Already in Hispanic America of the past, the terms samba and semba designated candombe in the Río de la Plata Basin, a popular dance with atabaques, while zamba, in Bolivia, was an old dance of the coronation parties of the black kings. It is believed that the first use of the word "samba" in the Brazilian press was in the Diário de Pernambuco in 1830.
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.
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.
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, Rio de Janeiro was strongly influenced by African culture.
This process of establishing itself as a musical genre began in the 1910s and it had its inaugural landmark in the song "Pelo Telefone", launched in 1917.
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".
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 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.
It was in this environment that Vagalume, then a columnist for Jornal do Brasil, witnessed the birth of "O Macaco É Outro" in October 1916.
This process of establishing itself as a musical genre began in the 1910s and it had its inaugural landmark in the song "Pelo Telefone", launched in 1917.
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.
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.
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.
Despite being identified by its creators, the public, and the Brazilian music industry 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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
Although the term began to circulating in the press in 1929 to mistakenly designate "Jura", by Sinhô, and "Diz que me amas", by J.
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.
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 and Ismael Silva. === 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.
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.
Another privileged space for the white, rich elite in the Brazilian society was the casinos, which peaked in Brazil during the 1930s and 1940s.
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.
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.
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. 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.
Its format was also consolidated in the 1930s. Also from that time, samba-choro – at first called choro-canção or choro-cantado – was a syncopated hybrid sub-genre of samba with the instrumental music genre choro, but with medium tempo and presence of lyrics.
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.
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.
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.
Created by the Brazilian music industry, it was released, with all indications, with "Amor em excesso", by Gadé and Valfrido Silva, in 1932.
At the end of 1937, the sambistas Paulo da Portela and Heitor dos Prazeres participated in a caravan of Brazilian artists to Montevideo that performed at the Gran Exposición Feria Internacional del Uruguay.
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 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.
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.
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.
Another privileged space for the white, rich elite in the Brazilian society was the casinos, which peaked in Brazil during the 1930s and 1940s.
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 under the Getulio Vargas regime.
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 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.
These were the cases of samba de gafieira, a dance style developed in the ballroom dance 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
These were the cases of samba de gafieira, a dance style developed in the ballroom dance 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.
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 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 and Elza Soares stood out.
And at the end of the 1960s, samba-funk emerged, led by pianist Dom Salvador, which mixed the two beats to the bar of samba and the four beats to the bar of American funk that had just arrived in the Brazilian music market at that time. The period was also characterized by the profusion of some partner dance samba styles.
These were the cases of samba de gafieira, a dance style developed in the ballroom dance 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.
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.
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".
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, Nelson Cavaquinho and Zê Kéti, as well as samba songs from the bossa nova nationalist branch.
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 entered "Menina moça", a stylized samba de partido-alto, in the third Festival of Brazilian Popular Music in 1967.
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.
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".
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 new composers, Paulo Cesar Pinheiro, Nei Lopes, Wilson Moreira stood out, in addition to the duo Aldir Blanc 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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 in Brazil. == Etymology and definition == There is no consensus among experts on the etymology of the term "samba".
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