samba

Etymology and definition

There is no consensus among experts on the etymology of the term "samba". A traditionalist view that defends that the etymon comes from the Bantu 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 countryside of Pernambuco State as a disciplinary measure, as there they could be idle and entertained with "fishing of corrals [traps 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 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 enslaved people in Bahia were called samba. In Rio de Janeiro, the word only became known at the end of the 19th century, when it was linked to rural festivities, to the area of Black people and to the "north" of the country, that is, the Brazilian Northeast.

For many years of the Brazilian colonial and imperial history, the terms "batuque" or "samba" were used in any manifestation of African origins that brought together dances (mainly umbigada), songs and uses of Black people instruments. At the end of the 19th century, "samba" was present in the Portuguese language, designating different types of popular dances performed by African slaves (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, 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 song Em casa de baiana, registered as a "samba de partido-alto"; then in the following year, for the works A viola está magoada and Moleque vagabundo; finally, in 1916, for the famous song Pelo Telefone, released as "samba carnavalesco" ("carnival samba") and regarded as the founding landmark of modern Carioca samba.

Roots

Roots of tradition

During a folkloric research mission in the Northeast Region of 1938, the writer Mário de Andrade 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. 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 samba de coco, sambada (also called coco de roda), samba de matuto, samba de caboclo, and jongo.

One of the most important forms of dance in the constitution of Carioca samba choreography, the samba de roda, 'circle samba', practiced in Bahia's Recôncavo, was typically danced outdoors by a soloist, while other participants of the circle would take charge of the singing – alternating between solo and chorus parts – and of accompanying instrumental performance. The three basic dance-steps of Bahian circle samba were named corta-a-jaca, separa-o-visgo, and apanha-o-bago (literally and respectively, "cut-the-jackfruit", "separate-the-birdlime", and "pick-the-grape"), in addition to one intended to be danced by women only. 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 best-known variants were samba corrido and samba chulado.

In the São Paulo state, another primitive modality of known rural samba developed, practiced basically in cities along the Tietê River – from São Paulo city to the river's middle course – and traditionally divided into samba de bumbo, characterized by instrumental percussion with a bass drum, and batuque de umbigada, with tambu, quinjengue and guaiá for the instrumentation.

Essentially made up of two parts (choir and solo) usually performed on the fly, the partido alto was – and still is – the most traditional sung variant of rural samba in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Originating in Greater Rio de Janeiro, it is the combination, according to Lopes and Simas, of Bahian circle-samba, calango singing, and a kind of transition from rural samba to what would come to be urban 20th century Rio samba.

Criminalization

In its beginnings, samba was heavily criminalized by the Brazilian government. Born in the favelas, it was a distinctly Afro Brazilian musical genre that brought people together in community and celebration, which was not well-seen or -received by the Brazilian elite, who deemed it tasteless, immoral and inferior. Such attitude was grounded in racism and classism, besides religious intolerance: samba's incorporation of African drumming was commonly associated with Afro Brazilian religions, which have long been demonized and discriminated against in Brazil, especially so in the early 20th century, when samba was gaining traction.

Many early composers were thought to be leaders of cults of African origin, therefore samba faced policed persecution. Any samba gathering would be swiftly shut down, with musicians arrested and their instruments destroyed. As a result, samba had to go underground, relying on community members to assume the risk of persecution to have samba parties out of their homes. Ultimately, the genre became a hallmark of Brazilian culture and a highlight of Carnival, but it was not ever thus, as in its origins practicing samba was defiance against the government.

Roots of the Carioca Carnival

During colonial Brazil, many public Catholic events used to attract all social segments, including Black and enslaved people, who took the celebrations as opportunities to express themselves authentically, in their original, native way, with such cultural manifestations as the crowning revelry of the Congo Kings, and the Bantu revelry (called cucumbi) in Rio de Janeiro. Gradually were those once exclusively Black celebrations being disconnected from the Catholic roots and rites of Carnival, eventually morphing into the Brazilian Carnival. From the cucumbis emerged the samba school called cordões cariocas (lit. 'Carioca strings'), which celebrated Brazilianness, or the mixed heritage of the Brazilian people, e.g. by presenting Black people in indigenous dress. At the end of the 19th century, on the initiative of composer and samba pioneer Hilário Jovino, the samba ranch ranchos de reis, 'ranches of kings' (later known as ranchos de carnaval, 'Carnival ranches'), was created in the state of Pernambuco. One of the most important ranches in Rio's Carnival was Ameno Resedá. Created in 1907, the self-titled racho-escola ("ranch-school") became a model for Carnival performances-in-procession and for future samba schools to be founded in the hills and outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

The urban Carioca samba

Beginnings in a Bahian terreiro

A political and sociocultural epicenter of Brazil, based on slavery, 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 – 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. 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, 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, 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. Black women from Salvador and Bahia's Recôncavo, the "Tias Baianas" (literally, "Bahian Aunts") founded the first Candomblé terreiros, introduced the cowrie-shell divination 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'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, Manuel Bandeira, Mário de Andrade and Francisco Guimarães (popularly known as Vagalume). It was in this environment that Vagalume, then a columnist for Jornal do Brazil, 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 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". 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.

Samba do Estácio, the genesis of urban samba

Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, in the context of the First Brazilian Republic, 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 services (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 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 about the innovations introduced by him and his companions in the new urban samba in Rio:At that time, samba did not work for carnival groups to walk on the street as we see today. I started noticing that there was this thing. The samba was like this: tan tantan tan tantan. It was not possible. How would a bloc get out on the street like that? Then, we started making a samba like this: bum bum paticumbum pugurumdum.

Radio era and popularization of samba

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, 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 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 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 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, one of the most popular in the history of Brazilian radio.

New sub-genres of samba

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-choro, samba-enredo, samba-exaltação, samba-de-terreiro, samba de breque -, 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 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. 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 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.

Samba-canção hegemony and influences of foreign music

After the end of the World War II 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, of lesser-known sambistas but active in their communities, such as Zé Keti and Nelson Cavaquinho – a composer who would establish a great partnership with Guilherme de Brito – and also of new composers, such as Monsueto. The samba de breque by Jorge Veiga also stood out and, in São Paulo, the Demônios da Garoa enshrined the sambas by Adoniran Barbosa. Missing for many years, samba composer Cartola 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, and Pixinguinha.

However, the period between the second half of the 1940s and the end of the 1950s – well known as post-war – 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, 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 bands in evidence, some radio stations made great publicity about jazz, a genre that was gaining more and more appreciation among some musicians from Rio de Janeiro, especially those who worked in nightclubs. In a samba-canção rhythm, many boleros, foxtrots and French songs were also part of the repertoire of nightclub pianists.

Bossa nova, the new revolution in samba

The period between Juscelino Kubitschek's inauguration in 1956, until the political crisis in the João Goulart government that culminated in the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, 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, 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 – 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", by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, 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, 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, Alaíde Costa, Sylvia Telles, 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 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, 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", with positive international impact.

Traditional samba as "resistance music"

In 1962, the "Carta do samba" ("The samba letter") was made public, a document written by the writer Edison 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, 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 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, Nara Leão's debut album was released, which included sambas by traditional samba composers such as Cartola, Elton Medeiros, Nelson Cavaquinho and Zé Keti, as well as samba songs from the bossa nova nationalist branch. And at the end of that year, Nara Leão met with Zé Keti 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 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 jongos, 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 Os 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 and Aracy de Almeida with the young artists Baden Powell, Sidney Miller and MPB4, among others.

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, 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 and the WEA. 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, Originals of Samba, Agepê, Beth Carvalho, Clara Nunes, Alcione, Jair Rodrigues 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 and Nelson Cavaquinho were released. Two other composers already established in this environment, Candeia and Dona Ivone Lara also debuted with solo works in the phonographic market. The same happened in São Paulo 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 and João Nogueira. 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, and Cristina Buarque (sister of Chico Buarque), with a rescue effort for samba and sambistas from samba schools. Among the new composers, Paulo Cesar Pinheiro, Nei Lopes, Wilson Moreira stood out, in addition to the duo Aldir Blanc and João Bosco.

Pagode, a new samba renewal

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'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, 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 with cavaquinho tuning.

The debut of this kind of samba in the recording studios occurred in 1980 with Fundo de Quintal, 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, Arlindo Cruz, Jorge Aragão – all members of the group – and Luiz Carlos da Vila – 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 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 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. Although some samba artists had some commercial success in the period, such as Bezerra da Silva, Almir Guineto and Agepê – 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 and Roberto Ribeiro 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 label in 1984 and only returned to having an album released at the end of that decade.

Samba in the 21st century

During the second half of the 1990s, the increase in the illegal sale of cassette tapes 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. Samba groups of huge commercial success in the 1990s, such as Raça Negra and Só Pra Contrariar, 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 Grupo Revelação, Sorriso Maroto 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) and Alexandre Pires (formerly of 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. 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, a platform for digital music 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 and Diogo Nogueira, in addition to Fabiana Cozza in São Paulo.

Urban samba instruments

With basically 22 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.