário Raul de Morais Andrade (October 9, 1893 – February 25, 1945) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetr ...
noticed that, in rural areas, the term "samba" was associated with the event where the dance was performed, the way of dancing the samba and the music performed for the dance. The Urban Carioca Samba was influenced by several traditions associated with the universe of rural communities throughout Brazil. The folklorist Oneida Alvarenga was the first expert to list primitive popular dances of the type: coco, tambor de crioula,
lundu,
chula or fandango, baiano, cateretê, quimbere, mbeque, caxambu and xiba. To this list, Jorge Sabino and Raul Lody added: the samba de coco and the sambada (also called coco de roda), the samba de matuto, the samba de caboclo and the
jongo {{no footnotes, date=May 2016
Jongo, also known as ''caxambu'' or ''tabu'', is a dance and musical genre of black communities from southeast Brazil. It originated from the dances performed by slaves who worked at coffee plantations in the Paraíba ...
.
One of the most important forms of dance in the constitution of the choreography of the Carioca Samba, the
samba de roda practiced in Bahia's
Recôncavo was typically danced outdoors by a soloist, while other participants of the roda took charge of the singing – alternating in solo and chorus parts – and the performance of dance instruments. The three basic steps of Bahian samba de roda were the corta-a-jaca, the separa-o-visgo and the apanha-o-bago, in addition to the little one danced exclusively by women. In their research on Bahian samba, Roberto Mendes and Waldomiro Junior examined that some elements from other cultures, such as the
Arab pandeiro and the Portuguese viola, were gradually incorporated into the singing and rhythm of African batuques, whose most well-known variants were samba corrido and the samba chulado.
In the
São Paulo State
SAO or Sao may refer to:
Places
* Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD
* Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso
* Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S ...
, another primitive modality of known rural samba developed, practiced basically in cities along the
Tietê River – from the
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
city, until its middle course – and traditionally divided between samba de bumbo – with only instruments percussion, with bumbo – and batuque de umbigada – with tambu, quinjengue and guaiá.
Essentially made up of two parts (choir and solo) usually performed on the fly, the
partido alto
Partido Alto refers to a type of samba with a number of particularities. In the world of samba subgenres and in samba reunions, partido alto songs (informally called ''partidos'') can represent a time for improvisation and (humorous or not) dispu ...
was – and still is – the most traditional sung variant of rural samba in
Rio de Janeiro State
Rio de Janeiro () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil. It has the second largest economy of Brazil, with the largest being that of the state of São Paulo. The state, which has 8.2% of the Brazilian population, is responsible for 9.2% of ...
. Originating in the
Greater Rio de Janeiro
Greater Rio de Janeiro, officially the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region (''Grande Rio'', officially ''Região Metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro'', in Portuguese language, Portuguese) is a large metropolitan area located in Rio de Janeiro (sta ...
, it is the combination, according to Lopes and Simas, of the Bahian samba de roda with the singing of the calango, as well as a kind of transition between rural samba and what would be developed in the urban environment of Rio from the 20th century.
Roots of Rio Carnival
During colonial Brazil, many public
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
events used to attract all social segments, including blacks and slaves, who took advantage of the celebrations to make their own manifestations, such as the crowning revelry of the Congo kings and the cucumbis (Bantu revelry) in
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
. Gradually, these exclusive celebrations of the black people were being disconnected from Catholicism ceremonies and changed to the
Brazilian Carnival
The Carnival of Brazil ( pt, Carnaval do Brasil, ) is an annual Brazilian festival held the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday at noon, which marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period before Easter. During Lent, Roman Catholics and so ...
. From the cucumbis, the "Cariocas cordões" emerged, which presented elements of Brazilianness – like blacks dressed as indigenous people. At the end of the 19th century, on the initiative of Hilário Jovino, from Pernambuco, ranchos de reis (later known as carnival ranchos) emerged. One of the most important ranches in Rio's carnival was Ameno Resedá. Created in 1907, the self-titled "rancho-escola" became a model for carnival performances in procession and for future samba schools born in the hills and suburbs of Rio.
The urban Carioca samba
Birth in a Bahian terreiro
A political and socio-cultural epicenter of Brazil, based on
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
, Rio de Janeiro was strongly influenced by
African culture. In the middle of the 19th century, more than half the population of the city – then capital of the
Brazilian Empire
The Empire of Brazil was a 19th-century state that broadly comprised the territories which form modern Brazil and (until 1828) Uruguay. Its government was a representative parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the rule of Emperors Dom Pe ...
– was formed by
black slaves. In the early 1890s, Rio had more than half a million inhabitants, of whom only half were born in the city, while the other part came from the old Brazilian imperial provinces, mainly from
Bahia
Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (sta ...
. In search of better living conditions, this influx of black Bahians to Rio lands increased considerably after
the abolition of slavery in Brazil. Called "Pequena Africa" ("Little Africa") by
Heitor dos Prazeres
Heitor dos Prazeres (23 September 1898 — Rio de Janeiro, 4 October 1966) was a Brazilian composer, singer and painter. He was a pioneer samba composer and participated in the first samba schools in Brazil. Later in life he became known by his pai ...
, this Afro-Bahian diaspora community in the country's capital settled in the vicinity of the Rio de Janeiro port area and, after the urban reforms of Mayor
Pereira Passos
Francisco Franco Pereira Passos (29 August 1836 – 12 March 1913) was a Brazilian engineer and politician. He was mayor of the Federal District of Brazil from 1902 to 1906, nominated by President Rodrigues Alves. During his tenure, Pereira Passos ...
, in the neighborhoods of
Saúde and
Cidade Nova. Through the action of black Bahians living in Rio, new habits, customs and values of Afro-Bahian matrixes were introduced that influenced the culture of Rio, especially in popular events such as the traditional Festa da Penha and
Carnival
Carnival is a Catholic Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typi ...
. Black women from Salvador and Bahia's Recôncavo, the "Tias Baianas" ("Bahian aunts") founded the first
Candomblé
Candomblé () is an African diasporic religion that developed in Brazil during the 19th century. It arose through a process of syncretism between several of the traditional religions of West Africa, especially that of the Yoruba, and the Roman ...
terreiros, introduced the
cowrie-shell divination
Cowrie-shell divination refers to several distinct forms of divination using cowrie shells that are part of the rituals and religious beliefs of certain religions. Though best-documented in West Africa as well as in Afro-American religions, su ...
and disseminated the mysteries of the African-based religions of the Jeje-Nagô tradition in the city. In addition to candomblé, the residences or terreiros of the aunts of Bahia hosted various community activities, such as cooking and the pagodes, where urban Rio samba would develop.
Among the most well-known Bahian aunts in Rio, were the Tias Sadata, Bibiana, Fê, Rosa Olé, Amélia do Aragão, Veridiana, Mônica, Perciliana de Santo Amaro and
Ciata. A place for meetings around religion, cuisine, dance and music,
Tia Ciata
Tia Ciata, born Hilária Batista de Almeida (1854–1924) was a Brazilian cook, mãe-de-santo of Candomblé, and an influential figure in the development of samba. She was born in Santo Amaro, Bahia, and initiated in Candomblé in Salvador by Ban ...
's home was frequented both by samba musicians and
pais-de-santo as well as by influential intellectuals and politicians from Rio de Janeiro society. Among some of its members regulars were
Sinhô,
Pixinguinha, Heitor dos Prazeres,
João da Baiana,
Donga and
Caninha, as well as some journalists and intellectuals, such as
João do Rio
João do Rio was the pseudonym of the Brazilian journalist, short-story writer and playwright João Paulo Emílio Cristóvão dos Santos Coelho Barreto, a Brazilian author and journalist of African descent (August 5, 1881, Rio de Janeiro – Ju ...
,
Manuel Bandeira,
Mário de Andrade
Mário Raul de Morais Andrade (October 9, 1893 – February 25, 1945) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetr ...
and
Francisco Guimarães (popularly known as Vagalume). It was in this environment that Vagalume, then a columnist for
Jornal do Brasil
''Jornal do Brasil'', widely known as ''JB'', is a daily newspaper published by Editora JB in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The paper was founded in 1891 and is the third oldest extant Brazilian paper, after the ''Diário de Pernambuco'' and ''O Esta ...
, witnessed the birth of "O Macaco É Outro" in October 1916. According to the journalist, this samba immediately won the support of the popular people who left singing the music in an animated block. Donga registered the work in
sheet music
Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses List of musical symbols, musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chord (music), chords of a song or instrumental Musical composition, musical piece. Like ...
and, on 27 November of that year, declared himself as its author in the National Library, where it was registered as "carnival samba" called "
Pelo telefone
Pelo Telefone (English: On the Telephone) is a song attributed to the Brazilian guitarist and composer Donga and considered to be the first samba song to be recorded in Brazil, according to records at the National Library of Brazil,PICCINO, Evald ...
". Shortly after, the score was used in three recordings at Casa Edison record label. One of them interpreted by
Baiano with the accompaniment of classical guitar, cavaquinho and clarinet. Released in
78 rpm format on 19 January 1917, "Pelo telefone" became a huge hit in that year's Rio carnival. Two instrumental versions were also released – recorded by Banda Odeon and Banda de 1º Battalion of the Police of Bahia – in 1917 and 1918 respectively.
The success of "Pelo telefone" marked the official beginning of samba as a song genre. Its primacy as "the first samba in history" has, however, been questioned by some scholars, on the grounds that the work was only the first samba under this categorization to be successful. Before, "Em casa da baiana" was recorded by Alfredo Carlos Bricio, declared to the National Library as "samba de partido-alto" in 1913, "A viola está magoada", by Catulo da Paixão Cearense, released as "samba" by Baiano and Júlia the following year, and "Moleque vagabundo", "samba" by Lourival de Carvalho, also in 1914.
Another debate related to "Pelo telefone" concerns Donga's exclusive authorship, which was soon contested by some of his contemporaries who accused him of appropriating a collective, anonymous creation, registering it as his own. The central part of the song would have been conceived in the traditional improvisations in meetings at
Tia Ciata
Tia Ciata, born Hilária Batista de Almeida (1854–1924) was a Brazilian cook, mãe-de-santo of Candomblé, and an influential figure in the development of samba. She was born in Santo Amaro, Bahia, and initiated in Candomblé in Salvador by Ban ...
's house. Sinhô claimed the authorship of the chorus "ai, se rolinha, sinhô, sinhô" and created another song lyrics in response to Donga. However, Sinhô himself, who would consolidate himself in the 1920s as the first important figure of samba, was accused of appropriating other people's songs or verses – to which he justified himself with the famous maxim that samba was "like a bird" in the air, it is "whoever gets it first". This defense is part of a period in which the figure of the popular composer was not that of the individual who composed or organized sounds, but the one who registered and disseminated the songs. In the era of
mechanical recordings, musical compositions – under the pretext of ensuring that there was no
plagiarism
Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thought ...
– did not belong to composers, but to publishers and, later, to record labels, a reality modified only with the advent of electrical recordings, when the right to intellectual property of the work became individual and inalienable to the composer. In any case, it was because "Pelo Telefone" that samba gained notoriety as a product in the Brazilian music industry. Gradually, the nascent urban samba was gaining popularity in Rio de Janeiro, especially at the Festa da Penha and Carnival. In October, the Festa da Penha became a great event for composers from Cidade Nova who wanted to publicize their compositions in the expectation that they would be released at the following carnival. Another promoter during this period was the
Revue shows, a place that enshrined
Aracy Cortes Zilda de Carvalho Espíndola (March 31, 1904 – January 8, 1985), professionally known as Aracy Cortes, was a Brazilian singer, dancer and actress.
In the 1920s and 1930s as one of the stars of musical revue at the Teatro Recreio in Rio de Ja ...
as one of the first successful singers of the new popular song genre.
The solidification of the electric recording system made it possible for the recording industry to launch new sambas by singers with less powerful voices, such as
Carmen Miranda and
Mário Reis, performers who became references when creating a new way of interpreting the most natural and spontaneous samba, without so many ornaments, as opposed to the tradition of
belcanto style. These recordings followed an aesthetic pattern characterized by structural similarities to the
lundu and, mainly, to the
maxixe. Because of this, this type of samba is considered by scholars as "samba-maxixe" or "samba amaxixado". Although the samba practiced in the festivities of Bahian communities in Rio was an urban stylization of the ancestral "samba de roda" in Bahia, characterized by a high party samba with refrains sung to the marked rhythm of the palms and the plates shaved with knives, this samba it was also influenced by the maxixe. It was in the following decade that a new model of samba would be born, from the hills of Rio de Janeiro, quite distinct from that of the amaxixado style associated with the communities of Cidade Nova.
Samba do Estácio, the genesis of urban samba
![Samba dance pattern](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Samba_dance_pattern.png)
Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, in the context of the
First Brazilian Republic
The First Brazilian Republic, also referred to as the Old Republic ( pt, República Velha ), officially the Republic of the United States of Brazil, refers to the period of Brazilian history from 1889 to 1930. The Old Republic began with the de ...
, the poor strata of Rio de Janeiro faced serious economic issues related to their survival in the federal capital, such as the imposition of new taxes resulting from the provision of
public service
A public service is any service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community. Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through public sector agencies ...
s (such as electric lighting, water and sewage, modern pavements), new legislation that imposed architectural norms and restrictions for urban buildings, and the prohibition on the exercise of certain professions or economic practices linked to subsistence, especially of the poorest. The situation of this population worsened further with the urban reforms in the
center of Rio, whose widening or opening of roads required the destruction of several tenements and popular housing in the region.
As a result, these homeless residents were temporarily occupying slopes in the vicinity of these old demolished buildings, such as
Morro da Providência (mainly occupied by former residents of the Cabeça de Porco tenement and former soldiers of the
War of Canudos) and Morro de Santo Antonio (especially by ex-combatants of the
Brazilian Naval Revolts). In a short time, this type of temporary housing was permanently established in the urban landscape of Rio, originating the first favelas in the city. From the increase in the populations expelled from the tenements and the arrival of new poor migrants to the capital of the Republic, the favelas grew rapidly and spread through the hills settlements and suburban areas of Rio.
It was in this scenario that a new type of samba would be born during the second half of the 1920s, called "samba do Estácio", which would constitute the genesis of urban Carioca samba by creating a new pattern so revolutionary that its innovations last until the days current. Located close to
Praça Onze
A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
and housing Morro do São Carlos, the neighborhood of
Estácio was a center of convergence of public transport, mainly of trams that served the North Zone of the city. Its proximity to the nascent hills settlements as well as its primacy in the formation of this new samba ended up linking its musical production, from
urban train lines, to the favelas and suburbs of Rio, such as
Morro da Mangueira, and the suburban neighborhood of
Osvaldo Cruz.
Estácio's samba was distinguished from Cidade Nova's samba both in thematic aspects, as well as in the melody and rhythm. Made for the parades of the carnival blocs in the neighborhood, the samba do Estácio innovated with a faster tempo, longer notes and a cadence beyond the traditional palms. Another structural change resulting from this samba was the valorization of the "second part" of the compositions: instead of using the typical improvisation of the samba circles of the alto party or carnival parades, there was the consolidation of pre-established sequences, which would have a theme – for example, everyday problems – and the possibility of fitting everything within the standards of
the phonograph recordings of 78 rpm at the time – something like three minutes on 10-inch discs. In comparison to the works of the first generation of Donga, Sinhô and company, the sambas produced by the Estácio group also stood out for a greater
countermetricity, which can be evidenced in a testimony by
Ismael Silva Ismael Silva may refer to:
* Ismael Silva (musician) (1905-1978), Brazilian samba musician
* Ismael Silva (footballer) (born 1994), Brazilian footballer
{{hndis, Silva, Ismael ...
about the innovations introduced by him and his companions in the new urban samba in Rio:
The intuitive
onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
built by Ismael Silva tried to explain the rhythmic change operated by the sambistas of Estácio with the ''bum bum paticumbum pugurumdum'' of the
surdo in marking the cadence of the samba, making it a more syncopated rhythm. It was, therefore, a break with the samba ''tan tantan tan tantan'' irradiated from the Bahian aunts meetings.
Thus, at the end of the 1920s, the modern carioca samba had two distinct models: the primitive urban samba of Cidade Nova and the new syncopated samba of the Estácio group. However, while the Bahian community enjoyed a certain social legitimacy, including the protection of important personalities of Rio society who supported and frequented the musical circles of the "Pequena Africa", the new Estaciano sambistas suffered socio-cultural discrimination, including through police repression. A popular neighborhood with a large contingent of blacks and mulattos, Estácio was one of the great strongholds of poor samba musicians situated between marginality and social integration, who ended up being stigmatized by the upper classes in Rio as "dangerous" rascals. Because of this infamous brand, the Estaciano samba suffered great social prejudice in its origin.
To avoid police harassment and gain social legitimacy, Estácio's samba musicians decided to link their batucadas to carnival samba and organized themselves in what they christened as samba schools.
According to Ismael Silva – also founder of
Deixa Falar and the creator of the expression "samba school" – the term was inspired by the Normal school that once existed in Estácio, and therefore the samba schools would form "samba teachers". Although the primacy of the country's first samba school is contested by
Portela Portela or Pórtela may refer to:
People
* Portela (surname)
Places
* Lisbon Portela Airport, the international airport of Lisbon, Portugal
* Residence of Portela, 17th-century country house in Paços de Brandão, Portugal
Civil parishes
* Po ...
and
Mangueira
Mangueira (''Mango Tree'') is a shantytown neighborhood (favela) in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, centered on the Mangueira hill or ''morro''. It is most famous for its samba school, the Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Estação Prime ...
, Deixa Falar was a pioneer in spreading the term in its quest to establish a different organization from the
carnival block
Carnival blocks, carnaval blocos or blocos de rua are street bands that mobilize crowds on the streets and are the main popular expression of Brazilian Carnival. These parades fall under the term "street carnival", and happen during a period of abo ...
s of that time and also the first carnival association to use the group in the future known as
bateria
The term ''bateria'' means “drum kit” in Portuguese and Spanish. In Brazil, the word is also used for a form of Brazilian samba band, the percussion band or rhythm section of a Samba School. It might also mean ''battery''.
''Baterias'' are ...
, a unit made up of percussion instruments such as the surdo,
tambourine
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...
s and
cuíca
The cuíca () is a Brazilian friction drum with a large pitch range, produced by changing tension on the head of the drum. ''Cuíca'' is Portuguese for the gray four-eyed opossum (''Philander opossum'') which is known for its high-pitched cry. I ...
s, which – when joining the already used
pandeiros and
shakers
The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, are a Millenarianism, millenarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian sect founded in England and then organized in the Unit ...
– gave a more "marching" characteristic to the samba of the parades.
In 1929, the sambista and
babalawo Zé Espinguela organized the first contest among the first samba schools in Rio: Deixa Falar, Mangueira and Oswaldo Cruz (later Portela). The dispute did not involve parede, but a competition to choose the best samba theme among these carnival groups – whose winner is the samba "A Tristeza Me Persegue", by Heitor dos Prazeres, one of Oswaldo Cruz's representatives. Deixa Falar was disqualified for the use of a flute and tie by Benedito Lacerda, then representative of the Estácio group. This veto on wind instruments became the rule from then on – including for the first parade between them, organized in 1932 by journalist
Mario Filho and sponsored by the daily Mundo Sportivo -, because it differentiated schools from carnival ranchos with the appreciation of batucadas, which would definitely mark the aesthetic bases of samba from then on.
Estácio's batucado and syncopated samba represented an aesthetic break with Cidade Nova's maxixe-style samba. In turn, the first generation of samba did not accept the innovations created by the samba musicians of the hill, seen as a misrepresentation of the genre or even designated as "
march". For musicians such as Donga and Sinhô, samba was synonymous with maxixe – a kind of the last Brazilian stage of
European polka. For the samba musicians from the hills of Rio, samba was the last Brazilian stage of Angolan drumming that they proposed to teach to Brazilian society through samba schools. This generational conflict, however, did not last for long, and Estácio's samba established itself as the rhythm par excellence of Rio's urban samba during the 1930s.
Between 1931 and 1940 samba was the most recorded genre music in Brazil, with almost 1/3 of the total repertoire – 2,176 sambas songs in a universe of 6,706 compositions. Sambas and
marchinhas together made up the percentages just over half of the repertoire recorded in that period. Thanks to the new electric recording technology, it was possible to capture the percussive instruments present in samba schools. The samba "Na Pavuna", performed by Bando de Tangarás, was the first recorded in studio with the percussion that would characterize the genre from there: tamborim, surdo, pandeiro, ganzá, cuíca, among others. Although there was the presence of these percussive instruments, the samba recordings in the studio were characterized by the predominance of musical arrangements of orchestrated tone with
brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...
and
string instrument
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the ...
s. This orchestral pattern was mainly printed by European arrangers, among them Simon Bountman, Romeu Ghipsmanm, Isaac Kolman and Arnold Gluckman, conductors whose erudite formation ended up giving a European
symphonic sound in the counter-metric rhythm and batucada of the samba from Estacio.
Another reason for the success of the new samba in the music industry was the introduction of the "second part", which stimulated the establishment of partnerships between the composers. For example, one composer created the chorus of a samba and another composer conceived the second part, as occurred in the partnership between Ismael Silva and
Noel Rosa
Noel de Medeiros Rosa (December 11, 1910 – May 4, 1937) was a Brazilian songwriter, singer, and guitar/ mandolin player. One of the greatest names in Brazilian popular music, Noel gave a new twist to samba, combining its Afro-Brazilian roots ...
in "Para Me Livrar do Mal". With the growing demand for new sambas by the singers, the practice of buying and selling compositions has also become common. This transaction usually took place in two different ways: the author negotiated only the sale of the samba recording – that is, he remained as the author of the composition, but he would not receive any part of the gains obtained from the sales of the records, which were divided between the buyer and the record label – or the entire composition – that is, the real author completely lost the rights to his samba, including authorship. In some cases, the sambista sold the partnership to the buyer and also received a portion of the profits from the sales of the records. Selling a samba meant the composer had a chance to see his production publicized – especially when he did not yet enjoy the same prestige acquired by the first generation samba composers – and also a way to make up for his own financial difficulties. For the buyer, it was the possibility to renew his repertoire, record more records and earn sales, and further consolidate his artistic career. Artists with good contact with record labels, the popular singers
Francisco Alves and
Mário Reis were adepts of this practicea, having acquired sambas from composers such as
Cartola
Angenor de Oliveira, known as Cartola (Portuguese for top hat), (; October 11, 1908 – November 30, 1980) was a Brazilian singer, composer and poet considered to be a major figure in the development of samba.
Cartola composed, alone or with pa ...
and Ismael Silva.
Radio era and popularization of samba
![Carmen_Miranda_(1944)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Carmen_Miranda_%281944%29.jpg)
The 1930s in Brazilian music marked the rise of Estácio's samba as a musical genre to the detriment of maxixe-style samba. If the samba schools were crucial to delimit, publicize and legitimize the new Estaciano samba as the authentic expression of the Rio's urban samba, the radio also played a decisive role in popularizing it nationwide.
Although broadcasting in Brazil was officially inaugurated in 1922, it was still an incipient and technical, experimental and restricted telecommunication medium. In the 1920s, Rio de Janeiro was home to only two short-range
radio stations whose programming was basically limited to broadcast educational content or classical music. This panorama changed radically in the 1930s, with the political rise of
Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 14th and 17th president of Brazil, from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954. Due to his long and controversial tenure as Brazi ...
, who identified the media as a tool of public interest for economic, educational, cultural or political purposes, as well as for the national integration of the country.
A 1932 Vargas decree regulating radio advertising was crucial to the commercial, professional and popular transformation of Brazilian broadcasting. With the authorization that ads could occupy 20% (and then 25%) of the programming, the radio became more attractive and safe for advertisers and – added to the increase in sales of
radio sets in the period – transformed this telecommunication medium of its function once educational for an entertainment powerhouse. With the contribution of financial resources from advertising, the broadcasters began to invest in musical programming, turning the radio into the great popularizer of popular music in the Brazil – whether
phonograph record
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts nea ...
or
live recordings directly from the stations' auditoriums and studios. With samba as a great attraction, the radio gave space to the genre with the "sambas de carnaval", released for the carnival celebrations, and the "sambas de meio de ano" ("mid-year sambas"), launched throughout the year.
This expansion of radio as a medium of
mass communication
Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large segments of the population. It is usually understood for relating to various forms of media, as its technologies are used for the dissemination o ...
enabled the formation of professional technicians linked to sound activities, as well as for singers, arrangers and composers. From this scenario, broadcasters Ademar Casé (in Rio) and César Ladeira (in São Paulo) stood out as pioneers in the establishment of exclusive contracts with singers for presentation in live programs. That is, instead of receiving only one fee per presentation, the monthly remuneration was fixed to pay the artists, a model that triggered a fierce dispute between radio stations to form its professional and exclusive casts with popular stars of
Brazilian music and also
philharmonic orchestras. The most important samba singers, such as
Carmen Miranda, started signing advantageous contracts to work exclusively with a certain radio station. The institution of auditorium programs created the need to set up big radio orchestras, conducted by arranging conductors, which gave a more sophisticated look to Brazilian popular music. One of the most notorious orchestral formations on the radio was the Orquestra Brasileira – under the command of conductor
Radamés Gnatalli and with a team of musicians such as the sambistas João da Baiana, Bide and
Heitor dos Prazeres
Heitor dos Prazeres (23 September 1898 — Rio de Janeiro, 4 October 1966) was a Brazilian composer, singer and painter. He was a pioneer samba composer and participated in the first samba schools in Brazil. Later in life he became known by his pai ...
in percussion -, which combined standards of the international song at that time with popular instruments in Brazilian music, such as the cavaquinho. The Orquestra Brasileira was notable for the success of the program ''Um milhão de melodias (One million melodies''), by
Rádio Nacional
Rádio Nacional (''National Radio'') is a Brazilian radio network belonging to the government-owned corporation EBC (''Empresa Brasil de Comunicação'', Brazil Communication Company), formerly known as ''Radiobrás''.
History
The Brazilian s ...
, one of the most popular in the history of Brazilian radio.
In this golden age of radio broadcasting in Brazil, a new generation of composers from the middle class emerged, such as
Ary Barroso,
Ataulfo Alves,
Braguinha,
Lamartine Babo
Lamartine Babo (10 January 1904 — 16 June 1963) was one of the most important popular composers of Brazil. Babo composed several of satirical sambas, ''marchinhas'' and other songs; he is especially remembered for composing anthems for all the ...
and
Noel Rosa
Noel de Medeiros Rosa (December 11, 1910 – May 4, 1937) was a Brazilian songwriter, singer, and guitar/ mandolin player. One of the greatest names in Brazilian popular music, Noel gave a new twist to samba, combining its Afro-Brazilian roots ...
, who have built successful careers in this media. Grown up in the
Vila Isabel middle-class neighborhood, Noel Rosa was instrumental in destigmatizing the samba do Estácio. Although he started his musical trajectory by composing Northeastern emboladas and similar Brazilian rural music genres, the composer changed his style by having contact with the samba made and sung by the sambistas from Estácio and others hills of Rio. This meeting resulted in friendships and partnerships between Noel and names as
Ismael Silva Ismael Silva may refer to:
* Ismael Silva (musician) (1905-1978), Brazilian samba musician
* Ismael Silva (footballer) (born 1994), Brazilian footballer
{{hndis, Silva, Ismael ...
and
Cartola
Angenor de Oliveira, known as Cartola (Portuguese for top hat), (; October 11, 1908 – November 30, 1980) was a Brazilian singer, composer and poet considered to be a major figure in the development of samba.
Cartola composed, alone or with pa ...
. Among singers, in addition to Noel himself, a new generation of performers broke out, such as
Jonjoca,
Castro Barbosa
Castro Barbosa (1905-1975) was a Brazilian actor and singer. His song, ''O Teu Cabelo Nao Nega, Mulata!'', became a hit in Brazil in 1932.
References
External links
*
1905 births
1975 deaths
20th-century Brazilian male singers
20th-cent ...
,
Luís Barbosa,
Cyro Monteiro,
Dilermando Pinheiro,
Aracy de Almeida
Aracy de Almeida (August 19, 1914 – June 20, 1988) was a Brazilian singer, known as a famous artist of the Golden Age of Brazilian radio.AllMusic/ref> Her 1950 album ''Noel Rosa'' was voted by Rolling Stone one of the greatest Bra ...
,
Marília Batista
Marília () is a Brazilian municipality in the midwestern region of the state of São Paulo. Its distance from the state capital São Paulo is by highway, by railway and in a straight line. It is located at an altitude of 675 meters. The popula ...
. Another highlight was the singer Carmen Miranda, the greatest star of Brazilian popular music at that time and the first artist to promote samba internationally. Renowned in Brazil, Carmen continued her successful artistic career in the United States, where she worked in musicals in New York City and, later, in
Hollywood cinema
The cinema of the United States, consisting mainly of major film studios (also known as Hollywood) along with some independent film, has had a large effect on the global film industry since the early 20th century. The dominant style of Amer ...
. Her popularity was such that she even performed at the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
for President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
.
The consolidation of samba as the flagship of the radio programming of Rio de Janeiro was characterized by the association of the musical genre with the image of white artists, who, even when proletarianized, were more palatable to the preference of the public, while the poor black sambistas remained normally on the sidelines of this process as a mere supplier of compositions for the white performers or as instrumentalists accompanying them. This strong presence of white singers and composers was also decisive for the acceptance and appreciation of samba by the economic and cultural elites of Brazil. From this, the middle class started to recognize the value of the rhythm invented by black Brazilians. The
Municipal Theater of Rio became the stage for elegant carnival balls attended by the high society. Having contact with the popular genre through samba and
choro
''Choro'' (, "cry" or "lament"), also popularly called ''chorinho'' ("little cry" or "little lament"), is an instrumental Brazilian popular music genre which originated in 19th century Rio de Janeiro. Despite its name, the music often has a ...
circles meetings, the renowned conductor
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos (March 5, 1887November 17, 1959) was a Brazilian composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the ...
promoted a musical meeting between the American maestro
Leopold Stokowski with the sambistas Cartola,
Zé da Zilda, Zé Espinguela,
Donga,
João da Baiana and others. The recording results were edited in the United States on several 78 rpm discs. Another privileged space for the white, rich elite in the Brazilian society was the
casino
A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertai ...
s, which peaked in Brazil during the 1930s and 1940s. In addition to working with
games of chance
A game of chance is in contrast with a game of skill. It is a game whose outcome is strongly influenced by some randomizing device. Common devices used include dice, spinning tops, playing cards, roulette wheels, or numbered balls drawn from ...
, these elegant amusement houses offered restaurant and bar services and were the stage for shows – among which samba also featured prominently. Thus, the casinos signed exclusive contracts with major artists, as was the case with Carmen Miranda as a big star at Cassino da Urca. In an unusual event for the universe of sambistas on the hill, composer Cartola performed for a month at the luxurious Casino Atlântico, in
Copacabana, in 1940.
The consolidation of samba among Brazilian elites was also influenced by the valorization of the ideology of
miscegenation in vogue with the construction of
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
under the
Getulio Vargas regime. From an image of a symbol of national backwardness, the
mestizo
(; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also r ...
became a representative of Brazilian singularities, and samba, with its mestizo origin, ended up linked to the construction of
national identity. Having acted decisively for the growth of radio in Brazil, the Vargas government perceived samba as a vital element in the construction of this idea of miscegenation. Samba's triumph over the airwaves allowed it to penetrate all sectors of Brazilian society.
[Gilman, B., "The Politics of Samba." Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 2001:2(2). http://journal.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2.2-Gilman.pdf Retrieved 26 April 2014.] Especially under the
Estado Novo, whose ideological cultural policy of reconceptualizing the popular and extolling everything that was considered an authentic national expression, samba was elevated to the position of major national symbol of the country and the official pace of the country. However, one of the concerns of the Vargas regime was to interfere in music production to promote samba as a means of "pedagogical" socialization, that is, by banning compositions that confront the regime's ethics. In this quest to "civilize" samba, political bodies such as the Department of Press and Propaganda (DIP, ''Departamento de Imprensa e Propaganda'') took action to order sambas that would exalt the work and censor lyrics that addressed bohemia and ''malandragem'', two of the most common themes in the tradition of the urban Carioca samba. Musical contests were also instituted through which public opinion elected its favorite composers and performers.
Under Vargas, samba had an expressive weight in the construction of an image of Brazil abroad and was an important means of cultural and tourist dissemination of the country. In an attempt to reinforce a positive national image, the presence of renowned singers of the kind in presidential committees to Latin American countries has become frequent. At the end of 1937, the sambistas
Paulo da Portela and Heitor dos Prazeres participated in a caravan of Brazilian artists to
Montevideo
Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...
that performed at the Gran Exposición Feria Internacional del Uruguay. The Brazilian government also financed an information and popular music program called "Uma Hora do Brasil", produced and broadcast by Radio El Mundo, from
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
, which had at least one broadcast to
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. When the Vargas regime approached the United States, DIP made an agreement to broadcast Brazilian radio programs on hundreds of
CBS radio network. Under this context, the samba "
Aquarela do Brasil
"Aquarela do Brasil" (, 'Watercolor of Brazil'), written by Ary Barroso in 1939 and known in the English-speaking world simply as "Brazil", is one of the most famous Brazilian songs.
Background and composition
Ary Barroso wrote "Aquarela do Bras ...
" (by Ary Barroso) was released in the United States market, becoming the first Brazilian song that was very successful abroad and one of the most popular works of the Brazilian popular songbook. In the midst of the good neighborhood policy, the animator
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
visited Portela samba school during his visit to Brazil in 1941, from which he hypothesized that
Zé Carioca, a character created by the cartoonist to express the Brazilian way, would have been inspired by the figure of the sambista Paulo da Portela.
The rise of samba as a popular musical genre in Brazil also relied on its dissemination in
Brazilian cinema
Brazilian cinema was introduced early in the 20th century but took some time to consolidate itself as a popular form of entertainment. The film industry of Brazil has gone through periods of ups and downs, a reflection of its dependency on state ...
, especially in musical comedies, being an integral part of the soundtrack, the plot or even the main theme of the cinematographic work. The good public acceptance of the short film "A Voz do Carnaval" (by
Adhemar Gonzaga) paved the way for several other cinematographic works related to rhythm, many of which had a strong presence of radio idol singers in the cast, such as "Alô, Alô, Brasil! ", which had sisters Carmen and
Aurora Miranda, Francisco Alves, Mário Reis,
Dircinha Batista,
Bando da Lua
Bando da Lua was a Brazilian band that made recordings from 1933-1954, notable for being Carmen Miranda's band. It was formed by Aloísio de Oliveira, and included Helio Pereira Jordan (guitar), Osvaldo Moraes Eboli, (pandeiro), Ivo Astolfi, (te ...
, Almirante, Lamartine Babo, among others. The advent of the popular chanchada films made Brazilian cinema one of the biggest promoters of carnival music. In one of the rare moments when sambistas from the hill starred in radio programs, Paulo da Portela, Heitor dos Prazeres and Cartola led the program "A Voz do Morro", at Rádio Cruzeiro do Sul, in 1941. There, they presented unpublished sambas whose titles were given by listeners. However, over the course of the decade, the samba made by these genuine sambistas was losing space on Brazilian radio to new sub-genres that were being formed, while figures such as Cartola and Ismael Silva were ostracized until they left the music scene in the late 1940s.
New sub-genres of samba
![Ary_Barroso_1939](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Ary_Barroso_1939.jpg)
Thanks to its economic exploitation through the radio and the records, samba not only became professional, but also diversified into new sub-genres, many of which were different from the hues originating in the hills of Rio de Janeiro and established by the interests of the Brazilian music industry. The period of Brazilian music between 1929 and 1945 marked by the arrival of radio and electromagnetic recording of sound in the country and by the notability of major composers and singers, – the so-called "golden age" registered several styles of samba, some with greater and others with less solidity.
Publications devoted to the topic disseminated a broad conceptual terminology, including denominations later enshrined in new sub-genres – such as
samba-canção
Samba-canção () (literally 'samba song') is, in its most common acceptance or interpretation, the denomination for a kind of Brazilian popular songs with a slow-paced samba rhythm.
History
It appeared after the World War II, at the end of the ...
,
samba-choro
Samba-choro is a subgenre of samba that emerged in Rio de Janeiro in early 1930s in Brazil. It was a syncopated hybrid fusion of samba with the Brazilian instrumental genre choro, but with medium tempo and presence of lyrics.
Created by the Brazi ...
,
samba-enredo
Samba-enredo, also known as samba de enredo, is a sub-genre of modern samba made specifically by a samba school for the festivities of Brazilian Carnival. It is a samba style that consists of a lyric and a melody created from a summary of the the ...
,
samba-exaltação,
samba-de-terreiro,
samba de breque
Samba de breque is a subgenre of samba that emerged in Rio de Janeiro between the late 1930s and early 1940s.
The main characteristic of the subgenre is "breque", a Brazilian term for "brake". In other words, it is a samba with sudden stops, usual ...
-, as well as registered
scores and released labels and album covers printed various nomenclatures for samba in an attempt to express a functional, rhythmic or thematic trend – such as "samba à moda baiana" (samba in the Bahian style), "samba-batucada", "samba-jongo", "samba-maxixe" -, although some sounded quite inconsistent – such as "samba à moda agrião" (samba in the watercress style), "samba epistolar" (epistolary samba) and "samba fonético" (phonetic samba). In other cases, it was music critics that imputed pejorative labels with a view to disapproving certain aesthetic changes or fashion trends – as in the disparagingly called sambalada and sambolero for stylistic nuances the samba-canção.
Established in the radio era as one of the main sub-genres of samba, the
samba-canção
Samba-canção () (literally 'samba song') is, in its most common acceptance or interpretation, the denomination for a kind of Brazilian popular songs with a slow-paced samba rhythm.
History
It appeared after the World War II, at the end of the ...
style emerged among professional musicians who played in the
revues of Rio de Janeiro in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Although the term began to circulating in the press in 1929 to mistakenly designate "Jura", by Sinhô, and "Diz que me amas", by J. Machado, the starting point of the line was "Linda Flor (Ai, Ioiô)", a melody by Henrique Vogeler and lyrics by Luis Peixoto, released in the revue and on disc by singer
Aracy Cortes Zilda de Carvalho Espíndola (March 31, 1904 – January 8, 1985), professionally known as Aracy Cortes, was a Brazilian singer, dancer and actress.
In the 1920s and 1930s as one of the stars of musical revue at the Teatro Recreio in Rio de Ja ...
. In general, the samba-canção was characterized as a slower tempo variant, with a dominance of the melodic line over the rhythmic marking that basically explores the subjectivity of subjectivity and feeling. As their releases took place outside the carnival season, the trend was linked to the so-called "mid-year samba". However, during the 1930s, the term samba-canção was used arbitrarily to designate many compositions contained under the name of "samba de meio de ano" ("mid-year samba"), but which did not fit as samba-canção themselves. On the other hand, many sambas at the time of their releases would later be recognized as samba-canção, as in the case of works by
Noel Rosa
Noel de Medeiros Rosa (December 11, 1910 – May 4, 1937) was a Brazilian songwriter, singer, and guitar/ mandolin player. One of the greatest names in Brazilian popular music, Noel gave a new twist to samba, combining its Afro-Brazilian roots ...
and
Ary Barroso. Not by chance, Zuza Homem de Mello and Jairo Severiano consider that this samba style was truly inaugurated with the second version of the song "No rancho fundo", with melody by Ary Barroso and lyrics by
Lamartine Babo
Lamartine Babo (10 January 1904 — 16 June 1963) was one of the most important popular composers of Brazil. Babo composed several of satirical sambas, ''marchinhas'' and other songs; he is especially remembered for composing anthems for all the ...
.
Basically, Carnaval was reserved for the launch of
marchinhas and
sambas-enredo, a sub-genre typified in this way in the 1930s because of the lyrics and melody, which must comprise the poetic summary of the theme chosen by the samba school for its carnival parade. Samba-de-terreiro – or also samba de quadra – was a short-tempo samba modality, with the second most measured part that prepares the
bateria
The term ''bateria'' means “drum kit” in Portuguese and Spanish. In Brazil, the word is also used for a form of Brazilian samba band, the percussion band or rhythm section of a Samba School. It might also mean ''battery''.
''Baterias'' are ...
for a more lively return to the beginning. Its format was also consolidated in the 1930s.
Also from that time,
samba-choro
Samba-choro is a subgenre of samba that emerged in Rio de Janeiro in early 1930s in Brazil. It was a syncopated hybrid fusion of samba with the Brazilian instrumental genre choro, but with medium tempo and presence of lyrics.
Created by the Brazi ...
– at first called choro-canção or choro-cantado – was a syncopated hybrid sub-genre of samba with the instrumental music genre
choro
''Choro'' (, "cry" or "lament"), also popularly called ''chorinho'' ("little cry" or "little lament"), is an instrumental Brazilian popular music genre which originated in 19th century Rio de Janeiro. Despite its name, the music often has a ...
, but with medium tempo and presence of lyrics. Created by the Brazilian music industry, it was released, with all indications, with "Amor em excesso", by Gadé and Valfrido Silva, in 1932. One of the most popular sambas of this variant is "Carinhoso", by
Pixinguinha, released as choro in 1917, received lyrics and ended up relaunched two decades later, in the voice of Orlando Silva, with great commercial success. In the following decade,
Waldir Azevedo
Valdir Azevedo or Waldir Azevedo (January 23, 1923 in Rio de Janeiro – September 21, 1980 in São Paulo) was a choro composer, conductor and performer, considered to be the most successful musician of this genre.
Azevedo was born in Rio de J ...
would popularize chorinho, a kind of fast-moving instrumental samba.
Widespread during the Estado Novo, samba-exaltação was a sub-genre marked by the character of grandeur, expressed notably by the extensive melody, the lyrics with a patriotic-ufanist theme and by the lavish orchestral arrangement. Its great paradigm was "
Aquarela do Brasil
"Aquarela do Brasil" (, 'Watercolor of Brazil'), written by Ary Barroso in 1939 and known in the English-speaking world simply as "Brazil", is one of the most famous Brazilian songs.
Background and composition
Ary Barroso wrote "Aquarela do Bras ...
", by
Ary Barroso. From the huge success of the first version recorded by
Francisco Alves, in 1939, samba-exaltação started to be well cultivated by professional composers in the musical theater and in the music industry and radio media. Another well-known samba of this type was "Brasil Pandeiro", by Assis Valente, a huge hit with the vocal group Anjos do Inferno in 1941.
At the turn of the 1940s,
samba de breque
Samba de breque is a subgenre of samba that emerged in Rio de Janeiro between the late 1930s and early 1940s.
The main characteristic of the subgenre is "breque", a Brazilian term for "brake". In other words, it is a samba with sudden stops, usual ...
emerged, a sub-genre marked by a markedly syncopated rhythm and sudden stops called ''breques'' (from English word ''break'', Brazilian term for
car brakes), to which the singer added spoken comments, generally humorous in character, alluding to the theme. The singer
Moreira da Silva
Antônio Moreira da Silva (1 April 1902, in Rio de Janeiro – 6 June 2000, in Rio de Janeiro) was a very reputed Brazilian singer and songwriter of Samba, also known by his nickname ''Kid Morengueira''.
He was the older son of Bernardino de Sou ...
consolidated himself as the great name of this sub-genre.
Samba-canção hegemony and influences of foreign music
After the end of the
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and the consequent growth in the production of consumer goods, radio sets spread in the Brazilian market in different models and at affordable prices to the different social class of the Brazilian population. Within this context, Brazilian radio broadcasting also went through a moment of change in language and audience that made radio an even more popular media in Brazil. In search of easier communication with the listener, the programming standard became more sensational, melodramatic and appealing. One of the best expressions of this new format and the new popular audience was the auditorium programs and the "kings" and "radio queen" contests. Although they played a role in legitimizing samba as a cultural product and national symbol music and also transforming popular musical culture with the circulation of new musical genres and more extroverted performances, auditorium programs such as the paradigmatic "Programa César de Alencar" and "Programa Manoel Barcelos" – both on
Radio Nacional, leader in audience and main media of communication in Brazil – stimulated the cult of personality and the private life of artists, whose apex was the collective frenzy generated around the fan clubs of popular music stars during the concourses of kings and queens of the radio.
For the samba more linked to the traditions of Estácio and the hills, the 1950s was characterized by the vitalizing presence of old and new composers who led the renewal of the genre for the next years. This renewal was present in the sambas of well-known authors from the general public, such as Geraldo Pereira and
Wilson Batista
Wilson may refer to:
People
* Wilson (name)
** List of people with given name Wilson
** List of people with surname Wilson
* Wilson (footballer, 1927–1998), Brazilian manager and defender
* Wilson (footballer, born 1984), full name Wilson Ro ...
, of lesser-known sambistas but active in their communities, such as
Zé Kéti and
Nelson Cavaquinho – a composer who would establish a great partnership with
Guilherme de Brito
Guilherme de Brito Bollhorst (January 3, 1922 – April 28, 2006), known as Guilherme de Brito, was a Brazilian '' sambista'', singer, songwriter, and painter.
Biography
Guilherme de Brito Bollhorst was born in Vila Isabel, a traditional neighbor ...
– and also of new composers, such as
Monsueto
Monsueto Campos de Menezes (November 4, 1924 – March 17, 1973), better known as Monsueto, was a Brazilian sambista, singer, composer, drummer, painter, and actor. He was a part of the ''samba de morro'' (Portuguese for "hill samba") school, an ...
. The samba de breque by
Jorge Veiga
Jorge is a Spanish and Portuguese given name. It is derived from the Greek name Γεώργιος (''Georgios'') via Latin ''Georgius''; the former is derived from (''georgos''), meaning "farmer" or "earth-worker".
The Latin form ''Georgius'' ...
also stood out and, in
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
, the
Demônios da Garoa
Demônios da Garoa is a Brazilian samba band. It was formed in São Paulo in 1943, its members drawing influences from a variety of cultural sources to develop their own characteristic style. In 1949, they met Adoniran Barbosa, one of the most im ...
enshrined the sambas by
Adoniran Barbosa. Missing for many years, samba composer
Cartola
Angenor de Oliveira, known as Cartola (Portuguese for top hat), (; October 11, 1908 – November 30, 1980) was a Brazilian singer, composer and poet considered to be a major figure in the development of samba.
Cartola composed, alone or with pa ...
was found washing cars in
Ipanema by journalist
Sérgio Porto, who took him to sing on
Rádio Mayrink Veiga and got him a job at a newspaper. As part of the celebrations of the Fourth Centenary of the city of São Paulo, the composer Almirante organized the "Festival da Velha Guarda" ("Old Guard Festival"), which brought together great names of Brazilian popular music then forgotten, such as
Donga,
Ismael Silva Ismael Silva may refer to:
* Ismael Silva (musician) (1905-1978), Brazilian samba musician
* Ismael Silva (footballer) (born 1994), Brazilian footballer
{{hndis, Silva, Ismael ...
, and
Pixinguinha.
However, the period between the second half of the 1940s and the end of the 1950s – well known as
post-war
In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
– was deeply characterized by the prestige and dominance of samba-canção in the Brazilian music scene. Although in its time of appearance there were not so many releases characteristic of this aspect, many achieved huge commercial success and, in the mid-1940s, this sub-genre began to dominate Brazilian radio programming and be the most played style outside the carnival era. This rise of samba-canção as a hegemonic musical style was also accompanied mainly by the avalanche of foreign musical genres – imported to Brazil under the political-cultural context of World War II – that began to compete in the country's market with the samba-canção itself.
Tango and, especially,
bolero
Bolero is a genre of song which originated in eastern Cuba in the late 19th century as part of the trova tradition. Unrelated to the older Spanish dance of the same name, bolero is characterized by sophisticated lyrics dealing with love. It has ...
, which occupied a significant part of radio programming, proliferated in clubs and dance halls in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Music from the United States has also come to occupy a large part of the programming of Brazilian radio stations. With
big band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s an ...
s in evidence, some radio stations made great publicity about
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
, a genre that was gaining more and more appreciation among some musicians from Rio de Janeiro, especially those who worked in
nightclub
A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music.
Nightclubs gener ...
s. In a samba-canção rhythm, many boleros,
foxtrot
The foxtrot is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band (usually vocal) music. The dance is similar in its look to waltz, although the rhythm is in a tim ...
s and
French songs
A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic so ...
were also part of the repertoire of nightclub pianists.
Under the influence of the strong penetration of these imported genres, the post-war samba-canção itself was influenced by these rhythms. In certain cases, the change occurred through a musical treatment based on the
cool jazz tones and more restrained vocal performances, and more complex melodic-harmonic structures, distinct, therefore, from the rhythmic-bodily sensuality of traditional samba. In other cases, it was due to the strong passionate exercised by bolero and foreign
sentimental ballads. Both influences displeased the more traditionalist critics: in the first, they accused the samba-canção of having "jazzed up", especially for the sophisticated orchestra arrangements; in the second, the slower and more romantic progress of the slope led to pejorative labels such as "sambolero" or "sambalada". In fact, the orchestral accompaniments of the samba-canção at that time were marked by arrangements containing woodwinds and strings that replaced the traditional regional musical ensemble and made it possible to dramatize the arrangements in accordance with the theme of the songs and the expressiveness of the singers. If, for some critics, these orchestral and melodic-harmonic attributes of modern 1950s samba-canção came from post-war
American culture, for others this influence was much more Latin American than North American. Another aesthetic mark of the period was the vocal performance of the singers of this style of samba, sometimes more inclined to the lyrical power and expressiveness, sometimes more supported by an intonation and close to the colloquial dynamics.
With a new generation of performers that emerged in the post-war period, the Brazilian music scene was taken over by emotional and painful samba-canção songs in the 1950s. This sub-genre was divided between a more traditional and a more modern generation. If in the first group there were composers such as
Lupicínio Rodrigues Lupicínio Rodrigues (Porto Alegre, September 16, 1914 – Porto Alegre, August 27, 1974) was a Brazilian singer and composer from Rio Grande do Sul. He was a prominent exponent of the samba-canção genre. He dubbed his own style, ''dor-de-cotovelo ...
and
Herivelto Martins
Herivelto de Oliveira Martins (also Herivelto Martins) (Engenheiro Paulo de Frontin, Brazil, January 30, 1912 – Rio de Janeiro, September 17, 1992) was a Brazilian composer, singer, and music player.
Martins was the author of many classic Br ...
and interpreters such as
Nelson Gonçalves,
Dalva de Oliveira
Dalva de Oliveira or Vicentina de Paula Oliveira (May 5, 1917 – August 31, 1972) was a Brazilian singer and one of "divas" of the "Radio Era." Her greatest hits included ''Segredo'' (Secret) (1947), ''Tudo acabado'' (It's All Over) (1950), '' ...
,
Angela Maria,
Jamelão
José Bispo Clementino dos Santos (May 12, 1913 – June 14, 2008) was a Brazilian samba singer known as Jamelão (). He began in music as a tamborim player, but later became known as the official singer at samba school Mangueira's carnival p ...
,
Cauby Peixoto
Cauby Peixoto (10 February 1931 – 15 May 2016) was a Brazilian singer, whose career lasted from the late 1940s until his death in 2016. He is known for his deep voice and extravagant mannerisms and hairstyles. He had a brief career in the Un ...
and
Elizeth Cardoso, the second group had as main exponents
Dick Farney, Lúcio Alves,
Tito Madi
Chauki Maddi (18 July 1929 – 26 September 2018), better known by his stage name as Tito Madi, was a Brazilian singer and composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western class ...
,
Nora Ney
Nora Ney (b. Iracema de Sousa Ferreira, Rio de Janeiro, March 20, 1922 - Rio de Janeiro, October 2003) was a Brazilian singer. She is also the most notable interpreter of the samba-canção music style and a pioneer of the Brazilian rock.
She f ...
,
Dolores Duran
Dolores Duran (''Adiléia Silva da Rocha''; 7 June 1930 – 24 October 1959) was a Brazilian singer and songwriter.
Early life
Adiléia Silva da Rocha was born in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or si ...
,
Maysa and
Sylvia Telles
Silvia D'Atri Telles (; August 27, 1934 – December 17, 1966) was a Brazilian jazz samba and bossa nova singer of the 1950s and 1960s.
Life
Daughter of Paulo Telles and Maria Amelia D'Atri, Sylvia was born in 1934 and she had the ambition to be ...
, among others. The modern samba-canção was also part of a phase of
Dorival Caymmi's career and the beginning of the musical work of
Antonio Carlos Jobim, one of the great names of the new style of samba that would stylistically mark the genre and Brazilian music in the coming years.
Bossa nova, the new revolution in samba
The period between
Juscelino Kubitschek
Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (; 12 September 1902 – 22 August 1976), also known by his initials JK, was a prominent Brazilian politician who served as the 21st president of Brazil from 1956 to 1961. His term was marked by economic prosp ...
's inauguration in 1956, until the political crisis in the
João Goulart
João Belchior Marques Goulart (1 March 1919 – 6 December 1976), commonly known as Jango, was a Brazilian politician who served as the 24th president of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed him on 1 April 1964. He was considered the ...
government that culminated in the
1964 Brazilian coup d'état
The 1964 Brazilian coup d'état ( pt, Golpe de estado no Brasil em 1964), colloquially known in Brazil as the Coup of 64 ('), was a series of events in Brazil from March 31 to April 1 that led to the overthrow of President João Goulart by membe ...
, was characterized by great effervescence on the Brazilian music scene, especially in Rio de Janeiro. Although it lost its status as the country's capital after the inauguration of
Brasília
Brasília (; ) is the federal capital of Brazil and seat of government of the Federal District. The city is located at the top of the Brazilian highlands in the country's Central-West region. It was founded by President Juscelino Kubitsche ...
, the city maintained its position as a major cultural hub in the country and urban samba, whose transformations on the radio, the music industry, nightclubs and among the circles of university middle class youth resulted in
bossa nova
Bossa nova () is a style of samba developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is mainly characterized by a "different beat" that altered the harmonies with the introduction of unconventional chords and an innovativ ...
– a term by which a new style of rhythmic accompaniment and interpretation of samba spread from the
South Zone of Rio de Janeiro became known.
At a time when the appeal to the traditional was gaining new momentum, bossa nova would mark the entire structure of creation and listening supported by established genres, considering that it sought a renewal within the tradition of samba. Initially called "modern samba" by the Brazilian music critic, this new sub-genre was officially inaugurated with the composition "
Chega de Saudade
"Chega de Saudade" (), also known as "No More Blues", is a bossa nova jazz standard. It is often considered to be the first bossa nova song to be recorded. Like "The Girl from Ipanema", the music for "Chega de Saudade" was composed by Antônio Carl ...
", by
Antonio Carlos Jobim and
Vinicius de Moraes
Marcus Vinícius da Cruz e Mello Moraes (19 October 1913 – 9 July 1980), better known as Vinícius de Moraes () and nicknamed O Poetinha ("The little poet"), was a Brazilian poet, diplomat, lyricist, essayist, musician, singer, and playwright ...
, released in 1958 in two versions: one sung by
Elizeth Cardoso and the other with the singer, songwriter, and guitarist
João Gilberto. A Bahian-born living in Rio, Gilberto radically changed the way of interpreting samba until then, changing the harmonies with the introduction of unconventional
guitar chords and revolutionizing the classic syncope of the genre with a unique rhythmic division. These formal Gilbertian experiences were consolidated in the studio album
Chega de Saudade
"Chega de Saudade" (), also known as "No More Blues", is a bossa nova jazz standard. It is often considered to be the first bossa nova song to be recorded. Like "The Girl from Ipanema", the music for "Chega de Saudade" was composed by Antônio Carl ...
, released in 1959, and triggered the emergence of an artistic movement around Gilberto and others professional artists such as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes,
Baden Powell Baden-Powell () is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Baden-Powell
* The Rev. Prof. Baden Powell (mathematician) (1796–1860), mathematician, clergyman and liberal theologian.
By his first marriage father of:
:* Baden Henry Powell ...
,
Alaide Costa,
Sylvia Telles
Silvia D'Atri Telles (; August 27, 1934 – December 17, 1966) was a Brazilian jazz samba and bossa nova singer of the 1950s and 1960s.
Life
Daughter of Paulo Telles and Maria Amelia D'Atri, Sylvia was born in 1934 and she had the ambition to be ...
, among others, which attracted young amateur musicians from the South Zone of Rio – almost all from the middle class and with university degrees – such as
Carlos Lyra,
Roberto Menescal,
Ronaldo Boscoli
Ronaldo is a Portuguese given name equivalent to the English Ronald. It became a common name in all Portuguese-speaking countries, being also prevalent in Italy and Spanish-speaking countries. People
Notable people known as Ronaldo include:
As ...
and
Nara Leão.
Consolidated in the following years as a type of concert samba, non-dancing, and comparable to American
cool jazz, bossa nova has become a sambistic sub-genre of great reputation on the Brazilian music scene and, with its rhythm, more assimilable abroad than traditional samba, became known worldwide. After being released on the American market in a series of concerts in New York City in late 1962, Brazilian bossa nova albums
were reissued in several countries, while new songs and albums were recorded, including with foreign artists. Several of these works – with the samba "
The Girl from Ipanema", by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, at the frontline – became major international successes. However, in the midst of the turbulence that marked the Brazilian political scene at the time, the movement suffered a dissent, which resulted in the so-called "nationalist current". With the intention of carrying out a work more engaged and aligned with the social context of the period, the nationalist bossa-novistas formed around Nara Leão, Carlos Lyra,
Sérgio Ricardo,
Edu Lobo
Eduardo de Góes "Edu" Lobo (born August 29, 1943) is a Brazilian singer, guitarist, and composer.
In the 1960s he was part of the bossa nova movement.
His compositions include ''Upa Neguinho'' (with Gianfrancesco Guarnieri), ''Pra Dizer Ad ...
, and the partnership between Vinicius de Moraes and Baden Powell, the latter two signing a fertile partnership that resulted in the studio album "
Os Afro-sambas
''Os Afro-sambas'' is a 1966 studio album (that shoud not be confused with the album of the same name and different artwork recorded live) by Baden Powell and Vinícius de Moraes. The live album is ranked number 29 on Rolling Stone's list of 10 ...
", with positive international impact.
In addition to bossa nova, other new samba sub-genres emerged in this period between the late 1950s and early 1960s. The rise of nightclubs as the main nightlife venues in Rio disseminated variety shows with the participation of sambistas and samba dancers, mainly performed by
instrumental musical ensemble with keyboard, electric guitar,
acoustic bass guitar, drums and percussion, and performed by crooners. A trend in the 1960s live music in Brazil, this format of "samba to dance" resulted in styles such as the sambalanço – a very lively and dancing type of samba, from which musicians such as
Ed Lincoln and performers such as
Silvio Cesar,
Pedrinho Rodrigues,
Orlandivo,
Miltinho
Milton Santos de Almeida (January 31, 1928 – September 7, 2014), known professionally as Miltinho (Miltiño in Spanish), was a Brazilian singer of samba and bossa nova music.
Early years
Milton Santos de Almeida was born in Niteroi, Brazi ...
and
Elza Soares stood out. In this same environment,
samba-jazz
Samba-jazz or jazz samba is an instrumental subgenre of samba that emerged in the bossa nova ambit in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Brazil.
The style consolidated the approach of Brazilian samba with American jazz, especially bebop and hard b ...
also emerged, consolidated with the success of bossa nova that brought samba and
bebop closer together, initially based on the piano-bass-drums musical emsemble and later broader formations. Also under this context, the composer
Jorge Ben
Jorge Duílio Lima Menezes (born March 22, 1939) is a Brazilian popular musician, performing under the stage name Jorge Ben Jor since the 1980s, though commonly known by his former stage name Jorge Ben (). His characteristic style fuses samba, ...
emerged with his peculiar and hybrid way of playing samba, mixing elements of bossa nova and American
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
and
rock'n'roll that would even take samba songs such as "
Mas que Nada" and "Chove Chuva", released by
Sérgio Mendes & Brazil '66, to the
Billboard charts
The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in '' Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the ''Billboard'' charts, p ...
. And at the end of the 1960s, samba-funk emerged, led by pianist
Dom Salvador Dom Salvador, (born 1938 in Rio Claro) stage name of Salvador da Silva Filho, is a Brazilian jazz/ MPB pianist most notable for his Rio 65 Trio that featured the Brazilian jazz drummer Edison Machado and bassist Sergio Barrozo. He also did tours ...
, which mixed the
two beats to the bar of samba and the four beats to the bar of American
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
that had just arrived in the Brazilian music market at that time.
The period was also characterized by the profusion of some
partner dance
Partner dances are dances whose basic choreography involves coordinated dancing of two partners, as opposed to individuals dancing alone or individually in a non-coordinated manner, and as opposed to groups of people dancing simultaneously in a ...
samba styles. These were the cases of
Samba de Gafieira, a dance style developed in the
ballroom dance
Ballroom dance is a set of partner dances, which are enjoyed both socially and competitively around the world, mostly because of its performance and entertainment aspects. Ballroom dancing is also widely enjoyed on stage, film, and television. ...
of suburban clubs in Rio de Janeiro frequented by people with low purchasing power throughout the 1940s and 1950s and which also became a fad among upper-middle-class people in the 1960s, and the
samba rock, a dance style born in the São Paulo suburban parties in the 1960s, mixing steps from samba, rock and
Caribbean rhythms such as
rumba and
salsa
Salsa most often refers to:
* Salsa (Mexican cuisine), a variety of sauces used as condiments
* Salsa music, a popular style of Latin American music
* Salsa (dance), a Latin dance associated with Salsa music
Salsa or SALSA may also refer to:
A ...
. The "bailes blacks" ("black balls") experienced their peak notably in Rio and São Paulo in the 1970s, a time of great diffusion of the
American black music in Brazil, which were frequently disseminated at these "bailes blacks". This also generated a new debate among the Brazilian music critic about the foreign influence on Brazilian music and also on samba itself.
Traditional samba as "resistance music"
In 1962, the "Carta do samba" ("The samba letter") was made public, a document written by the writer Édison Carneiro that expressed the need to preserve traditional features of samba, such as the
syncopa, without, however, "denying or taking away spontaneity and prospects for progress". This letter came to meet a series of circumstances that made traditional urban samba not only revalued in different Brazilian cultural circles, but also started to be considered by them as a kind of "counter-hegemonic" and "resistance music" in the Brazilian music scene. In a decade characterized in the Brazilian music industry by the domination of international rock music and its Brazilian variant,
Jovem Guarda
Jovem GuardaJovem Guarda translates literally as "young guard". It could be interpreted as "vanguard". was primarily a Brazilian musical television show first aired by Rede Record in 1965, although the term soon expanded to designate the entire ...
, the traditional samba would have started to be seen as an expression of the greatest authenticity and purity of the genre, which led to the creation of terms such as "samba autêntico" ("authentic samba"), "samba de morro" ("samba of the hill"), "samba de raiz" ("roots samba"), or "samba de verdade" ("real samba").
One of the major expressions of this "resistance samba" in the first half of the 1960s was Zicartola, a bar opened by sambista
Cartola
Angenor de Oliveira, known as Cartola (Portuguese for top hat), (; October 11, 1908 – November 30, 1980) was a Brazilian singer, composer and poet considered to be a major figure in the development of samba.
Cartola composed, alone or with pa ...
and his wife Dona Zica in 1963. which transformed in a short time at a famous meeting point of veteran sambistas, attracted the attendance of many left-wing intellectuals and students, and became famous for its samba nights that, in addition to revealing new talents, such as
Paulinho da Viola, revived the careers of former composers then ostracized from the music industry. In February 1964, the year of the
Brazilian military coup d'état, it was released the
Nara Leão's debut album, which included sambas by traditional samba composers such as Cartola,
Elton Medeiros Elton may refer to:
Places
England
* Elton, Cambridgeshire (formerly Huntingdonshire), a village
** Elton Hall, a baronial hall
* Elton, Cheshire, a village and civil parish
* Elton, County Durham, a village and civil parish
* Elton, Derbyshire, ...
,
Nelson Cavaquinho and
Zê Kéti, as well as samba songs from the bossa nova nationalist branch. And at the end of that year, Nara Leão met with Zé Kéti and João do Vale for the musical Show Opinião, which became a reference as an artistic manifestation in protest to the authoritarian regime established.
The following year, the composer Hermínio Bello de Carvalho produced Rosa de Ouro, a musical that launched the sixty-year-old
Clementina de Jesus
Clementina de Jesus (February 7, 1901 – July 19, 1987) was a Brazilian samba singer born in Valença, Brazil.
Biography
Born in Carambita, a district on the outskirts of Valença, to the general public. It was the birth of the professional artistic career of one of the most expressive voices in the samba history, characterized by a repertoire aimed at the African music matrixes, such as
jongo {{no footnotes, date=May 2016
Jongo, also known as ''caxambu'' or ''tabu'', is a dance and musical genre of black communities from southeast Brazil. It originated from the dances performed by slaves who worked at coffee plantations in the Paraíba ...
s,
curimbas,
lundus and sambas of the rural tradition. The music ensemble to accompany Clementina in this show was composed by Paulinho da Viola, Elton Medeiros,
Anescarzinho do Salgueiro,
Jair do Cavaquinho and
Nelson Sargento. Known at the time as "regional", these musical ensemble based on classical guitar, cavaquinho and pandeiro, and occasionally some wind instrument, were revalued and became associated with the idea of a more authentic and genuine samba. From then on, the idea of forming samba vocal-instrumental groups for professional presentations matured and, with the success obtained by groups such as
A Voz do Morro and
Os Cinco Crioulos, boosted the creation of other groups composed only by sambistas with direct or indirect ties with the samba schools in the following years, such as the groups
Originais do Samba, Nosso Samba, Brazil Ritmo 67, Os Batuqueiros, Exporta-samba, among others. Two other significant performances from this moment of aesthetic revaluation of traditional urban samba were "Telecoteco opus N ° 1", with Cyro Monteiro and Dilermando Pinheiro, which was shown at Teatro Opinião, and "O samba pede passagem", which brought together veterans
Ismael Silva Ismael Silva may refer to:
* Ismael Silva (musician) (1905-1978), Brazilian samba musician
* Ismael Silva (footballer) (born 1994), Brazilian footballer
{{hndis, Silva, Ismael ...
and
Aracy de Almeida
Aracy de Almeida (August 19, 1914 – June 20, 1988) was a Brazilian singer, known as a famous artist of the Golden Age of Brazilian radio.AllMusic/ref> Her 1950 album ''Noel Rosa'' was voted by Rolling Stone one of the greatest Bra ...
with the young artists
Baden Powell Baden-Powell () is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Baden-Powell
* The Rev. Prof. Baden Powell (mathematician) (1796–1860), mathematician, clergyman and liberal theologian.
By his first marriage father of:
:* Baden Henry Powell ...
,
Sidney Miller and
MPB4
MPB4 (Short for ''Música popular brasileira 4'') is a vocal and instrumental Brazilian group formed in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, in 1965, and has been active since. The group's main genres are sung samba and MPB, and they are considered among the ...
, among others.
In this context of the effervescence of the samba resistance movements, the radio show "Adelzon Alves, o amigo da madrugada" ("Adelzon Alves, the friend of the dawn") has appeared. Presented by radio broadcaster Adelzon Alves on
Rádio Globo in Rio de Janeiro, the radio program dedicated a repertoire exclusively dedicated to the samba – in a scenario in which radio before the supremacy of television as a major means of communication in Brazil had become a disseminator of music recorded on disc. Faced with the hegemony of Anglo-American rock and Jovem Guarda, especially due to the influence of record labels on commercial broadcasters in the country, Adelzon Alves' radio show became the main spokesman for samba and sambistas from Rio de Janeiro on the media and a major propagator of terms, which reverberate until today, referring to the legacy of the universe of "samba do morro" as national music "of resistance" and "root".
In addition to the strength of Jovem Guarda, a movement catapulted by the eponymous program shown by
TV Record, Brazilian music at that time experienced the emergence of a new generation of post-bossa-nova artists who, reknowed in the scope of the "Brazilian song festivals" era, became the embryo of the so-called
MPB. One of those most notable names was the composer
Chico Buarque, author of sambas such as "Apesar de Você", which became classics of the genre. Against the ideological disputes between the acoustic guitar (an instrument traditional in Brazilian music genres and synonymous with national music) and electric guitars (seen as an "Americanized" instrument in Brazilian music) that characterized these Brazilian song festivals, the beginning sambista
Martinho da Vila
Martinho da Vila (born February 12, 1938) is a Brazilian singer and composer who is considered to be one of the main representatives of samba and MPB. He is a prolific songwriter, with hundreds of recorded songs across over 40 solo albums. He a ...
entered "Menina moça", a stylized
samba de partido-alto, in the third Festival of Brazilian Popular Music in 1967. Although its early eliminated in this contest, this samba projected Martinho's name on the music scene of that time, whose subsequent successes paved the way for the affirmation in the music industry of this type of samba characterized by strong chorus and, normally, three solo parts.
As the aesthetic orientation towards young music of that time, these "song festivals" practically ignored the samba, which generated criticism from sambistas such as Elton Medeiros, who claimed the inclusion of the "truly Brazilian music" in these musical contests. Against this trend, the first Bienal do Samba took place in 1968, a year also characterized by the release of Paulinho da Viola's first solo album and also of another studio album by this composer in a duet with Elton Medeiros. At the beginning of the following decade, Paulinho consolidated his prestige with the commercial success of the samba "Foi um rio que passou na minha vida" and also as a producer of the first studio album of the
Velha Guarda da Portela samba group.
Samba and the expansion of the Brazilian music industry
Between 1968 and 1979, Brazil experienced a huge growth in the production and consumption of cultural goods. During this period, there was a strong expansion of the music industry in the country, which consolidated itself as one of the largest world markets. Among the main factors for the expansion of the Brazilian market were: the consolidation of
MPB production stimulated by artists such as
Elis Regina,
Chico Buarque,
Caetano Veloso,
Gilberto Gil
Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira (; born 26 June 1942), is a Brazilian singer-songwriter and politician, known for both his musical innovation and political activism. From 2003 to 2008, he served as Brazil's Minister of Culture in the administration ...
,
Gal Costa,
Maria Bethania, and also in the segment of sentimental songs, drawn sales champion
Roberto Carlos; the establishment of
LP as a dominant medium format, where it was possible to insert several compositions on the same record, and also made the artist more important than his songs individually; the significant participation of foreign music in the Brazilian market, with the predominance of young music on the country charts, and the growth of the international repertoire on the soap opera soundtracks, mainly on
TV Globo.
Another important aspect in the phonographic sector of the period was technological, with a modernization of recording studios in Brazil that approached international technical standards, and the consolidation of foreign record labels in the country, such as
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
and the
WEA
The Wea were a Miami-Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as either being closely related to the Miami Tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami.
Today, the descendants of the ...
. This Brazilian entry in the scope of the global cultural industry also profoundly affected the samba universe, which became one of the mass phenomena of the national music market of that decade represented by the appearance, on the list of best selling records of the period, of studio albums by artists such as
Martinho da Vila
Martinho da Vila (born February 12, 1938) is a Brazilian singer and composer who is considered to be one of the main representatives of samba and MPB. He is a prolific songwriter, with hundreds of recorded songs across over 40 solo albums. He a ...
,
Originals of Samba,
Agepê
Antônio Gilson Porfírio (August 10, 1942 – August 30, 1995), better known as Agepê, was a Brazilian singer and composer. His nickname consists of the initials ''AGP'', of his name.
His discography is characterized by a romantic and sensua ...
,
Beth Carvalho,
Clara Nunes,
Alcione
Alcione may refer to:
* ''Alcione'', a 1638 literary work by Pierre du Ryer
* ''Alcione'', a 1787 musical drama by João de Sousa Carvalho
* '' CANT Z.1007 Alcione'', World War II Italian bomber aircraft
* ''Alcione'' (opera), a 1706 opera by ...
,
Jair Rodrigues
Jair Rodrigues de Oliveira (February 6, 1939 – May 8, 2014) was a Brazilian musician and singer. He is the father of Luciana Mello and Jair Oliveira, who also followed in his footsteps and became musicians.
Biography
Born in Igarapava, Rodri ...
and
Benito de Paula, among others, and of
sambas-enredo of Rio samba schools.
In the stronghold of traditional samba, the first LPs of veteran composers
Donga,
Cartola
Angenor de Oliveira, known as Cartola (Portuguese for top hat), (; October 11, 1908 – November 30, 1980) was a Brazilian singer, composer and poet considered to be a major figure in the development of samba.
Cartola composed, alone or with pa ...
and
Nelson Cavaquinho were released. Two other composers already established in this environment,
Candeia
Antônio Candeia Filho better known as Candeia (August 17, 1935 – November 16, 1978) was a Brazilian samba singer, songwriter, and musician.
Early life
Born in Rio de Janeiro to Antonia Candeio and Dona Maria, Antonio was a renowned flautist ...
and
Dona Ivone Lara
Yvonne Lara da Costa (April 13, 1921 – April 16, 2018), better known as Dona Ivone Lara, was a Brazilian singer and composer.
Biography
Dona Ivone Lara was born as Yvonne Lara da Costa in Rio de Janeiro. She graduated in nursing, with speci ...
also debuted with solo works in the phonographic market. The same happened in
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
with the releases of the first
Adoniran Barbosa and
Paulo Vanzolini studio albums. Revealed in the previous decade, the sambistas
Paulinho da Viola and Martinho da Vila consolidated themselves as two of the great names of success in the samba in the 1970s, which also saw the emergence of singers-songwriters
Roberto Ribeiro
Dermeval Miranda Maciel, best known as Roberto Ribeiro. (Campos dos Goytacazes, July 20, 1940 – January 8, 1996) was a Brazilian samba singer.
Life
Son of a gardener, he had already begun working at 9 years of age. By that time, he attended ...
and
João Nogueira
João Nogueira (November 12, 1941 – June 5, 2000) was a Brazilian singer and composer, famous for his samba compositions. He was born in Rio de Janeiro.
His first composition, "Espera ó Nega" was recorded in 1968, however it was in 1970 tha ...
. Among the singers of the new generation, the names of Clara Nunes, Beth Carvalho and Alcione emerged as the great female samba singers in the Brazilian music industry, whose good record sales – marked by the appreciation of songs by the composers of the Rio de Janeiro samba schools – contributed greatly for the popularity of samba. In addition to this triad of singers were also added
Leci Brandão, who was already a member of the composer wing of
Estação Primeira de Mangueira
Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Estação Primeira de Mangueira, or simply Mangueira, is a samba school in Rio de Janeiro (city), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The school was founded on April 28, 1928, by , Cartola, , among others.
It is located at t ...
, and
Cristina Buarque
Cristina is a female given name, and it is also a surname. Notable people with the name include:
Given name
*Cristina (daughter of Edward the Exile), 11th-century English princess
*Cristina (singer), Cristina Monet-Palaci (1956–2020), American s ...
(sister of Chico Buarque), with a rescue effort for samba and sambistas from samba schools. Among the new composers,
Paulo Cesar Pinheiro Paulo is a Portuguese, Spanish, Swiss, and Italian masculine given name equivalent to English Paul. Notable people with the name include:
*Paulo Jr.
*Paulo Jr. (footballer)
*Paulo Almeida, Brazilian footballer
*Paulo André Cren Benini (born 1983 ...
,
Nei Lopes
Nei Braz Lopes (born May 9, 1942 in Irajá, Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian singer, composer, lawyer, writer and historian, specializing in Afro-Brazilian studies.
Biography
Born in Irajá in Rio de Janeiro (a traditional samba neighborhood whic ...
,
Wilson Moreira
Wilson Moreira (12 December 1936 – 6 September 2018) was a Brazilian '' sambista''.
Biography
Moreira was born in the neighborhood of Realengo, in Rio de Janeiro. As a teenager he was associated with the samba school Mocidade, where he won tw ...
stood out, in addition to the duo
Aldir Blanc
Aldir Blanc Mendes (2 September 1946 – 4 May 2020) was a Brazilian author of ''crônicas'' (journalistic vignettes, chronicles) and lyricist. He co-composed many songs with singer-songwriter João Bosco, guitarist Guinga, and others.
Career ...
and
João Bosco.
Under this same context of the expansion of samba in the Brazilian phonographic market of the 1970s, the music industry invested in a less traditional and more sentimental line of samba, whose simplified rhythmic structure left percussion – the main feature of samba – a little sideways. Rejected as tacky and kitsch by both the most respected musicians in the country and by critics, this formula was stigmatized under the derogatory term of "sambão-joia". Despite this, this most romantic samba has become a great commercial success in the repertoire of singers such as
Luiz Ayrão,
Luiz Américo,
Gilson de Souza, Benito Di Paula and Agepê, as well as the duo
Antonio Carlos & Jocafi, authors of the world famous samba "Você abusou".
Another bet of the phonographic industry of the time was
partido-alto collective records, a traditional form of samba that is often sung in the terreiros (the samba school headquarters) in Rio de Janeiro and in the usual "pagodes" – festive gatherings, with music, food and drink – since the first decades of the 20th century. With remote African roots, this sub-genre is characterized by a highly percussive
pandeiro beat (using the palm of the hand in the center of the instrument for snapping), a greater tone harmony (usually played by a set of percussion instruments normally
surdo, pandeiro and
tamborim and accompanied by a
cavaquinho
The cavaquinho (pronounced in Portuguese) is a small Portuguese string instrument in the European guitar family, with four wires or gut strings.
More broadly, ''cavaquinho'' is the name of a four-stringed subdivision of the lute family of instr ...
and/or classical guitar) and the art of singing and creating improvised verses, almost always in the character of challenge or contest. This essence based on improvisation was taken to the record studios, where partido-alto became a style with more musicality and made with more concise verses and written solos, instead of improvised and spontaneous singing according to traditional canons. This stylized partido-alto was released on several collective LPs, released during the 1970s, whose titles included the subgenre's own name, such as "Bambas do Partido Alto", "A Fina Flor do Partido Alto" and "Isto Que É Partido Alto", which included samba composers such as Anézio, Aniceto, Candeia, Casquinha, Joãozinho da Pecadora, Luiz Grande and Wilson Moreira, although not all were versed in the art of improvisation. Another artist who stood out as a ''partideiro'' was
Bezerra da Silva
José Bezerra da Silva (February 23, 1927 in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil – January 17, 2005 in Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian samba musician of the partido alto style.
Biography
Bezerra da Silva played zabumba as a child and sang coco in Reci ...
, a singer who would be noteworthy in the following decade with sambas similar to the partido-alto and themed in the world and in the underworld of Rio's favelas.
The 1970s were also a time of major changes in Rio de Janeiro samba schools, and the music industry began to invest in the annual production of LPs of the
sambas de enredo presented at the carnival parades. In the early years, it was common to release up to two albums, the first containing the sambas-enredo of the parades and the second with sambas depicting the history of each samba school. Beginning in 1974, the annual release began to focus on a single LP for each first and second division of Rio carnival parades
Even during this period, "rodas de samba" ("samba circles") began to spread as a fever throughout Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian cities. Originally restricted to the backyards of sambistas' residences and the samba school headquarters, these informal meetings have taken on a new meaning in clubs, theaters, steakhouses, among others, with the promotion of "rodas de samba" with stage and microphones and the participation of sambistas linked to samba schools. Meanwhile, new "rodas de samba" were formed informally in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, the result of which would lead to the germ, in the late 1970s, of a new and successful sub-genre of modern samba in the 1980s.
Pagode, a new samba renewal
![Zeca_Pagodinho](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Zeca_Pagodinho.jpg)
Originally designated in the samba universe for the musical meetings of sambistas and, soon, also extending to the sambas sung in them, the term pagode became popular with the resignification of the "rodas de samba" in Rio de Janeiro, from the 1970s, with the "pagodes" or "pagodes de mesa" ("pagode circles"), where sambistas gathered around a large table, often located in a residential "backyard", in opposition to the fashionable samba circles made in clubs and the like. Some of the most famous pagodes in the city were the Pagode of Clube do Samba (made at
João Nogueira
João Nogueira (November 12, 1941 – June 5, 2000) was a Brazilian singer and composer, famous for his samba compositions. He was born in Rio de Janeiro.
His first composition, "Espera ó Nega" was recorded in 1968, however it was in 1970 tha ...
's residence in
Méier), Terreirão da Tia Doca (with the rehearsals of the Portela old guard sambists in
Oswaldo Cruz), of Pagode of Arlindinho (organized by
Arlindo Cruz em
Cascadura) and, mainly, the pagode of the carnival block
Cacique de Ramos
A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a Spa ...
, in the suburban area of Leopoldina.
In the 1980s, pagodes became a fever throughout Rio de Janeiro. And, far beyond simple places of entertainment, they became radiating centers of a new musical language that expressed itself with a new interpretive and totally renewed style of samba that was embedded in the tradition of the
partido-alto. Among the innovations of this new samba and marked by refinement in melodies and innovations in harmony and percussion with the accompaniment of instruments such as
tan-tan (in place of the
surdo), the
hand-repique and the
four-string banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
with
cavaquinho
The cavaquinho (pronounced in Portuguese) is a small Portuguese string instrument in the European guitar family, with four wires or gut strings.
More broadly, ''cavaquinho'' is the name of a four-stringed subdivision of the lute family of instr ...
tuning.
The debut of this kind of samba in the recording studios occurred in 1980 with
Fundo de Quintal
Grupo Fundo de Quintal or simply Fundo de Quintal (''Backyard Group'', roughly) is a Brazilian Samba band formed in Rio de Janeiro at the end of the 1970s.
History
The founding members of Fundo de Quintal, Almir Guineto (banjo/cavaco), Bira Presi ...
, musical group sponsored by
Beth Carvalho. In its first works, Fundo de Quintal gave visibility not only to this new samba, but also to composers such as
Almir Guineto
Almir de Souza Serra (12 July 1946 – 5 May 2017), better known by his stage name Almir Guineto, was a Brazilian sambista, singer and songwriter and instrumentalist, working in the genres of samba and pagode.
Biography
Guineto was director of t ...
,
Arlindo Cruz,
Jorge Aragão
Jorge Aragão (, (b. March 1, 1949 in Rio de Janeiro), birth name Jorge Aragão da Cruz) is a Brazilian musician, singer/songwriter, working in the genres of samba and pagode. He is a multi-instrumentalist, and plays the guitar, ''surdo'', ''cava ...
– all members of the group – and
Luiz Carlos da Vila Luiz is a Portuguese given name that is an alternative form of Luís. It's archaic in Portugal, but common in Brazil. Notable people referred to by this name include the following:
People
*Luiz Bonfá (1922-2001), Brazilian guitarist and composer
...
– this one linked to the Cacique de Ramos pagodes. On this way opened by Fundo de Quintal, in 1985 the collective studio album called "Raça Brasileira" was released, which revealed to the general public singers such as
Jovelina Pérola Negra
Jovelina Pérola Negra (July 21, 1944 – November 2, 1998), stage name of Jovelina Farias Belfort, was a Brazilian samba singer and songwriter. Known by her deep voice, she was a representative of the partido alto samba style, and considered an ...
and
Zeca Pagodinho. Especially prioritizing
partido-alto sambas, this LP, as well as the works since 1979 by Beth Carvalho, Almir Guineto and the group Fundo de Quintal, formed the new sub-genre that ended up being called
pagode
Pagode () is a Brazilian style of music that originated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as a subgenre of Samba. Pagode originally meant a celebration with food, music, dance, and party. In 1978, singer Beth Carvalho was introduced to this music, liked ...
by the Brazilian music industry.
The novelty of the pagode in the Brazilian music scene occurred at a time of major reorganization of the music industry in the country, whose investments in the first half of the 1980s had been concentrated mainly on
Brazilian rock and
children's music
Children's music or kids' music is music composed and performed for children. In European-influenced contexts this means music, usually songs, written specifically for a juvenile audience. The composers are usually adults. Children's music has hi ...
. Although some samba artists had some commercial success in the period, such as
Bezerra da Silva
José Bezerra da Silva (February 23, 1927 in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil – January 17, 2005 in Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian samba musician of the partido alto style.
Biography
Bezerra da Silva played zabumba as a child and sang coco in Reci ...
, Almir Guineto and
Agepê
Antônio Gilson Porfírio (August 10, 1942 – August 30, 1995), better known as Agepê, was a Brazilian singer and composer. His nickname consists of the initials ''AGP'', of his name.
His discography is characterized by a romantic and sensua ...
– who, in 1984, became the first samba singer to surpass the mark of 1 million copies sold on a single LP -, the moment was not promising for samba in the commercial scope. Very popular performers like
Beth Carvalho,
Clara Nunes,
João Nogueira
João Nogueira (November 12, 1941 – June 5, 2000) was a Brazilian singer and composer, famous for his samba compositions. He was born in Rio de Janeiro.
His first composition, "Espera ó Nega" was recorded in 1968, however it was in 1970 tha ...
and
Roberto Ribeiro
Dermeval Miranda Maciel, best known as Roberto Ribeiro. (Campos dos Goytacazes, July 20, 1940 – January 8, 1996) was a Brazilian samba singer.
Life
Son of a gardener, he had already begun working at 9 years of age. By that time, he attended ...
pulled the drop in sales of records of the genre. Disgusted by the little recognition and interest in promoting his work,
Paulinho da Viola left the
Warner Music
Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...
label in 1984 and only returned to having an album released at the end of that decade.
With the success of the LP "Raça Brasileira", the pagode phenomenon experienced a period of commercial growth in the Brazilian phonographic market. The main artists in this sub-genre reached the top of the success charts and became known nationally thanks to exposure in the mainstream media and the growing investments of record labels stimulated by huge sales since 1986, pulled by both the LPs of the already established Almir Guineto and Fundo de Quintal – the great paradigm of the subgenre – and for the debut works of Zeca Pagodinho, Marquinhos Satã and Jovelina Pérola Negra. Although there was a certain cooling of the interest of record labels and the media even during the second half of the 1980s, pagode established itself as an important subgenre of samba.
In the 1990s, a new generation of artists emerged who shared, to some extent, similar characteristics, such as the incorporation of musical elements traditionally uncommon in the traditional samba, and a repertoire devoted largely to romantic lyrics. Initially seen by the phonographic industry and by the media as a continuation of the pagode of the previous decade, this new wave was later characterized under the label of "pagode romântico" ("romantic pagode") – or also "pagode paulista", due to the large number of artists of this scene that emerged mainly from
São Paulo state
SAO or Sao may refer to:
Places
* Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD
* Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso
* Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S ...
, although there were also names from
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...
and
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
states.
This distinction was established precisely because the samba made by these new artists and musical groups – although it maintained some similarities with the standard enshrined in the Fundo de Quintal – did not have the samba musicians of the previous decade as a major musical reference nor did it keep traditional and informal aspects of matrixes of urban samba. For example, the studio recordings of a large part of these samba bands, such as
Raça Negra, gave up the use of instruments common to the 1980s pagode – such as hand-repique, tan-tan and banjo – in exchange for instrumentation characteristic of international pop music from that period, especially the saxophone and the
electronic keyboard
An electronic keyboard, portable keyboard, or digital keyboard is an electronic musical instrument, an electronic derivative of keyboard instruments. Electronic keyboards include synthesizers, digital pianos, stage pianos, electronic organs an ...
. The use of these pop music instruments was less or more common to each group, but their purpose was the same, that is, the use of
samplers and keyboards to reproduce the sound of various instruments. Despite these dilutions, the "romantic pagode" achieved great commercial success in the Brazilian phonographic market and in the mass media, highlighting samba groups such as
Art Popular
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of what ...
,
Negritude Jr,
Exaltasamba,
Katinguelê, Raça Negra,
Só Pra Contrariar
Só Pra Contrariar (translates to Just (only) to be contrary) is a Brazilian musical group formed in 1989. Their 1997 album ''Só Pra Contrariar'' is one of the best selling albums in Brazil, selling more than three million copies. The band is k ...
,
Soweto
Soweto () is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western Townships''. Formerly a s ...
, among others.
Samba in the 21st century
![26_Prêmio_da_Música_Brasileira_(18525382718)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/26_Pr%C3%AAmio_da_M%C3%BAsica_Brasileira_%2818525382718%29.jpg)
During the second half of the 1990s, the increase in the illegal sale of
cassette tape
The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...
s and, mainly, compact discs caused a deep crisis in the music industry in Brazil, which worsened, from the 2000s, with the possibility of digital download, often free of charge, of musical works via the internet. In this context, there was a sharp drop in the commercialization of official samba records and their sub-genres, especially
pagode
Pagode () is a Brazilian style of music that originated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as a subgenre of Samba. Pagode originally meant a celebration with food, music, dance, and party. In 1978, singer Beth Carvalho was introduced to this music, liked ...
. Samba groups of huge commercial success in the 1990s, such as
Raça Negra and
Só Pra Contrariar
Só Pra Contrariar (translates to Just (only) to be contrary) is a Brazilian musical group formed in 1989. Their 1997 album ''Só Pra Contrariar'' is one of the best selling albums in Brazil, selling more than three million copies. The band is k ...
, saw their sales drop substantially at the turn of the 21st century. In addition, in a space of a few decades, samba songs played in the media have declined, with the genre it is almost always represented by the sub-genre pagode in the Brazilian charts. Of the 100 most heard artists on Brazilian radio between 2010 and 2019 on the
Crowley Official Broadcast Chart, only 11 were from samba – and all from pagode. In another survey, carried out jointly between
Kantar Ibope Media and Crowley Broadcast Analysis, the pagode corresponded to only 9% of the radio audience in Brazil in 2019, too far from the dominant
sertanejo (Brazilian country music genre), whose slice represented about one third of the radio audience in the country.
Even so, the first two decades of the 21st century confirmed the pagode as the hegemonic reference of samba in the Brazilian music industry. In the first decade of this century, new artists emerged commercially, such as the samba bands
Revelação
''Revelação'' (English: ''Revelation'') is a Brazilian telenovela produced and aired on SBT between the 8th of December 2008 until the 9th of June, 2009 and was replaced by Vende-se um Véu de Noiva. It is an original story, created and writt ...
,
Sorriso Maroto
Sorriso Maroto is a Brazilian pagode band originating from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was formed in 1997 by singer and tambourine player Cris Oliveira, and later headed by singer-songwriter Bruno Cardoso. They have released ten albums.
Career
Th ...
and
Turma do Pagode, and some singers who left their original samba groups to launch a solo career, such as
Péricles (former
Exaltasamba),
Belo (former
Soweto
Soweto () is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western Townships''. Formerly a s ...
) and
Alexandre Pires
Alexandre Pires do Nascimento (born January 8, 1976) is a Brazilian singer-songwriter. Pires was previously the singer of group Só Pra Contrariar which he joined in the late 1980s.
Career
Pires began his career playing a new and more appellati ...
(former Só Pra Contrariar). In the following decade, it was the turn of Xande de Pilares and
Thiaguinho, former vocalists of Revelação and Exaltasamba respectively, and of singers
Mumuzinho,
Ferrugem and
Dilsinho
Dilson Scher Neto (born 26 June 1992), best known as Dilsinho, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter.
Biography
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Dilsinho started his professional career in 2009, as a member of the band Para de Kaô. In 2013, following the dis ...
. A characteristic common to all these artists was the significant amount of live album releases instead of traditional studio albums. This gained even more strength with the development of
streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...
, a platform for
digital music
Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, samp ...
that became popular in the 2010s.
Outside the hegemonic commercial scope of the subgenre pagode, the late 1990s was also a period of great visibility and notoriety for the most traditional samba in Rio de Janeiro. A new generation of musicians emerged in "rodas de samba" that spread through several neighborhoods in the city, especially in
Lapa, the central region of the city that started to concentrate several bars and restaurants with live music. For having identified with the bohemian neighborhood, this movement became known informally as "samba da Lapa". With a repertoire composed of classics sambas and without concessions to more modern sub-genres, this new circuit promoted the meeting between beginning and veteran musicians from several generations of sambistas, all identified with the traditional elements that make up the urban Carioca samba. Among some artists who acted in the scope of samba circles in this neighborhood, were
Teresa Cristina and Semente group,
Nilze Carvalho and Sururu na Roda group, Luciane Menezes and Dobrando a Esquina group, Eduardo Gallotti and Anjos da Lua group, among others, besides veterans such as Áurea Martins. And later, Edu Krieger and Moyseis Marques has appeared. Other new artists linked to the samba traditions, but without direct ties to the Lapa carioca movement, emerged such as
Dudu Nobre
João Eduardo de Salles Nobre, known as Dudu Nobre (Rio de Janeiro, RJ, November 6, 1974), is a Brazilian composer and singer.
Biography
He is the son of the engineer João Nobre and of Anita Nobre. His mother, Anita Nobre, controlled three pa ...
and
Diogo Nogueira
Diogo Nogueira (born Rio de Janeiro, 1981) is a singer and songwriter from Brazil. He is the son of composer João Nogueira and Ângela Maria Nogueira. He was a samba musician throughout childhood and adolescence, but became a football player.
A ...
, in addition to
Fabiana Cozza in São Paulo.
In the institutional field, the Brazilian
National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage declared in 2007 the modern Carioca samba and its matrixes samba de terreiro, partido-alto and samba-enredo as Intangible Cultural Heritage in Brazil.
Urban samba instruments
With basically rhythm and varied tempo, the urban samba is played by percussion instruments and accompanied by string instruments. In certain areas, other wind instruments were added.
Basic instruments
*
Tamborim (percussion)
*
Surdo (percussion)
*
Pandeiro (percussion)
*
Ganzá (percussion)
*
Cuíca
The cuíca () is a Brazilian friction drum with a large pitch range, produced by changing tension on the head of the drum. ''Cuíca'' is Portuguese for the gray four-eyed opossum (''Philander opossum'') which is known for its high-pitched cry. I ...
(percussion)
*
Cavaquinho
The cavaquinho (pronounced in Portuguese) is a small Portuguese string instrument in the European guitar family, with four wires or gut strings.
More broadly, ''cavaquinho'' is the name of a four-stringed subdivision of the lute family of instr ...
* Classical guitar
In some sub-genres
*
Agogô
An agogô (Yoruba: ''agogo'', meaning bell) is a single or a multiple
bell now used throughout the world but with origins in traditional Yoruba and Edo music and also in the samba '' baterias'' (percussion ensembles). The agogô may be the oldes ...
*
Atabaque
The atabaque (; ) is a tall, wooden, Afro-Brazilian hand drum. The shell is made traditionally of Jacaranda wood from Brazil. The head is traditionally made from calfskin. A system of ropes are intertwined around the body, connecting a metal rin ...
*
Bandolim
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of ...
*
Banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
*
Chocalho
*
Hand-repique
*
Tan-tan
* Brass instruments
** Trumpet
** Cornet
** Trombone
See also
*
Music of Brazil
*
Samba (Brazilian dance)
*
Latin Grammy Award for Best Samba/Pagode Album
*
List of Brazilian musicians#Samba
*
List of English words of Niger-Congo origin
This is a list of English language words that come from the Niger-Congo languages.
It excludes placenames except where they have become common words.
Bantu origin
*banjo – probably Bantu ''mbanza''
*basenji – breed of dog from the Congo
* ...
*
Samba (ballroom dance)
The international ballroom version of samba is a lively, rhythmical dance with elements from Brazilian samba. It differs considerably from the original samba styles of Brazil; in particular, it differs from Samba de Gafieira, a partner type o ...
*
Samba de Gafieira
*
Sambavas
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Further reading
* ''The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil.'' by McGowan, Chris and Pessanha, Ricardo. 2nd edition. Temple University Press. 1998.
* , documentary on the history of samba in Brazil with particular emphasis on
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
. The film is in
Portuguese with English subtitles and approaches the subject from an interesting perspective.
* ''Samba.'' by Alma Guillermoprieto. Jonathan Cape London 1990.
* ''Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil.'' by Peter Fryer. Pluto Press 2000.
* ''Making Samba: A New History of Race and Music in Brazil.'' by Marc A. Hertzman. Duke University Press 2013.
References
External links
Samba Pagode historySamba & Pagode Semba/history
{{Authority control
Samba
Brazilian styles of music
Lusophone music
Samba music genres