Sean Stroud - The Defence of Tradition in Brazilian Popular Music (Politics, Culture and The Creation of Mus I Ca Popular Brasileira-Ashgate (2008)

THE DEFENCE OF TRADITION IN
BRAZILIAN POPULAR MUSIC

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The Defence of Tradition in
Brazilian Popular Music
Politics, Culture and the Creation of
Msica Popular Brasileira
SEAN STROUD
Sean Stroud 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Sean Stroud has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identied as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Stroud, Sean
The defence of tradition in Brazilian popular music : politics, culture and the creation of
musica popular brasileira. (Ashgate popular and folk music series)
1. Popular music Brazil 20th century History and criticism
I. Title
781.6'4'0981
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stroud, Sean, 1956
The defence of tradition in Brazilian popular music : politics, culture, and the creation
of musica popular brasileira / Sean Stroud.
p. cm.(Ashgate popular and folk music series)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-6343-0 (alk. paper)
1. Popular musicBrazil20th centuryHistory and criticism. 2. MusicPolitical
aspectsBrazil. 3. Nationalism in music. I. Title.
ML3487.B7S77 2007
781.640981dc22
2007034437
ISBN 978-0-7546-6343-0
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.
Contents
General Editors Preface vii

Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Musical Nationalism and the Cultural Invasion Debate 9
2 Inventing the Idea of MPB 39
3 Television and Popular Music 65
4 Cultural Imperialism, Globalization, and the Brazilian Record Industry 89
5 The State as Cultural Mediator: The Poltica Nacional de Cultura,

FUNARTE and the Projecto Pixinguinha 111
6 Musical Mapping: Locating and Defending the Regional 131
7 Reconsidering Musical Tradition: Msica do Brasil and Rumos

Ita Cultural Msica 159
Conclusion 179
Bibliography 187
Index 205
General Editors Preface
The upheaval that occurred in musicology during the last two decades of the
twentieth century has created a new urgency for the study of popular music alongside
the development of new critical and theoretical models. A relativistic outlook has
replaced the universal perspective of modernism (the international ambitions of
the 12-note style); the grand narrative of the evolution and dissolution of tonality
has been challenged, and emphasis has shifted to cultural context, reception
and subject position. Together, these have conspired to eat away at the status of
canonical composers and categories of high and low in music. A need has arisen,
also, to recognize and address the emergence of crossovers, mixed and new genres,
to engage in debates concerning the vexed problem of what constitutes authenticity
in music and to offer a critique of musical practice as the product of free, individual
expression.
Popular musicology is now a vital and exciting area of scholarship, and the
Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series aims to present the best research in the eld.
Authors will be concerned with locating musical practices, values and meanings
in cultural context, and may draw upon methodologies and theories developed in
cultural studies, semiotics, poststructuralism, psychology and sociology. The series
will focus on popular musics of the twentieth and twenty-rst centuries. It is designed
to embrace the worlds popular musics from Acid Jazz to Zydeco, whether high tech
or low tech, commercial or non-commercial, contemporary or traditional.
Professor Derek B. Scott

Chair of Music
University of Leeds
Acknowledgements
This book is based on my doctoral thesis at Kings College, University of London, the
result of three years of extremely enjoyable study during which I was indebted to the
guidance and support of my supervisor Professor David Treece. It was an immense
pleasure and a source of constant inspiration to be able to study with David and
benet from his exhaustive knowledge of Brazil and its culture. I am very grateful to
the School of Humanities, Kings College and also the Central Research Fund of the
University of London for the nancial assistance that I received during my PhD. This
funding enabled me to travel to Brazil and substantially broadened the scope of my
research. Thanks also to Professor Malyn Newitt, Dr Henry Stobart and Dr Nancy
Naro for their helpful comments on my research. Additional thanks are due to Nancy
and Dr Lorraine Leu for encouraging me to embark on a PhD in the rst place.
During my research trips to Brazil I was extremely fortunate to receive an
enormous amount of help in many ways from Professor Marcos Napolitano who was
always ready to take me on trips to second-hand record stores and to recommend the
latest academic study on Brazilian popular music. I am also greatly indebted to Clara
Wasserman who introduced me to various sites of historical and musical interest in
Rio de Janeiro of which I was unaware. Both Marcoss and Claras work has been
a major source of inspiration to me. Their friendship and encouragement has been
an important factor in my research and their comments on my work were always
perceptive and helpful.
I feel that the assistance of library staff is often the key to the success of any
research. The following were particularly helpful. Alan Biggins and all those at the
library of the Institute of Latin American Studies; Llia Spndula at PUC So Paulo
(for sending me articles via e-mail and making me feel at home at PUC) and Nadime
Netto Costa at the Biblioteca Mrio de Andrade, So Paulo. I would also like to
thank all the staff at the Centro Cultural de So Paulo, the Museu da Imagem e do
Som in Rio de Janeiro, and the library of FUNARTE in Rio, who often went out of
their way to help me nd what I was looking for.
I would like to thank Maria Helena and Peter Schambil for their hospitality in
Rio on a number of occasions, and also Luiz Costa Lima Neto for taking me to
Lapa and endlessly chatting about music. Thanks to Dr Aquiles Alencar-Brayner and
Apostolos Mikalas for their friendship and support.
I would like to especially thank the following for granting me interviews that
provided valuable insights into my area of research: Ana Maria Bahiana, Hermnio
Bello de Carvalho, Mrcio Gonalves, Maria Luiza Khfouri, Edson Natale, Thomas
Pappon, Paulo Csar Soares, Trik de Souza, Flvio Silva, Benjamim Taubkin,
Hermano Vianna, Beto Villares and Marcus Vincius.
Finally, I would like to profoundly thank Dr Aparecida de Jesus Ferreira for
sharing the journey with me. Her love, energy, sense of humour and support were
crucial and remain so.
Introduction
A few years ago I found myself at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London
where an eclectic programme of Brazilian music and videos was being shown. A
small number of people were gathered in the cinema watching a series of video clips
that included Casa Cheia [Full House] by the rap group, Detentos do Rap [Prisoners
of Rap]. After a minute or so of this striking video, which was shot in the infamous
Carandiru prison in So Paulo, a young Brazilian woman in front of me turned to her
English partner and loudly exclaimed for all to hear: This has nothing to do with
Brazilian music! before storming out with her ustered partner in tow. My reaction
at the time was one of mild amusement mixed with a slight feeling of puzzlement as
to how a mere music video could elicit such a vehement reaction. As time went by
I occasionally thought back to that evening and I came to reect that the womans
reaction to the video could probably be attributed to one or more of a number of
factors: an antipathy towards rap; a dislike for the setting of the video, which might
reect poorly on the image of Brazil in front of foreigners; and possibly an element
of underlying racism the woman was white and most of those featured in the
video are black. That much is speculation on my part. However, I also came to the
conclusion that the most important aspect of the womans reaction to the video, and
what it represented, was that Brazilian rap failed to match her apparently deeply-
rooted conception of what constituted popular music in Brazil. Her reaction seemed
to suggest that she felt that true Brazilian music, whatever that might be, needed
to be differentiated from a contaminated, imported and essentially inferior style of
music that might hoodwink others into believing that Detentos do Rap and their ilk
were legitimate representations of national culture.
These thoughts have been one of the main catalysts for this study, which examines
how notions of what constitutes Brazilian popular music have been constructed over
a period of forty years or so since the mid 1960s. Another point of departure for
my research was my attendance at the national meeting of the Pesquisadores de
Msica Popular Brasileira [researchers in Brazilian popular music] (APMPB), held
in Rio de Janeiro in 2001, which brought home to me the diversity of opinion among
researchers and academics within Brazil over what styles and genres could be said
to be truly representative of Brazilian popular music. On leaving that particular
event I came away with the distinct impression that the inuence of an essentially
conservative group of writers and journalists, whose writings are prominent in a
certain sector of the Brazilian media, continues to exert a particular inuence on
public perceptions of a tradition of national popular music. This led me to consider
the role of the various other actors who have shaped present day notions of what
is dened as Brazilian popular music, and what isnt, namely: the record industry,
the broadcasting industry, the state, academics and individual researchers. One of
the primary intentions of this book is to identify the inuence of those actors in
delineating the parameters of Brazilian popular music, and more particularly the
2 THE DEFENCE OF TRADITION IN BRAZILIAN POPULAR MUSIC
construction of a tradition within the wider sphere of popular music as a whole, that
is, Msica Popular Brasileira (MPB), the socio/cultural/musical movement that has
dominated the artistic scene in Brazil since the mid 1960s.
MPB: A Brief Outline
Popular music has occupied a signicant and prominent role in Brazilian cultural life
since the 1920s. That role was amplied and took on different political dimensions
in the 1930s and 1940s when the political administrations of Getlio Vargas took
popular music, particularly samba, under their wing to promote their nationalistic
project at home and abroad. This was a period in which songwriters such as Noel
Rosa and Ary Barroso came to the fore and when Carmen Miranda became a
household name in Brazil and around the world.1 The Bossa Nova movement of the
late 1950s and early 1960s which was ushered in with the release of Joo Gibertos
Chega de Saudade LP in 1959 was to have massive repercussions both domestically
and internationally, particularly after the now almost legendary bossa nova concert
given by Brazilian artists at New Yorks Carnegie Hall in November 1962.2
As bossa nova subsequently imploded into various competing factions, and
jovem guarda [1960s Brazilian pop-rock] grew in popularity the next decisive phase
in the history of Brazilian popular music occurred in the mid to late 1960s when
an impressive number of highly talented musicians, performers and songwriters
came to national prominence through their appearances at televised song festivals.
Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Elis Regina, Gal Costa, Edu Lobo, Chico Buarque,
Milton Nascimento, Geraldo Vandr and many others, all launched their careers
before an enraptured national audience united by the newly created national
television network.3 This new movement rapidly came to be referred to by the
acronym MPB (Msica Popular Brasileira) [Brazilian popular music] from about
1965 onwards. These artists, and many others such as Maria Bethnia, Joo Bosco,
Jorge Ben, Geraldo Azevedo, Ivan Lins, Alceu Valena and Simone, dominated the
musical scene during the 1970s and many of them have maintained high levels of
popularity and national recognition for nearly four decades, forming the nucleus of
the group of artists most recognizably associated with the term MPB. They have
been supplemented at regular periods during recent years by newer stars working
1 For comprehensive accounts of this period see Lisa Shaw, The Social History of the
Brazilian Samba (Aldershot, 2000) and Bryan McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music
in the Making of Modern Brazil (Durham N.C., 2004).
2 Ruy Castros Chega de Saudade: A histria e as histrias da Bossa Nova (So Paulo,
1990) is an exhaustive and entertaining survey of the history of bossa nova. See also Augusto
de Campos, Balano da Bossa e outras bossas (So Paulo, 1993) for a more analytical
approach.
3 For more information about these festivals see Sean Stroud, Msica para o povo
cantar: Culture, Politics and the Brazilian song festivals 196572, Latin American Music
Review, vol. 21: no. 2 (2000): 87117, Marcos Napolitano, Seguindo a cano: Engajamento
politico e indstria cultural na MPB (1959-1969) (So Paulo, 2001) and Zuza Homem de
Mello, A Era dos Festivais: Uma Parbola (So Paulo, 2003).
INTRODUCTION 3
within the format loosely associated with MPB, such as Marisa Monte, Chico Cesar,
Lenine, Maria Rita and a host of others.
The music characteristically linked with the term MPB during its classic
period roughly the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s was an innovative mixture of
rened harmonies (frequently inuenced by jazz), poetic lyrics (often with literary
and/or political allusions) and varied rhythms. In what is still rather surprisingly
one of the few academic surveys of MPB, Charles Perrone makes the point that
it is the combination of conceptual and technical expertise that makes this music
remarkable:
The production of Brazils best contemporary songwriters represents sustained depth and
formal sophistication, twenty continuous years of incisive creativity, and hundreds of
songs with a minimum of throwaway lyrics or banally repetitive musical formats.4
Writing in 1989, Perrone made the valid observation that, MPB which assimilates
and goes beyond Bossa Nova is not a discrete style or a unied movement but a
diversied and evolving current within the larger sphere of Brazilian popular music
of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.5 It was precisely because of this factor that MPB
was able to move with the times in the 1970s as the expansion of the record industry
and the media opened up new alternatives to traditional popular music. Perrone
again:
MPB readily incorporated foreign and regional trends and forged new avenues of
expression. Hybridization was common, as composers mixed and remixed Brazilian
parameters rhythms, patterns of harmony, instruments with those of rock, blues, soul,
funk, some discothque, Jamaican reggae, and, to a limited degree, African music.6
Nevertheless, this chameleon-like ability to meld with elements of other urban

musical genres also made it increasingly difcult for many to establish what was
and what wasnt MPB, and public conceptions of the nature of the movement
consequently became ever more blurred.
I will return to this issue in Chapter 2, however, at this point I would like to briey
discuss the important symbolic role that MPB performs within the wider Brazilian
cultural ambit. Mrio de Andrade, the intellectual heavyweight and dominant gure
of the Brazilian Modernist movement of the 1920s, was the rst writer to tackle the
subject of Brazilian popular music in any depth through various works that spanned
the period between the late 1920s until the 1940s.7 His sympathies by and large
4 Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song: MPB 19651985 (Austin, 1989), p. 207.

5 Ibid., pp. 2012.
6 Ibid., p. xxxii.
7 See for example, Ensaio Sbre a Msica Brasileira (So Paulo, 1962) and Msica,
doce msica (So Paulo, 1976). Mrio de Andrade (18931945) was a multi-talented
novelist, journalist, poet, literary and music critic, linguist, music educationalist, state cultural
administrator, folklorist and musicologist. He rst came to prominence through his involvement
as a poet in the highly inuential Modern Art Week held in So Paulo in 1922 and gained
further acclaim with the publication of his celebrated novel Macunama in 1928. For a survey
of Mrios writings on music and how his work ts into the wider context of nationalism
lay more in the direction of rural popular music rather than its urban counterpart
which he generally considered to be popularesca or vulgar and his writings on
music formed part of his wider concerns about the need for Brazil to develop an
independent cultural identity, undiluted by foreign inuences. Echoes of Mrios
inuence can be clearly detected in the output of a number of nationalistically-
orientated journalists, broadcasters and writers such as Almirante, Ary Vasconcellos,
Lcio Rangel and Jos Ramos Tinhoro, whose writings on popular music in the
period between the 1940s and mid 1960s exerted widespread inuence (this will be
discussed fully in Chapter 1). The views expressed in the writings of the latter went
virtually unchallenged until the mid 1960s when the televised song festivals and the
explosive impact of the Tropiclia movement provoked a series of articles on the
revolution in popular music written by intellectuals such as Augusto de Campos,
Brasil Rocha Brito and Gilberto Mendes.8
This new-found interest in popular music by Brazilian academics and intellectuals
spilled over into the public arena through further articles written for the mainstream
press, and heralded the start of an ongoing debate about the state of health of national
popular music that has continued for the last forty years. I do not wish to suggest that
popular music had not previously been the subject of public debate and governmental
interest, for this had been a feature of Brazilian cultural life since at least the 1930s,
however, what was radically different about the 1968 watershed was that the intense
cultural activity that centred on the Tropiclia movement, including the critical
debates about popular music, also coincided with political debates that resulted in
the imposition of severe political and artistic censorship and the ourishing of an
increasingly powerful mass media and record industry. All these powerful forces
coalesced at the same moment and imbued MPB with a particular, special status and
kudos that intensied its cultural prominence for decades to come.
MPB and Concepts of Tradition, Quality, and Authenticity
The manner in which MPB has traditionally been viewed in Brazil is intrinsically
bound up with notions of legitimacy and tradition. The pre-Tropiclia period was
largely dominated by a musically nationalistic, uncontested view of a tradition of
popular music in Brazil that stretched back to the earliest days of samba at the start
of the twentieth century, and also encompassed a golden age of popular song and
choro [a style of instrumental music that predated samba] in the 1930s and 1940s.
As I will argue in Chapter 1, this selective and hierarchical view of the history of
Brazilian popular music was largely the product of a number of writers, broadcasters
and journalists who, to all intents and purposes, invented that tradition and promoted
in Brazil, see Suzel Reily, Macunamas Music: National Identity and Ethnomusicological
Research in Brazil in Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, ed.
M. Stokes (Oxford, 1997) pp. 7196.
8 These articles were later collected and edited by Augusto de Campos, and published
as Balano da Bossa e outras bossas (So Paulo, 1993). See also, Airton Barbosa, ed. Que
caminho seguir na msica popular brasileira? Revista Civilizao Brasileira, ano. 1 no.7
(1966): 37585.
INTRODUCTION 5
it through their writings. That specic tradition was based upon developments during
the early days of samba (19171931) when artists and songwriters such as Donga,
Pixinguinha, Ismael Silva, Sinh and many others were inuential in the formation
of an urban, Rio de Janeiro-based style of popular music that itself drew heavily on
Bahian and African origins.9 Out of many different styles of samba, the one known
as Samba do Estcio came to be referred to as authentic at the start of the 1930s
and this gave birth to the idea of an authentic tradition of samba that was based
in a specic locale (the morro or favela) and environment (the escola de samba).
This style of samba subsequently received great support from the booming radio
industry and was also endorsed by the state as a standard bearer for brasilidade
[Brazilianess].10 When several writers and critics of popular music in the 1940s and
1950s wished to oppose the contamination of Brazilian music by popular music
from abroad, it was to this so-called authentic music that they turned as a point of
reference, and the cultural signicance of the music was subsequently solidied by
its insertion in ofcial histories of Brazilian popular music as a mythical, nostalgic
golden age.
The direct challenge to this ofcial version of musical history posed by
Tropiclia was fundamental because its iconoclastic mixture of foreign elements
such as electric guitars and rock music questioned established notions of musical
nationalism, and Tropiclias deliberate deployment of kitsch references, the music
and imagery associated with performers such as Lupicnio Rodrigues and Carmen
Miranda amongst others, mocked pretensions to authenticity and legitimacy. The
impact of the revolutionary performances by Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso at
the televised 1967 TV Record song festival ensured that MPB would never be the
same: elements of Tropicalist experimentalism and a rock sensibility were gradually
incorporated into MPB, even as Tropiclia itself withered away. Yet these traces of
experimentalism and a irtation with the avant-garde only went up to a point: MPB
artists who strayed too far from the commercially and politically acceptable ran the
risk of being marginalized and labelled malditos [mavericks].11
The fact that MPB absorbed so many aspects of the existing ofcial view of the
linear development of a tradition of Brazilian popular music (samba, choro, regional
styles from the Northeast, etc.) meant that it was logical for some to laud MPB as a
continuation of that same tradition. By periodically re-interpreting compositions by
canonical artists such as Cartola, Noel Rosa, Ari Barroso, Pixinguinha et al., MPB
was not only in constant musical dialogue with that existing tradition but also took on
the mantle of responsibility for the upholding of that tradition in the minds of many
critics and certain elements of the public. The links that were made between MPB
and the established view of a noble musical tradition tangentially imbued MPB with
9 Excellent accounts of this period are provided by Hermano Vianna, O Mistrio do

Samba (Rio de Janeiro, 1995) and Carlos Sandroni, Feitio Decente: Transformaes do
samba no Rio de Janeiro (19171933) (Rio de Janeiro, 2001).
10 Marcos Napolitano, Histria & Msica: Histria cultural da msica popular (Belo
Horizonte, 2002), pp. 4954. See also, Bryan McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil: popular music in
the making of modern Brazil (Durham N.C., 2004).
11 Napolitano, Histria & Msica, pp. 6770.
authority and legitimacy, thereby permitting its supporters to bring to bear a greater
degree of intellectual and cultural kudos in discussions about popular music. Yet at
the same time, it is important to recognize that the debate on the role of MPB since
the mid 1960s has also reected a continuing and often contrasting concern with not
only the underlying importance of tradition, but also the critical necessity for the
periodic rupture of that tradition to allow popular music to develop and progress.
One of the principal assumptions of many of those who have championed MPB
is that it is quality music (literally, msica de boa qualidade), a subjective and
hierarchical description employed to distinguish it from other lesser styles of music
that fail to match up to its exacting standards. I have already hinted at reasons for
this attitude (MPBs literary and poetical heritage for example), but it is important
to stress at the outset that such assumptions underpin the attitudes of many of the
actors responsible for the mythologization of MPB and tradition that I will be
referring to, such as individual critics, writers, and the state (FUNARTEs, Projeto
Pixinguinha).12 Ironically, the actual nature of what it is that distinguishes music of
boa qualidade is never dened in concrete terms, but this is an intrinsic notion that is
perpetually hanging in the background of discussions relating to the value or worth
of popular music in Brazil and elsewhere of course. Issues of quality are closely
linked to another rather nebulous term, that of authenticity. I will demonstrate that
this is another primary theme underpinning MPBs function within the tradition of
popular music, and this issue is particularly relevant to the discussion in Chapters 6
and 7, in which I analyse re-workings and re-conceptualizations of musical tradition
in the work of Marcus Pereira in the 1970s, and Hermano Vianna and Ita Cultural
in the late 1990s.
This book addresses two fundamental questions. First, how and why has MPB come
to have the status that it does, despite the paradox that it has only ever represented a
fraction of the market of record sales in Brazil? Second, why has the musical tradition
within Brazil, of which MPB forms an integral part, been defended with such vigour
over such a long period? These questions are not addressed in the existing literature,
which almost exclusively tends to focus on the creativity of the musicians associated
with MPB rather than analysing the phenomenon itself. My research builds on the
work of Marcos Napolitano, Enor Paiano and Clara Wasserman who have all pointed
to the marked inuence of Mrio de Andrade and the writings of Lcio Rangel and
Ary Vasconcellos in shaping a hierarchy of values within Brazilian popular music
within which MPB was accorded a position of preeminence. However, I seek to go
beyond these writers in attempting to identify the specic actors music critics, the
record industry, researchers who have been responsible for the solidication of the
aura of mystique that surrounds MPB. I demonstrate that it was no mere accident
that MPB came to be perceived as the essence of quality in Brazilian popular music:
the ground had been prepared for a long time, before a whole series of processes
intervened and converged to create the conditions for it to ourish.
12 The National Art Foundation (FUNARTE) was a government body established in

1975 to deliver a new initiative on the arts. FUNARTEs role relating to popular music is
examined in depth in Chapter 9.
INTRODUCTION 7
I attempt to provide a historical narrative of key moments and trends in the
construction of the idea of MPB since 1968. I focus on how various factors have
combined to create the conditions in which it has been possible for some to claim
that MPBs inherent quality and authenticity constitute a tradition that is worthy
of representing the nation. One of the central themes that I refer to is the persistent
recurrence of attitudes that seek to preserve and protect Brazilian popular music
against the perceived threat from invasion by foreign popular music and cultural
inuences, and aesthetic dilution by the impact of commercialization and the mass
media. These attitudes pre-date the 1960s, and in earlier times were closely linked
to wider concepts of nationalism (both political and musical) in Brazil. They have
been further rened and moulded by recent debates in Brazil on cultural imperialism
and globalization. What is clear is that MPBs pivotal role as a standard bearer for
national culture, particularly in the 1970s, saw it at the forefront of the defence of
the national.13 It is for this reason that I pinpoint the periodic crises of condence in
MPB that have led to much public debate and discussion on the issue: it is precisely
because of the large cultural shadow that it casts, that MPBs signicance and prestige
within the wider orbit of Brazilian popular music has been such a perennial subject of
debate and concern in Brazil. My approach within this study is to provide a historical
narrative of the rise and fall of MPB, with a specic emphasis on the manner in
which popular music interacts with political and social factors. For this reason I do
not provide any textual or musical analysis of the music under discussion.14
This book consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the crucial theme
of musical nationalism, an underlying ideology that has acted as an ever-present
backdrop to discussions about Brazilian popular music since the 1920s, and one that
has been an important factor in the creation of the concept of tradition in the eld of
popular music. The second part of this chapter analyses the closely linked key debate
on the so-called cultural invasion in Brazil as it relates to popular music. Chapter
2 deals directly with the formation of the idea of MPB and the respective roles of
those who have been the principal architects of its construction. Chapter 3 develops
this discussion further by investigating the increasingly close relationship that has
developed between television and popular music in Brazil, as demonstrated by the
continuation of investment in the televised song festivals, even after 1972 when it
was commonly considered that the festivals were an anachronism. The crucial role
of popular music in telenovelas [TV soap operas] is also discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 4 investigates whether theories of cultural imperialism and globalization
can be successfully related to the Brazilian situation. This chapter also examines the
inuential role of the Brazilian record industry in the process of so-called cultural
invasion. Chapter 5 addresses the important intervention on the part of the state
as a cultural mediator in terms of popular music in the 1970s through the creation
13 Carlos Sandroni, Adeus MPB, in Decantando a Repblica: Inventrio Histrico e

Poltico da Cano Popular Moderna Brasileira, vol. 1, ed. by Berenice Cavalcante, Heloisa
Starling and Jos Eisenberg (Rio de Janeiro, 2004), pp. 2335 (p. 29).
14 Readers who are interested in such an approach are advised to consult Perrones
excellent Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song, and the same authors Letras e Letras da
Msica Popular Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, 1988).
of FUNARTE and the Projeto Pixinguinha (a government-sponsored initiative
dedicated to promoting Brazilian popular music that has been in existence for the
last thirty years). Chapter 6 examines the motives behind the efforts of Mrio de
Andrade (in the 1930s) and Marcus Pereira (in the 1970s) to provide musical maps
of Brazil through the collection of eld recordings of traditional and popular music.
Particular emphasis is devoted to the importance of folklore and authenticity in both
of these path-breaking projects that were equally concerned with the importance of
the protection and preservation of musical tradition. Finally, Chapter 7 concentrates
on two major ventures undertaken by Hermano Vianna and Ita Cultural at the end
of the twentieth century that carried on the work of Mrio and Pereira, but with a
totally different perspective on the validity of musical authenticity and the role of
tradition in Brazilian popular music.
Chapter 1
Musical Nationalism and the

Cultural Invasion Debate
A central theme underpinning this study is how popular music in Brazil has
frequently interlinked with political and cultural ideologies since the 1920s. An
essential component of that linkage has been the idea of musical nationalism, which
has periodically surfaced on the cultural scene ever since the publication in 1928 of
Mrio de Andrades formative work Ensaio Sbre a Msica Brasileira.1 This chapter
sets out to demonstrate how that current of musical nationalism has manifested itself,
how it has been opposed, and how it also laid the foundations for the idea of musical
tradition that is still so potent in Brazil. The chapter consists of three parts, the rst of
which starts by relating the origins of nationalist trends within music in both Europe
and Brazil. This is followed by a brief section that draws some parallels between
the work of Cecil Sharp and the English Folk-Song Society in the early years of
the twentieth century and Mrios inuential nationalistically-avoured writings on
music that were to serve as a basis for much of the thinking on Brazilian popular
music until the 1960s.
The second part of the chapter discusses how the theme of protectionist musical
nationalism was continued and developed through the work of several writers and
journalists between the 1940s and 1960s, and how the latter were responsible for
the creation of invented traditions that formed the ideological starting point for the
foundation of a hierarchy of values within Brazilian popular music.
The nal part of the chapter focuses on the closely linked debate about the fear
of foreign cultural invasion within Brazil that has been waged in the media and
debated in public since the 1930s. I demonstrate how this debate intensied in the
1960s and 1970s and how that intensication is exemplied by the clash between
the writings of Jos Ramos Tinhoro and alternative views that arose in the wake of
the Tropiclia movement. This section continues with a discussion of the reactions
of some of those working in Brazilian radio to the impact of increasing levels of
imported popular music, and the chapter concludes with an analysis of the efforts of
the APMPB to redress the balance in favour of national music.
Musical Nationalism in Europe and Brazil
Musical nationalism is generally considered to be a movement that began in Europe

during the second half of the nineteenth century and which placed a strong emphasis
1 Ensaio Sbre a Msica Brasileira (So Paulo, 1962).

on the national characteristics of a countrys musical tradition. This trend began as a
reaction against the domination of German music at the time by composers in other
countries who considered that the heritage of their own national melodies and dances
could serve as the means by which they could move their nations from the musical
periphery to the forefront.2 In the last quarter of the nineteenth century composers
in England, Norway, Spain and Sweden started to mine the folk aspects of their
respective cultures for inspiration. Musicians and composers returning from Europe
transported these ideas to Brazil, and to other Latin American countries, at the end
of the nineteenth century.
The rise of musical nationalism can be viewed within the wider context of ideas
about folk and national culture that originated in the Baltic provinces during the
eighteenth century. Johann Gottfried Herder (17441803) has been credited with
popularizing the theory that it was the rural isolation of peasant communities that
protected them from the corrupting inuences of the wider world, which enabled
them to develop their own individualistic national cultures. Herder contended that
the oral peasant tradition contained the very soul or essence of a nation and that it
was essential that any unifying national culture had to be grounded in that original,
foundational peasant culture. As Herders theories gained a wider circulation, folk
culture was appropriated as a symbol of nationalism and national identity, not only
within Europe but further aeld.3
Cecil Sharp and the English Folk-Song Society
This approach was potentially problematic in a nation lacking a recognizable peasant

class such as Edwardian England. For that reason, collectors of English folk song and
dance sought to gather their raw material from the inhabitants of remote rural areas,
as the collectors considered that the latter seemed to be the most likely repository of
examples of uncontaminated culture. There is an irony to this that John Francmanis
has highlighted:
. . . Membership of this elusive sub-stratum of English society was imposed rather

than self-ascribed when, their deciencies recast as virtues, selected elements of the
unsophisticated rural population found themselves transformed into the folk.4
Cecil Sharp (1859-1924) was the dominant gure of the English Folk-Song Society
at this time, an organization that he joined in 1901. Sharps ambitious approach and
energetic drive revolutionized the society from merely collecting folk material into
a movement whose aim was to instill patriotism in schoolchildren through the use
of folk song. By re-popularizing simple ditties which have sprung like wild owers
from the very hearts of our countrymen5 Sharp believed that a new generation of
English children would develop a greater awareness of their cultural heritage and
2 David P. Appleby, The Music of Brazil (Austin, 1983), p. 83.

3 John Francmanis, National music to national redeemer: the consolidation of a folk-
song construct in Edwardian England, Popular Music, 21/1 (2002), (125), p. 2.
4 Ibid.
5 Cecil Sharp, quoted in Francmanis, National music to national redeemer, p. 7.
MUSICAL NATIONALISM AND THE CULTURAL INVASION DEBATE 11
that this would make them better citizens and patriots. Thus, Sharp hoped that a
musical renaissance would lead in turn to a revival of the nation itself.6
Cecil Sharps initiative was hampered by opposition from other members of the
English Folk-Song Society who disagreed with his methods and sweeping conclusions.
As Francmanis points out: effectively, he had determined who the folk were, what
constituted their art, which were their songs and dances, and what they represented.7
Nevertheless, the issue of what exactly constituted quintessentially English music
was a major concern for some in the years leading up to the start of the First World
War and in an increasingly nationalistic era composers were urged to eradicate
foreign inuences from their works and to replace them with folk elements more
in keeping with the common people.8 However, as a result of the increasing effects
of urbanization in England even many of those living in the countryside that had
formerly sung folk songs now favoured ditties which originated in the urban music
hall. Furthermore, Cecil Sharp and his followers were selective in their choice of the
folk songs that they singled out to preserve for posterity and it was not unknown for
Sharp to alter what he found to be more appealing or tuneful to the modern ear.9
For some in England at the time there existed a clear relationship between folk
culture and high art, as illustrated by an article published in Musical Times in 1911:
. . . The folk-art of a country, whatever its artistic merits or demerits, is the sincere
expression of a community, the embodiment, in terms of literature, dance, or song, of
national ideals and aspirations. Indeed, in the nature of things, an intimate and abiding
relationship must always exist between the conscious, intentioned works of the really
great, individual artist, and the un-selfconscious output of the people from which he
sprang.10
As I will demonstrate, similar sentiments are to be found in the writings of Mrio de

Andrade in Brazil in the 1920s, an analysis of which will be found in the following
section.
Brazilian Musical Nationalism: Mrio de Andrades Emphasis on the Role of Folk

Music
The roots of musical nationalism in Brazil can be traced back to the publication
of A Sertaneja by Brasilio Itiber da Cunha in 1869. Generally regarded to be the
rst Brazilian musical composition to be nationalistic in character, this piece
incorporated elements derived from popular forms such as the modinha, the maxixe
and the Brazilian tango. Boundaries between art music and popular music in Brazil
were somewhat blurred towards the end of the nineteenth century, with composers
6 Francmanis, National music. For a critical analysis of Sharps work, see Dave
Harker, Fakesong: The manufacture of British folksong 1700 to the present day (Milton
Keynes, 1985).
7 Ibid., p. 9.
8 Ibid., p. 20.
9 Ibid., p. 10.
10 Ibid., p. 9.
and musicians such as Ernesto Nazareth and Chiquinha Gonzaga (both of whom
utilized nationalist elements in their work) falling into both camps. During the
rst two decades of the twentieth century most Brazilian composers of art music
continued to write in the European tradition with the occasional use of nationalist
features in their output. But it was during the period between the 1920s and the
1940s that musical nationalism really took hold in Brazil due to the overwhelming
inuence of Heitor Villa-Lobos. Villa-Lobos performed at the celebrated showpiece
of the Brazilian Modernist movement, the Semana de Arte Moderna [modern art
week] in So Paulo in 1922, and many of his compositions drew on traditional forms
of pre-commercial Brazilian music as a source of inspiration. He was also a close
friend of Mrio de Andrade, and both men were later involved in musical education
programmes for the Vargas regime. The climate of nationalism prevalent in Brazil in
the period 193045 was a major factor in the growth of a number of cultural projects
that sought to fuse nationalistic, populist elements with popular culture.
To understand how opinions of value in popular music originated in Brazil, it is
necessary to trace the development of the concept of popular music as a tradition
that needed to be defended. The genesis of this trend can be detected in the impact of
the Modernist movement of the 1920s on popular music, and more specically the
inuence of Mrios Ensaio Sbre a Msica Brasileira (1928). This ground-breaking
text shaped the thinking of generations of Brazilian musicians and composers from
its publication right up until the 1960s. In writing the Ensaio, Mrios intention was
not only to provoke a debate amongst the artistic community but also to bring home
to the public, commerce, bureaucrats, critics, and teachers the importance of the
market in relation to Brazilian popular music.11 One of the most signicant aspects
of the Ensaio was that it also delineated for the rst time the stylistic characteristics
that identied music as essentially Brazilian.12
A central tenet of the Ensaio was its rallying call for more rigorous research into
musical folklore within Brazil. In the view of Mrio (and others such as Renato
Almeida and Villa-Lobos) folkloric music and the povo [masses] were two almost
interchangeable concepts, and this idea that folklore was one of the most compelling
cultural reections of that povo was to exert a signicant inuence in the general
cultural sphere within Brazil until the 1960s.13 The totality of Mrios work has to be
considered in the wider context of the cultural project that the Brazilian Modernist
movement embarked upon after the Semana de Arte Moderna. A concept of musical
nationalism was at the central core of Mrios vision, symbolized by his belief in
the prospect of an evolutionary process by which Brazilian popular music would
eventually break free from the shackles of international inuences, to be regenerated
by innately Brazilian qualities.
11 Enor Paiano, O Berimbau e o Som Universal: lutas culturais e indstria fongraca

nos anos 60 (unpublished masters thesis, University of So Paulo, 1994), p. 21.
12 Martha de Ulha Carvalho, Msica Popular in Montes Claros, Minas Gerais, Brazil:
A study of Middle Class Popular Music Aesthetics in the 1980s (doctoral dissertation, Cornell
University, 1991), p. 16.
13 Paiano, O Berimbau, p. 19.
Mrio stressed the potentially important role of folk music as a source of raw
material to be used by erudite composers in a process that would transform the
popular into the artistic.14 Folk music would therefore act as an authentic source
of artistic inspiration and for the rst time composers were actively encouraged to
incorporate Brazilian elements into their works.15 Mrio organized and led several
expeditions to the North and Northeast of Brazil in the 1920s and 1930s, whose aims
were to collect folkloric music and dances that were supposedly uncontaminated
or undiluted by foreign or commercial inuences. Like Cecil Sharp before him,
his decisions about which songs to collect for posterity were shaped by ideological
considerations about purity and authenticity (this will be discussed in depth in
Chapter 6). This search for authenticity is fundamental to the thinking of Mrio and
the musical nationalists who followed him. Although popular music is considered
by the latter to be ultimately subordinate to erudite music on aesthetic grounds, it is
only within popular music that a natural, almost nave energy can be accessed that
symbolizes the very essence of the national. It is only among the popular classes that
the very soul of the nation resides, uncontaminated by the march of progress and
civilization.16
Musical nationalists in Brazil foregrounded the importance of folklore as the
only truly valid aspect of popular culture, and stressed the need to separate good
music from bad. They also sought to safeguard popular music from the potentially
harmful effects of two evils, avant-garde experimentalism and the commercial
market.17 Writing in 1934, Mrio scathingly referred to a style of Brazilian urban
popular music that he pejoratively termed popularesca [populist]. Specically citing
the works of popular songwriters such as Catulo da Paixo Cearense and Juvenal
Galeno, he described the genre as: sub-music, fodder for the radio and records, ...
with which factories, buisinesses and singers sustain themselves. Whilst conceding
that this style was capable of producing the occasional work of note, he found it in
the main to be, boring, plagaristic, false an instantly disposable product more
than likely to delude the general public.18 The crucial importance of Mrios writings
on popular music was that they established the basis for a hierarchy of genres. On
one side, erudite music that was capable of transforming folk music into art, and on
the other, msica popularesca, geared towards widespread consumption through the
increasingly inuential mass medium of radio.19 I will demonstrate at various stages
14 Carvalho, Msica Popular in Montes Claros, p. 17. See also Elizabeth Travassos
Os Mandarins Milagrosos: Arte e Etnografia em Mrio de Andrade e Bla Bartok (Rio de
Janeiro, 1997) for an interesting comparative study of Mrios work and that of the Hungarian
composer and pioneering ethnomusicologist Bla Bartk (18811945).
16 Santuza Cambraia Naves, O Violo Azul: Modernismo e msica popular (Rio de
Janeiro, 1998), p. 47.
18 Cited by Naves, O Violo Azul, p. 48. An enlightening study of the contents of Mrios
own personal record collection can be found in Flvia Camargo Toni (ed.) A Msica Popular
Brasileira na vitrola de Mrio de Andrade (So Paulo, 2004).
19 Martha de Ulha Carvalho, Nova Histria, Velhos Sons: Notas Para Ouvir E Pensar
A Msica Brasileira Popular, in Debates. Cadernos do Programa de Ps-Graduao em
in this book how Mrios low opinion of urban popular music would have long-term
ramications in inuencing several key gures responsible for constructing notions
of authenticity and value in the eld of popular music in Brazil.
It is unclear if Mrio was directly aware of the work of Cecil Sharp, but there
certainly appear to be some intriguing parallels to be drawn between aspects of the
musical nationalism of the English Folk-Song movement as set out at the start of
this chapter and that expounded by Mrio and his followers. Examples of these
similarities include: the high importance attached to the collection and cataloguing
of material; the rejection of corrupting inuences both from abroad and by the
commercial market; and the perception of indigenous folk music as a wellspring
of musical inspiration for erudite composers. There is a clear comparison to be
drawn between Mrios view of msica popularesca or submsica and the efforts of
members of the English Folk-Song Society to preserve folk music from what they
perceived to be the harmful effects of popular song, or more specically, the music
hall. As early as 1899, the Vice-President of the Folk-Song Society had written in
the following terms:
There is nothing in folk-music common or unclean; . . . (Yet) if we compare the genuine

old folk-music with the songs that are driving it out, what an awful abyss appears! The
modern popular song reminds me of the outer circumference of our terribly overgrown
towns, where the jerry-builder holds sway, and where one sees all around the tawdriness
of sham jewellery and shoddy clothes . . . It is for the people who live in these unhealthy
regions, people who have the most false ideals, who are always scrambling for subsistence
. . . for them popular music is made, and it is made, with a commercial object, of
snippets of musical slang. This is what will drive out folk-music if we do not save it. (my
emphasis).20
In the following section I will demonstrate how a group of Brazilian journalists and
writers set out in the 1940s and 1950s to push back what they perceived to be the
impact of a tide of commercialism and foreign inuence in order to save certain
authentic aspects of Brazilian folk music.
Invented Traditions in Brazilian Popular Music
The rise of the urban market and the rapid development of radio and the record
industry in the 1930s expanded the market for popular music in Brazil as never
before. Songwriters such as Noel Rosa, and other composers working within the
idiom of samba, saw the artistic and commercial opportunities that were now
available and started to dream about success on a grand scale. Yet a career in popular
music at this time was not all plain sailing; as Paiano points out, many of those
composers and performers working in the eld of popular music at this time still
lived a precarious existence, relying on other occupations such as carpentry and shoe
Msica, no.1, Centro de Letras e Artes, Uni-Rio, 1997, (80101), pp. 878.
20 Francmanis, National music, p. 3.
repairing to make ends meet.21 Audiences suddenly developed a fresh, more intimate
relationship with the stars of popular music, generated by the growing power of
radio, magazines, and the musical comedies known as chanchadas [slapstick], which
in turn led to the development of large, well-organized fan clubs with thousands of
members. This commercial expansion was accompanied by stylistic developments,
and in the late 1930s the inuence of the composer and arranger Radams Gnatalli
was to prove critical in a change of direction for popular music in Brazil. Gnatallis
1939 arrangement of Orlando Silvas interpretation of Aquarela do Brasil was path
breaking in that it was the rst time that a samba-cano [song form of samba]
received a string accompaniment instead of the more usual regional instruments
such as guitar, cavaquinho, ute, pandeiro and accordion. The idea of samba
with strings was anathema to some, and Gnatalli immediately received letters of
complaint from those who considered that Brazilian music should only feature the
guitar and cavaquinho, a foretaste of the resistance to the dilution of popular music
that was to follow.22
This breakthrough in the way that national popular music was viewed in Brazil
was consolidated during the following years by the growing inuence of Gnatallis
arrangements, which were broadcast nationally via his work at Rdio Nacional,
the tremendously popular radio station, whose period of inuence spanned the era
from its founding in 1936 until the early 1950s. By 1938, the government-sponsored
Rdio Nacional was the most successful station in the country and some idea of the
extent of its popularity can be gauged by the fact that in the early 1940s the station
was receiving on average over 26,000 letters every month from listeners throughout
Brazil.23 In 1943, Rdio Nacional started transmitting a weekly programme, Um
milho de melodias [a million melodies] that was sponsored by Coca-Cola. The
programme mixed Brazilian and international music, and featured the Orquestra
Brasileira de Radams Gnattali that had been formed with the specic purpose of
providing orchestral arrangements to Brazilian popular music of a similar standard
to that provided by Benny Goodman in the United States.24 Um milho de melodias
formed part of the wider Good Neighbour strategy between the Vargas government
and the United States at the time, exemplied in cultural terms by Carmen Miranda
and Ari Barrosos trips to Hollywood, and Walt Disneys, Brazilian-inspired animated
lm, Al amigos [Hello friends].25
21 Paiano, O Berimbau, p. 37. Unfortunately, little had changed in this respect even as
late as the 1970s. Cartola only recorded his rst LP at the age of seventy, and fellow sambistas
such as Dona Ivone Lara (nurse), Nelson Sargento (painter and decorator), Alvarenga (broom
maker) and Noca de Portela (market trader) were all unable to make a living by music alone.
Margarida Autran, Samba, artigo de consumo nacional, in Anos 70: Msica Popular, ed. by
Adauto Novaes (Rio de Janeiro, 1979), pp. 5363, p. 57.
22 Paiano, O Berimbau, pp. 412.
23 Luiz Carlos Saroldi and Sonia Virginia Moreira, Rdio Nacional: O Brasil em sintonia
(Rio de Janeiro, 1984), p. 27. See also, Bryan McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil: popular music in
the making of modern Brazil (Durham N.C., 2004).
24 Saroldi and Moreira, Rdio Nacional, p. 30.
25 Ibid., p. 37.
Almirante and O Pessoal da Velha Guarda
If Brazilian popular music of the 1940s was undeniably permeated to a large degree
by foreign inuences disseminated through the now sizeable record and radio
industries, not all Brazilians took kindly to what they viewed as cultural domination
from abroad. As Bryan McCann has argued, the eld of popular music became
a battleground during this period, an era in which many intellectual observers,
viewed the market as a realm of perdition: as authentic folkloric creations became
commodities, their Brazilianness was inevitably diluted or corrupted.26 One of those
observers was Henrique Foreis Domingues, more commonly known by his nickname,
Almirante. Almirante worked as a radio announcer at Rdio Nacional, and his long-
running weekly programme, Curiosidades musicais [Musical curiosities] rst went
on air in 1938. This show had an educational approach and featured work songs
and regional rhythms from all over the country that were selected from Almirantes
huge personal archives. It was Almirantes nationalistic outlook that inspired him
to collect evidence that Brazilian popular music was superior to that of its foreign
rivals.27 As McCann indicates, there are strong links between the nationalistic
rhetoric that Almirante used on his radio programmes and similar language used
by Getlio Vargas in his political speeches of the period. Both men were concerned
to draw the publics attention to what they wished to project as the twin dangers of
internationalization, and the threat to Brazils natural resources (oil) and cultural
reserves (popular music).28
From the late 1940s until the mid 1950s, Almirante used his extremely popular
radio broadcasts as a platform to promote O Pessoal da Velha Guarda [the Old
Guard], a group of Brazilian musicians including Pixinguinha and Benedito Lacerda
who played traditional styles of music such as old-fashioned samba, lundu, xote, and
above all, choro. These genres had largely fallen out of favour with the public at a
time when imported foreign music by artists such as Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra
was all the rage. McCann has demonstrated that Almirantes intensely nationalistic
outlook led him to invent a tradition based around the Pessoal da Velha Guarda in
a calculated attempt to appeal to the patriotism of the Brazilian public.29
The concept of tradition is historically associated with notions of duty and
respect for something that has been handed down from one generation to another.
But as Raymond Williams makes clear, a closer examination of the concept makes
it plain that only some traditions, or even specic parts of them, are selected for
posterity: the whole notion of tradition is highly subjective.30 Eric Hobsbawm
has demonstrated that the period prior to the First World War was notable for the
26 McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil, p. 13.

27 Paiano, O Berimbau, p. 65. In the late 1920s, Almirante had also been a member
of the pioneering samba group, O Bando dos Tangars that also featured Noel Rosa in its
lineup.
29 Bryan McCann, The Invention of Tradition on Brazilian Radio, in The Brazil Reader:
History, Culture, Politics, ed. by Robert M. Levine and John J. Crocitti (Durham N.C., 1999),
pp. 47482. See also, McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil, pp. 16080.
30 Raymond Williams, Keywords (London, 1983), p. 319.
proliferation of what he terms invented traditions, which were designed to foster
social and political stability in an era of turbulence and change.31 Hobsbawm denes
invented tradition as:
. . . A set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a

ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour
by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.32
Amongst other examples, he cites folk song as having been modied and ritualized,
not only in England, to serve nationalistic and patriotic purposes.33 This clearly
brings to mind the work of Cecil Sharp, as discussed earlier in this chapter.
Returning to the Brazilian context, evidence of the nationalistic fervour
associated with popular music in the 1940s is demonstrated by the fact that in 1948,
Almirante went so far as to suggest that Brazilians travelling abroad should identify
themselves as such by whistling Carinhoso, the most famous choro composition.34
Almirantes exaltation of choro, rather than the more obvious choice of samba as a
symbol of national identity was deliberate: it was precisely the fact that the genre
had languished in semi-obscurity since the turn of the century, almost unchanged
and untarnished by international or national success, that marked it out for
Almirantes curatorial preservation.35 The largely imaginary, noble tradition that
Almirante concocted for choro and the Pessoal da Velha Guarda was then presented
as being of vital importance, to be preserved as a keystone of the nations cultural
heritage at all costs.36 I shall return to this concept of invented tradition in Chapter
5 when discussing the government-sponsored choro boom of the mid 1970s and
FUNARTEs, Projeto Pixinguinha.
The selective choice of certain aspects of Brazilian musical history and the
exclusion of genres is nothing new. Santuza Naves points out that the authorities
suppressed the traditions of the entrudo [an early riotous form of carnival] and the
batuque [a precursor of samba] at the end of the nineteenth century due to the fact
that neither genre conformed to the rather more sanitized image that the ruling elites
wished to promote.37 As I will show in the following section, those responsible
for writing the history of Brazilian popular music in the 1960s highlighted certain
periods and composers at the expense of others to full specic objectives.
31 Eric Hobsbawm, Mass-producing traditions; Europe, 18701914, in The Invention

of Tradition, ed. by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 263307,
(p. 263).
32 Eric Hobsbawm, Introduction: Inventing Traditions, in The Invention of Tradition,
pp. 114 (p. 1).
33 Ibid., p. 6.
34 McCann, The Invention of Tradition, p. 479. Ironically, Carinhoso was criticized
in Brazil in 19289 for being too Americanized in style. Hermano Vianna, O Mistrio do
Samba (Rio de Janeiro, 1995), p. 117.
35 McCann, The Invention of Tradition, p. 478.
36 Ibid., p. 478.
37 Naves, O Violo Azul, p. 36.
Ary Vasconcellos, Lcio Rangel and the Revista de Msica Popular
A crucial factor in the expansion of interest in popular music in the 1950s and
1960s was the growing inuence of a number of journalists and writers who were
concerned about the preservation of the legacy of a so-called golden age in the
history of Brazilian popular music. These writers and intellectuals were not attached
to universities or academic institutions, but exerted their inuence in an independent
manner through their publications, their press columns, and their radio broadcasts.38
I will now examine the inuence of three of these writers and music critics, all of
whom were convinced that authentic elements of Brazilian popular music needed
to be protected or saved from the threat posed by foreign music and the commercial
market. These writers were Almirante, Ary Vasconcellos and Lcio Rangel, and the
signicance of their work lies in the manner in which they shaped public views of
what was to be considered to be important and of value in the history of Brazilian
popular music.
In addition to being a radio broadcaster Almirante was also an author, and the
publication of his book No Tempo de Noel Rosa (1963) coincided with an ongoing
debate about the origins and authenticity of samba. Almirante argued in his book
that samba was a fusion of urban musical elements that nevertheless drew on
folkloric, rural roots. By emphasizing the importance of these regional elements in
the development of urban samba he was attempting to invest the genre with an air
of authenticity by indirectly linking urban samba with Mrio de Andrades writings
on popular music, which concentrated almost exclusively on rural popular music.
The reasoning behind this was that, unfortunately for Almirante, Mrios own
writings on popular music did not provide the necessary evidence to argue for the
development of a legitimate tradition of Brazilian urban popular music, hence the
need to suggest authenticity through rural antecedents.39
Ary Vasconcellos worked as a columnist for the weekly magazine O Cruzeiro
and also wrote extensively on popular music during the 1960s. His book Panorama
da Msica Popular Brasileira, which was published in 1964, divided the history of
Brazilian popular music into four distinct phases:
18891927, fase primitiva [primitive phase]

19271946, fase de ouro [golden phase]
19461958, fase moderna [modern phase]
19581964, fase contempornea [contemporary phase]
Such unequivocal periodization of musical eras may now appear to be over

didactic, but more importantly, as Paiano points out, the only period to which
Vasconcellos attributed a specically positive label is the fase de ouro, making it
clear that his preference was for the music produced in the era prior to what he

39 Marcos Napolitano and Maria Clara Wasserman, Desde que o samba samba, Revista
Brasileira de Histria, Dossi Brasil, Brasis. So Paulo, ANPUH/ Humanitas Publicaes,
vol. 20 no. 39 (2000), 16789 (p. 172).
considered to be a pronounced decline in musical standards and authenticity. For
Vasconcellos, the erosion of the status of Brazilian popular music was directly
attributable to two factors: the rise of the modern music industry which encouraged
composers to write purely for prot, and the post-war invasion of foreign music,
principally that from the United States.40 Yet it is important to note that the music
of Vasconcelloss golden age was not considered to be of any particular special
merit at the time that it was produced: not one major newspaper in Brazil had a
section devoted to popular music during that period.41 Consequently, his choice can
be considered to reect a somewhat nostalgic, retrospective analysis of music during
that period.
Lcio Rangel was a music critic for various Brazilian journals and newspapers
during the 1950s and 1960s. Rangels book Sambistas e Chores (1962) bemoaned
what he perceived to be the calamitous effect of the encroachments of foreign music
on Brazilian folklore, and hailed the efforts of the venerable, sixty-ve year-old
instrumentalist and composer Pixinguinha (the key gure of the Pessoal da Velha
Guarda) to stem the tide.42 In Rangels view, the essence of samba in its purest form
was to be found before the advent of commercialization, in a genre he referred to as
samba do morro.43 This notion of an authentic, unspoilt, spontaneous form of samba
existing in an almost mythical morro [hillside shanty-town or favela] can be traced
back to the publication of Na Roda do Samba by the journalist Francisco Guimares
(Vagalume) in 1933. Vagalumes book was published at the height of a debate
between various sambistas over the origins of samba, and his work was written with
the express purpose of attacking the detrimental effects of the record industry on
what he considered to be the original, pure form of samba still precariously existing
in the morro. In his writings, Rangel echoed Mrio de Andrades insistence on the
fundamental importance of folklore within Brazilian culture, and like Almirante, he
found Mrios preference for rural samba over that produced in the urban centres
somewhat problematic.44
Almirante, Vasconcellos and Rangel all championed the idea of the urgent necessity
for authentic, pure, uncontaminated Brazilian popular music to be rescued from the
adverse effects of commercialization and foreign domination. Their writings must
be viewed in the broader context of the massive wave of interest in folklore among
Brazilian academics and intellectuals during the 1940s and 1950s, which was shaped
by ideological and cultural arguments that attempted to folklorize the idea of the
povo to promote social cohesion and national identity. This ideology was common on
both the right and the left of the political spectrum and was designed to counteract the
negative impact of modernization and urbanization within Brazilian society, which
it was felt diluted the tradition of brasilidade that was historically located within the
povo. Because urban popular music was associated with commercialization and the

41 Paulo Cesar de Arajo, Eu No Sou Cachorro, No: Msica Popular Cafona e
Ditadura Militar (Rio de Janeiro, 2002), p. 356.
43 Napolitano and Wasserman, Desde que o samba samba, p. 170.
44 Ibid., pp. 1767.
negation of cultural purity and tradition, writers such as Almirante, Vasconcellos
and Rangel took it upon themselves to save authentic Brazilian popular music from
the clutches of the domestic market and adulteration by foreign inuences.45
Almirante was responsible for the creation of the velha guarda music festivals in
the mid 1950s that attempted to rekindle interest in choros, seresteiros and sambas of
the past. For all these writers, the emblematic gure of Pixinguinha symbolized their
nostalgic desire to hang on to the good old days of the golden age. Pixinguinha
gures in a list of the ten greatest gures of Brazilian popular music of all time
selected by Lcio Rangel for a magazine in 1962. It is highly signicant that all
ten artists selected by him are from the period before 1950.46 Pixinguinha and the
Pessoal da Velha Guarda were also regularly featured in the Revista de Msica
Popular, edited by Rangel, alongside numerous articles on Noel Rosa, Ary Barroso,
Sinh, and other sambistas of the 1920s and 1930s. This magazine was published
monthly between September 1954 and September 1956, and was signicant for
breaking the existing mould of magazines specializing in popular music, which
had hitherto focused almost exclusively on commercially successful music that was
broadcast on the radio. The Revista de Msica Popular represented a new, more
opinionated and more ideological approach to popular music expressed through the
writings of its staff who were at pains to stress that they were not in thrall to the base
commercialization of record companies and radio stations.47 The magazines raison
dtre was clearly set out in the editorial column of the rst issue:
We have the rm intention of celebrating that wonderful music which is Brazilian popular
music. By studying all its various aspects and focusing on its great composers and
interpreters we believe that we are providing a valuable service.(. . . ) By placing a photo
of Pixinguinha on the cover of our rst issue we celebrate him as a symbol of an authentic,
true, creative Brazilian musician who never allowed himself be swayed by ephemeral
fashions or by foreign rhythms.48 (my emphasis).
In the same issue, an anonymous writer criticized the destabilizing effect on popular
music in Brazil by the familiar foes of the bolero, rumba, North American popular
music, and atonal jazz. The writer urged for action to:
Preserve our music, whether by re-recording and publicising old records that are no
longer available, or by recording new songwriters and sambistas who, considered to be
non-commercial, possess in their music all the traditional purity of Brazilian themes and
styles.49
45 Marcos Napolitano, Histria & Msica: Histria cultural da msica popular (Belo
Horizonte, 2002), pp. 5860.
46 Lcio Rangel, De Anacleto a Ari Barroso, Shopping News, 3/9/62.
47 Artur da Tvola, 40 anos de bossa nova (Rio de Janeiro, 1998), p. 22.
48 Anon, Revista da Msica Popular, no. 1, September 1954, p. 3. There is a certain
irony here because Pixinguinha was also one of those responsible for the importation of jazz
and foxtrot into Brazil.
49 Anon, Antologia da Msica Brasileira, Revista da Msica Popular, no. 1, September,
1954, p. 27.
A year later, the famous samba composer Ary Barroso used an article in the Revista
de Msica Popular as a platform to delineate a number of ways in which he felt that
samba had fallen into decline since its heyday an unspecic and nostalgic past that
he merely referred to as antigamente [the old days]. Mournfully ruing the loss of
authenticity and sambas links with its humble roots, Barroso ends with the lament,
Decadncia! Decadncia! Decadncia!50
Almirante, Vasconcellos and Rangel were key gures that stimulated a wider
public interest in Brazilian popular music, and all were heavily inuenced by the
tradition of musical nationalism. Paiano emphasizes the common characteristics that
they shared: rst, a passion for coisas brasileiras [Brazilian things]; second, the
methodology of collecting information, organizing and archiving it in an attempt
to remain faithful to the original, and third, a belief in a protectionist nationalism,
inspired by a fear of the effect of the encroachment of the market and the importation
of alien foreign inuences. Their achievement was that they were the rst to extend
their ideas through the mass media of radio and the press to reach a wide audience
and to solidify the idea of samba and choro as authentic, national forms of Brazilian
music.51 Hence, for example, the change in attitude towards the work of Noel Rosa, an
undoubtedly celebrated gure in the musical sphere of Rio de Janeiro, but someone
who was largely unknown throughout the rest of Brazil when he died at an early age
in 1937. However, by 1962, and with the benet of retrospective hindsight Rosa had
become in Rangels opinion an immortal of samba, deied alongside artists such
as Ernesto Nazareth, Pixinguinha and Ary Barroso.52 I would not wish to dispute the
undeniable musical importance of Noel Rosas work, merely to indicate the selective
way in which he was chosen by Rangel to represent a particular view of the linear
development of Brazilian popular music.
Almirante, Rangel and Vasconcellos were also responsible for the creation of a
hierarchy of values in Brazilian popular music through their high-prole presence in
the media and the organization of events such as the velha guarda festivals. In their
foundational, historiographical accounts of the development of Brazilian popular
music they celebrated the importance of a specic type of music (Rio de Janeiro
samba) at the expense of other artists and genres.53 The publication of their major
works on popular music within such a short time span also increased the impact that
those writings had on the public and established the foundations of the ofcial
history of popular music in Brazil. Through the publication of Rangels Sambistas
50 Ary Barroso, Decadncia, Revista de Msica Popular, no. 9, September 1955, p. 7.

52 Ibid., p. 69. Rosas posthumous fame had also been boosted by the Vargas government
of the 1940s, which chose his work to project a certain view of brasilidade. Darin J. Davis,
Avoiding the Dark: Race and the forging of national culture in modern Brazil (Aldershot,
1999), p. 139.
53 This highlighting of the importance of music from Rio de Janeiro in the national
history of popular music was not conned to these authors. The IBOPE (Brazilian Institute
of Public Opinion and Statistics) was founded in 1942 to provide accurate statistics relating
to audience gures for radio broadcasts. IBOPEs ndings in the 1950s were largely conned
to Rio de Janeiro, thereby cementing the idea of Rio as the cultural capital of the nation.
McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil, p. 220.
e Chores (1962), Almirantes No tempo de Noel Rosa (1963), Vasconcelloss
Panorama da Msica Popular (1964), and the inuential, though short-lived Revista
de Msica Popular (195456), they set out the parameters for the debate on popular
music which would be continued from the mid 1960s onwards. The nal part of
this chapter will examine how that debate was overshadowed to a large degree by
concerns in some quarters over the unwelcome inuence of foreign investment and
international popular music in Brazil.
Beatles go home! : the Cultural Invasion Debate
Historical Background to the Debate
Throughout the twentieth century Brazilian popular music was periodically subjected
to the inux of foreign inuences, principally emanating from the United States
and, to a lesser extent, Europe. In that respect Brazil was no different from most
other nations because North American popular music increasingly came to exert a
hegemonic global inuence as the century wore on. Technological advances in the
elds of cinema (talkies were introduced to Brazil in 1927), the recording industry,
and radio and television, were the primary conduits for this cultural inux, which
was coupled with a massive increase in U.S. nancial investment in Brazil after the
First World War. Throughout the 1930s, and up until the 1950s, popular music was
largely seen in Brazil as being either strictly traditional and opposed to foreign
inuence or a slavish copy of North American popular music.54 By the end of
the 1950s Brazilian radio was regularly featuring jazz, blues and other styles of
North American popular music. This was supplemented by recordings in a variety of
Latin American rhythms like the rumba, mambo and the beguine, by artists such as
Xavier Cugat, Edmundo Ros, and the Andrew Sisters. European popular orchestral
music by the likes of Mantovani and Victor Sylvester, and singers such as Edith Piaf,
Charles Aznavour and Gilbert Becaud were also extremely popular.55
Yet these bare facts only reect part of the story because the reality of the
interaction between Brazilian and foreign music is slightly more complex. Even
in the early years of the twentieth century the introduction of imported musical
genres such as the cakewalk, the two-step and the Charleston, resulted in creative
adaptations of these imported musical styles into Brazilian versions of the originals.
For example, the rst foxtrots to reach Brazil were immediately transformed into
marchinas [marches] at the Rio Carnival.56 Bryan McCann has demonstrated that
ample evidence exists within the eld of Brazilian popular music of the 1930s
and 1940s of artists experimenting with cross-cultural themes and forms that
reveal multifaceted and ambiguous attitudes towards North American culture.

55 Jos Ramos Tinhoro, Histria Social da Msica Popular Brasileira (So Paulo,
1999), pp. 3312.
56 Ruy Castro, Msica popular, das Bananas ao Desanado, O Estado de So Paulo,
16/9/00, p. D4.
Through a reading of the work of songwriters such as Lamartine Babo and Assis
Valente, McCann convincingly argues that several of their compositions, that have
traditionally been viewed as either lyrically nonsensical or uncritical homages to US
culture, can actually be seen to reect a subtle, provocative, and creative dialogue
with foreign music and international culture. McCann also provides evidence of the
previously unheralded contribution of North American producers working in Brazil
who were fundamental in stimulating innovation in the elds of national popular
music and cinema.57
This intercontinental cultural interchange was also not simply one directional:
as part of the Good Neighbour policy between the United States and Brazil in the
early 1940s, the musical compositions Na Baixa do Sapateiro, Aquarela do Brasil
and Os Quindins de Iai (Ary Barroso), Tico-tico no Fub (Zequinha de Abreu),
Carinhoso (Pixinguinha) and Baio (Humberto Teixeira) all featured in Hollywood
musicals or Walt Disney cartoons.58 Similarly, the massive popularity of bossa nova
in the United States, and elsewhere, in the early 1960s was evidence of a Brazilian
musical export that did not require political assistance to produce a resounding
cultural impact, although it should perhaps also be remembered that the Bossa Nova
movement was itself a reaction against the orid, melodramatic overwrought genre
of samba-cano that had fallen under the inuence of international popular music
(and the bolero in particular) during the 1940s and 1950s. 59
The Enemy Within: i i i
As I have argued earlier in this chapter, growing anxiety about what was perceived as
the internationalization of Brazilian popular music was a major source of concern
for several writers and researchers of popular music from the mid 1950s to the mid
1960s, and was a key factor in the publication of the Revista de Msica Popular
(195456). This journal acted as a sounding board for those who were opposed
to what they saw as an increasingly restricted space in the media for traditional
Brazilian popular music such as samba. By the late 1950s, music critic, Jos Ramos
Tinhoro and others were attacking bossa nova for drawing Brazilian popular music
away from its popular roots and nullifying the national importance and inuence of
samba at the expense of a dependence on imported North American jazz. This debate
was ironically alluded to in the lyrics of Carlos Lyras composition Influncia do jazz
(1962), which expressed concerns about the increasing inuence of jazz in Brazil
whilst at the same time utilizing elements of jazz in the songs arrangement.60
What was perhaps not perceived at the time was that a potentially greater threat
to national popular music had already started to take hold in Brazil with the advent of
rock and roll. The screening of the lm Blackboard Jungle in 1955, and the release
57 McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil.

58 Castro, Msica popular, p. D4.
59 Tinhoro, Histria Social, p. 309.
60 David Treece, Between Bossa Nova and the Mambo Kings: the internationalization
of Latin American popular music, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, vol. 1, no. 2
(1992), 5485 (p. 66).
of records by Bill Haley and the Comets, Elvis Presley and Little Richard in Brazil
in 1956, had an immediate impact and marked the start of a period in which rock
music and its associated culture came to be perceived as the epitome of youth and
modernity. Brazilian artists not only immediately recorded versions of the latest U.S.
hits (Nora Ney released Ronda das Horas, a version of Rock around the Clock sung
in English, in October 1955) but also a whole wave of Brazilian rock and roll bands
started playing original compositions and cover versions sung in Portuguese.61 In
1963, as Brazilian rock and roll evolved into what became known as i i i (yeah,
yeah, yeah was the refrain to the Beatles hit She loves you) a whole new set of
bands such as The Pops, Os Jovens, Os Inocentes, The Brazilian Bitles (sic) and
the Fevers enjoyed popularity. Shrewd marketing and the enormous success of the
Jovem Guarda television show that started in September 1965 established i i i as
a major force within Brazilian popular music.
Nevertheless, due to its overwhelming similarity to an imported North American
model (rock and roll), its unashamed commercialism, and its assimilation of North
American and European fashions and trends, i i i was attacked by supporters of
samba and Cano de Protesto [Protest Song the politically conscious, rather earnest,
musically nationalistic, strand of bossa nova] for being shallow and unsophisticated,
the political subtext being that it was foreign and alienado [apolitical]. Elis Regina,
the rising star of what came to be known as MPB, returned from an international
tour and immediately launched into a ery tirade that was published in Intervalo
magazine, and which demonstrates the contemporary depth of feeling on the issue:
Returning to Brazil, I was hoping to nd samba stronger than ever. But what I saw was this
submusic [submsica], this noise that they call i i i, capturing thousands of youngsters
who are begining to be interested in music and who are being led astray. This i i i is a
drug: it deforms the minds of young people. Just look at the songs that they sing: most of
them have very few notes which makes them easier to sing and to memorise. The lyrics
dont have any message: they talk about dances, sweet talk, frivolous things.62
In order to boost sales and audience ratings, record companies and television
networks drummed up a highly orchestrated war between adherents of bossa nova
and i i i in the media, and Reginas remarks have to be viewed in that context. Yet
when the article was published she apparently genuinely feared that supporters of i
i i would take reprisals against her because of her comments.
Reginas use of the term submsica evokes memories of Mrio de Andrades
employment of the same scathing expression in 1934 to describe that which he
considered to be trite, commercial pap, unworthy of serious consideration. Its use
by Regina is evidence of the continuation of an underlying set of values that had
been developed by adherents of musical nationalism since the 1930s. Although
Regina was not publicly known to be politically afliated to the left at this stage in
her career, her comments are also perhaps indicative of a veiled frustration at the
61 For an entertaining account of the early days of Brazilian rock and roll, and the rise
and fall of jovem guarda see, Marcelo Fres, Jovem Guarda: em ritmo de Aventura (So
Paulo, 2000).
62 Fres, Jovem Guarda, p. 89.
interruption of the democratic process within Brazil caused by the military coup that
had taken place only a year earlier in 1964. It seems as if the commercial triumph
of i i i was a pointed reminder, at least to some, of the cultural sea-change which
followed the military coup, characterized by an over-eager desire by the new military
government to embrace both U.S. capital, and North American cultural mores. This
political/cultural backdrop helps to explain the deep antipathy which existed between
supporters of Cano de Protesto and i i i: their differences were often not only in
terms of musical taste, but also in political attitude.63
Elis Regina, Edu Lobo and Gilberto Gil were amongst a crowd who marched
in protest against foreign music in So Paulo in 1966, an episode that came to be
referred to as the march against electric guitars. Looking back on the event years
later, Gilberto Gil ruefully recalled that the demonstration had been anti-i i i,
and had been slightly xenophobic and nationalistic in character.64 The organizers of
the fth TV-Record song festival, held in So Paulo in 1969, who banned the use
of electric guitars at the event and marketed the festival with the slogan, Beatles
go home! demonstrated similar attitudes.65 By deciding to only allow the inclusion
of genuine Brazilian music in the competition, the organizers were attempting
to stimulate a return to musical authenticity. However, the festival proved to be
a dismal failure with the public and critics alike because the record industry and
record buyers in general had already come to an awareness of a wider notion of what
constituted genuine Brazilian popular music in the wake of the innovation and
experimentation introduced by the Tropicalist movement.66
Jos Ramos Tinhoro and Tropicalist Challenges to Musical Nationalism
The musical nationalism of the 1960s differed from that which preceded it. In the
ten years between Getlio Vargass suicide in 1954 and the coup that brought the
military to power in 1964 populism collapsed and political uncertainty increased.
This period was also one in which the debate about the future direction of the nation
and discussions about the issue of national identity were conducted by the Institute
of Higher Studies (ISEB). Under the guise of this inuential think tank, various
intellectuals argued that the economic domination of Brazil had historically also
been accompanied by a cultural domination that condemned exploited nations such
as Brazil to merely copy the culture of their exploiters. It was argued that the only
solution to this cycle of domination was to break free from the restrictive power
of dominant powers (i.e. the United States) by adopting a policy of aggressive
63 Reading the celebrated round table debate, Que caminho seguir na msica popular
brasileira? published in the May 1966 issue of Revista Civilizao Brasileira, it is striking
to note the deeply antagonistic attitude held by several of those taking part towards i i i,
purely on ideological (rather than merely musical) grounds.
64 Ruy Castro, Chega de Saudade: A histria e as histrias da Bossa Nova (So Paulo,
1990), p. 405.
65 Luiz Carlos S, Festival da Record: marcha--r musical, Correio da Manha,
27/11/69.
66 Napolitano, Seguindo a cano, pp. 3246.
nationalism.67 An added ingredient to this feeling of hostility towards foreign
penetration of the Brazilian economy was the anti-U.S. sentiments that intensied
in Brazil, and elsewhere in Latin America, after the Cuban Revolution. The political
polarization of the nation during the Goulart administration (196164) in the period
leading up to the 1964 coup was accompanied by the rise in support for the Peasant
Leagues in the Northeast and the growth of several left-wing, anti-imperialist,
politico-cultural movements such as the Centres of Popular Culture (CPC).
Anti-imperialist and musically nationalistic sentiments have been a keystone
of the work of music critic and writer, Jos Ramos Tinhoro since he rst started
working at the Jornal do Brasil in 1961. His often-uncompromising views on
Brazilian popular music have changed little in that time, and Tinhoros views on
cultural dependency have tended to emphasize the concepts of alienation and
underdevelopment in a similar fashion to the ideas rst propounded by the ISEB
and the CPC in the 1950s and 1960s. Tinhoro has steadfastly held to the view that
Brazils cultural dependency is merely an extension of its economic dependency,
and he roots his views on popular music within a wider critique of social conditions
in Brazil. He has made it clear that his analysis is based on an understanding of
historical materialism that is concerned with the manner in which forms of popular
culture that originate amongst the lower social classes are consequently appropriated
by the dominant classes as their own.68
Although he originally trained as a lawyer, Tinhoro soon turned his attention to
popular music instead, and he has pursued a lengthy career as a writer, journalist and
critic on this subject. His rst book, Msica popular:Um tema em debate (1966) made
an immediate impression due to its forthright views and rigorous criticism of the
Bossa Nova movement. The books impact was so signicant that one commentator
has remarked that it represented the most important work on the debate on Brazilian
popular music since Mrio de Andrades Ensaio sobre a Msica Brasileira.69 In
Msica popular: Um tema em debate, Tinhoro lamented the fact that samba had
strayed from its authentic popular roots, and like Ary Vasconcellos before him he

68 Luiz Zanin Oricchio, Tinhoro tenta escapar do ostracismo, O Estado de So Paulo,
16/7/94, Cultura, p. Q3. Tinhoros political outlook has undoubtedly tinged much of his
writing, and largely due to this factor, and a distinctly polemical approach, his general views
on popular music are now considered by many to be outmoded. However, his contribution to
the debate on popular music studies in Brazil cannot be underestimated. Long before it became
more fashionable to write about popular music, he ploughed a lonely furrow, unaided by the
support of academic institutions and often nding it difcult to publish. Nevertheless, he has
created a substantial body of work (now in the region of twenty books) that is a testament
to his unswerving dedication and single-mindedness. He has rigorously and methodically
researched the origins of contemporary Brazilian popular music and acted as a champion
for the re-evaluation of regional styles of music that otherwise would have almost certainly
have been neglected. Tinhoros efforts in this eld are evidence of the enduring legacy of the
Brazilian tradition of musical nationalism rst elaborated by Mrio de Andrade.
considered that the critical moment in its decline had been its Americanisation in
the 1940s, which culminated in the alienated musical style of bossa nova.70
Tinhoro was well aware of the undeniable impact of North American jazz and
other forms of imported popular music within Brazil in the 1920s, but he argued
that any negative effects during that period only affected the type of samba that
was directed towards the middle-class market, while the more authentic samba do
morro continued unaffected in its development as it did not stray from its popular
roots.71 In Tinhoros view, as North American economic and cultural inuence
increased within Brazil in the 1940s and 1950s, a relationship of cultural dependence
developed, producing an alienated Brazilian middle class that were spoon-fed with
imported culture via radio, records and eventually, television.72 He specically cites
the example of Radams Gnatalli as one of the main instigators of this trend of
Americanisation, considering him responsible for confusing arrangements that
were too closely allied to jazz.73 For Tinhoro, the nal straw was bossa novas
musical inferiority complex, symbolized by the genres desperate attempts to gain
social and cultural acceptability with the Brazilian middle classes by attempting to
fuse jazzy bossa nova and elements of classical music.74
In Tinhoros opinion, authenticity is a crucial factor in Brazilian popular
music and he has argued that it is only to be found in Brazilian music in untainted
popular rural forms such as, carimb, baio, xaxado, modas de viola [all regional
forms of popular music], and various types of urban samba. In this respect his views
owe much to the legacy of Mrio de Andrade and the musical nationalist writers
of the 1950s and 1960s that I referred to earlier in this chapter.75 One of the most
famous initial responses to Tinhoros Msica Popular: Um tema em debate came
in an article written by the singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso.76 Velosos view of
the inuence of jazz in Brazil was diametrically opposed to that of Tinhoro: he
argued that jazz had actually greatly enriched Brazilian popular music and provided
another dimension for Brazilian composers to interpret the tradition of artists such
as Orlando Silva, Noel Rosa and Ary Barroso in a fresh, innovative way.77 In a
further article, Veloso also stressed the impossibility of dening any era of samba
as authentic and he attacked what he saw as Tinhoros conservative, reactionary
stance:
70 Jos Ramos Tinhoro, Msica Popular: Um tema em debate (Lisbon, 1969), p. 36.
71 Tinhoro, Msica Popular:Um tema em debate, p. 47.
72 Ibid., p. 54.
73 Ibid., p. 57.
74 Tinhoro, Msica Popular:Um tema em debate, p. 59.
75 Anon, Tinhoro: Pela defesa do que nacional!, Jornal do Metr, 27/8/84.
76 Caetano Veloso, ngulos: Primeira feira de balano (1966) in, Alegria, Alegria (Rio
de Janeiro, 1977), pp. 113.
77 Paiano, O Berimbau, p. 93. However, it is worth mentioning that Hermano Vianna
has demonstrated that in 19656, Veloso used nationalist arguments to defend bossa nova and
referred to artists such as Johnny Alf and Dick Farney as alienated. O Mistrio do Samba,
p. 132.
Tinhoros book defends the preservation of illiteracy as the only salvation for Brazilian
popular music . . . To state that you can only make samba with a frying pan [type of
percussive instrument used in samba] tambourine and a guitar without sevenths and ninths
does not resolve the problem.78
In Velosos opinion, popular music is, and always has been, in a constant state
of ux, subject to the inuence of diverse external and internal commercial and
cultural factors. For him, Joo Gilberto and the Bossa Nova movement epitomized
the essence of the continuation of what he termed the linha evolutiva [evolutionary
line] of Brazilian popular music, not, as Tinhoro claimed, its rupture.79 Paiano
stresses the importance of Velosos stand against Tinhoro, which quickly found
common ground with performers such as Edu Lobo, the conductor Julio Medaglia,
and the writer, Augusto de Campos, all of whom criticized the attempts of nostalgics
such as Tinhoro who they felt wished to turn the clock back to the pre-bossa nova
period.80
With the advent of the Tropiclia movement in 196768, co-led by Caetano
Veloso and Gilberto Gil, Brazilian popular music entered a new, more complex
phase. Tropiclias goal of a universal sound, synthesizing elements of rock
music, jovem guarda, electric guitars, and much more besides, was anathema
to Tinhoro, who famously drew comparisons between the cultural impact of
the Tropicalists and the economic and technological objectives of the military
dictatorship established in 1964.81 If i i i could be dismissed by some as merely
a diluted form of North American pop-rock, then Tropiclia threw up a whole new
set of challenges to those attempting to defend the purity of Brazilian popular
music. Tropiclia represented a potent cocktail of wildly diverse elements avant-
garde music, rock, pop, and traditional Brazilian genres, which all coalesced into
a genuinely new musical creation. By utilizing the universal format of rock music
as a vehicle to get their message across as bossa nova had appropriated elements
of jazz and by using electric guitars in particular, the Tropicalists infuriated
the musical nationalists and those seeking to claim to represent authenticity in
Brazilian popular music.
The Tropicalist experiment was abruptly curtailed by the intense government
censorship that descended on the country after the imposition of the fth Institutional
Act in late 1968. Although the movement was short-lived, it was enormously
signicant in cultural terms, and rapidly came to be viewed retrospectively rather
nostalgically as a reference point for innovation and audacity. The gaiety and sense
of joyful experimentation that characterized Tropiclia stood in stark contrast to the
artistic vacuum which followed the exile of Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Geraldo
Vandr and others, and the all-pervading sense of musical stasis which followed the
imposition of severe censorship in 1968.
78 Airton Barbosa, ed. Que caminho seguir na msica popular brasileira?, p. 378.
80 Ibid., p. 97.
81 Jos Ramos Tinhoro, Pequena histria da msica popular: da modinha lambada
(So Paulo, 1986), pp. 2656.
Veloso and Gil referred to the Tropicalist musical mlange as universal sound,
and Veloso has been quite clear about the aims implicit in their work during this
period: By using electric guitars in melodic compositions with elements of Argentine
tango and African things from Bahia, we assumed a posture of being-in-the-world
we rejected the role of the Third World country living in the shadow of more
developed countries.82 Although Velosos comments were made in recent times,
they seem to reect a stance that is ironically not that far removed from that of Jos
Ramos Tinhoro in the 1960s, reecting the desire to achieve a musical, as opposed
to political, form of non-alignment. In 1968, Gil paid tribute to the inuence of the
work of Joo Gilberto, whose bossa nova compositions ba-la-l and Bim Bom had
contained musical innovations that he felt opened up the possibility for Brazilian
music to make use of new forms of international popular music. In Gils opinion, the
obligation for Tropiclia to take up once again the linha evolutiva initiated by Joo
Gilberto was due to the pressing need to combat the wave of parochial nationalist
sentiments that had descended on Brazilian popular music following the end of the
bossa nova boom. By retreating into an absurd, self-imposed ghetto of obsession
with the povo often symbolized by themes associated with the poor of the Northeast
and an endless search for folkloric purity Gil considered that popular music in
Brazil ran the risk of failing to absorb all that was creative and dynamic about the
newest forms of international music.83
The Debate Widens
The contemporary cultural impact of Tropiclia within popular music was so

profound that it was swiftly recognized that popular music in Brazil would never be
the same. Having said that, it is important to remember that the Tropicalist movement
was not without its critics at the time, expressed in writings by the likes of Sidney
Miller, Augusto Boal, Francisco de Assis and Roberto Schwarz amongst others.84
For example, Sidney Miller, writing in 1968, was critical of the theory that Brazilian
popular music was capable of competing in the international market on equal terms
with that of developed nations. Miller reiterated the view that Brazil had suffered
from cultural underdevelopment for some time and that Brazilian popular music had
stagnated due to the power of foreign multinational record companies that had used the
Brazilian market as a lucrative dumping ground for the worst, i.e. most commercial,
types of international popular music. He argued that for the Tropicalists to claim the
existence of msica universal ignored the reality of the control of world markets by
the dominant economic powers. In his view, Brazil remained a subordinate partner in
this relationship, dependent upon more economically advanced nations to distribute
82 Quoted in Christopher Dunn, Tropiclia, Counterculture, and the Diasporic

Imagination in Brazil, in Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization, ed. by Charles Perrone
and Christopher Dunn (Gainesville, 2001), pp. 7295, (p. 75).
83 Augusto de Campos, Balano da Bossa e outras bossas, p. 190.
84 Marcos Napolitano, Cultura Brasileira: Utopia e Massificao (19501980), (So
Paulo, 2001), p. 70.
its musical raw material worldwide, as had happened with bossa nova.85 I will return
to the specic issue of the role of the Brazilian record industry in Chapter 4.
The debate about the gravity of the threat posed to Brazilian popular music by
international imports continued to rumble on in the press in the early 1970s, and this
issue increasingly started to dominate almost any press discussion relating to popular
music. An illustrative example of this is an article written by Ilmar Carvalho in May
1970, in which he argued that foreign imports were impeding the development of
Brazilian popular music. Carvalho contended that governmental action was urgently
required to protect Brazilian popular music from the predatory attentions of foreign
multinational companies such as RCA (United States), Phillips (Holland) and Odeon
(England), which he claimed were swamping the Brazilian market with musically
inferior product. Carvalhos argument was that foreign imports, which relied on the
sound of electric guitars, bore no relation to the richness and diversity of Brazilian
popular music, and that their increasing penetration of the national market represented
a major threat to the Brazilian public, who would eventually lose contact with its
own cultural heritage. He urged that existing legislation, designed to ensure that
two-thirds of all music played on the radio should be Brazilian, should be properly
enforced and he stressed that such action was necessary to defend national culture
and sovereignty and to enable Brazilian artists to compete on a level playing eld.86
At the other end of the spectrum of this debate, Jlio Hungria used the subject of
the ongoing fth International Song Festival (FIC) held in Rio de Janeiro as a basis
for a double page spread in the Jornal do Brasil newspaper in October 1970, in which
he analysed the current state of MPB. Hungria referred to the two-year hiatus in the
development of the musical linha evolutiva caused by the ight of so many inuential
artists from the country after the imposition of severe censorship in 1968. However,
he found renewed optimism for the future of Brazilian popular music precisely
because of the recent incorporation into national music of imported elements such
as soul music and the music of the Beatles. In his opinion, the appropriation of
international cultural inuences was the only way in which Brazilian musicians and
songwriters would be able to create a new, fully formed musical product capable of
being exported in the same way that bossa nova had been.87
In September 1972, Revista de Cultura Vozes published a lengthy article that
consisted of a series of short interviews with a number of writers and musicians.88
These interviews had been collected over the preceding two years, and reected
the polarization of opinion on the prospects for the future of MPB since the demise
85 Sidney Miller, O Universalismo e a Msica Popular Brasileira, Revista Civilizao

Brasileira, 21/22 (1968), 20721, (p. 212).
86 Ilmar Carvalho, Esto matando a msica popular brasileira, Correio da Manha,
19/5/70. This was a plea similar to that made by several performers and composers who
lobbied Getlio Vargas soon after he took power in 1930 urging for protection for their
livelihoods by legislation stipulating that at least 60 per cent of music played in theatres and
on the radio should be Brazilian. Vargas expressed sympathy for their plight, but no such
action was forthcoming. McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil, pp. 89.
87 Jlio Hungria, A MPB do V FIC, Jornal do Brasil, 31/10/70, Caderno B, pp. 45.
88 Ronaldo Werneck, MPB/Hoje: Uma salada ltero-tropical, Revista de Cultura Vozes,
66 (1972), 67792.
of Tropiclia. When asked about the issue of cultural invasion, songwriter and
record producer Marcus Vincius responded that he considered that the importation
of foreign music was not problematic in itself and was actually to be welcomed.
In his opinion, the far greater threat to the Brazilian music industry lay in the
unchecked importation of foreign records, symbolized by the nancial advantages
enjoyed by foreign record companies operating within Brazil. Vincius also made the
perspicacious observation that despite the large amount of media attention paid to
imported soul music, that had recently found popularity in Brazil, the true musical
innovation at that time was the genesis of rock music, which he considered would in
turn lead to the birth of a Brazilian rock movement.89
The Teatro Casa Grande Debates
This concern about fears of cultural invasion took on a far wider and more
pronounced political dimension through a groundbreaking series of cultural debates
held at the Teatro Casa Grande, in Rio de Janeiro in 1975. Round table discussions
by experts in the elds of cinema, theatre, popular music, plastic arts, journalism,
literature, and publicity were followed by public debates. Audiences for each event
were in the region of 1400, of which 85 per cent were estimated to be students.90
These debates were extremely signicant as they were the rst public events of such
a magnitude to be held in Brazil since the clampdown on political and civil rights
in 1968. One contemporary press report on the events focused on the fact that the
debates demonstrated that young people were now mature enough to gather in their
thousands to discuss important issues without representing a threat to public order; a
reference to the student unrest that had immediately preceded the imposition of the
draconian fth Institutional Act in 1968.91 The size of the audiences staggered the
organizers, particularly as admission was not free. The predominant themes running
through all the debates were the grave impact of censorship on the arts in Brazil
and the increasing de-nationalisation of Brazilian cultural life due to the invasion
of foreign values, which were considered to be at odds with authentic Brazilian
culture.
The debate on popular music on 21st April 1975 was the best attended of all the
events, drawing a crowd of 1500, with 800 outside the theatre listening to a live relay
of the discussion, which lasted four hours. The round table participants included
writer Srgio Cabral and singer-songwriters, Srgio Ricardo, Chico Buarque and
Paulinho de Viola. All these panellists shared the view that Brazilian popular
music had reached a crisis point, and that this was substantially due to the fact that
foreign multinational companies such as Odeon, Phillips, RCA, and CBS effectively
controlled the Brazilian record market. Srgio Cabral indignantly pointed to the
nancial advantages for these companies, who exported master tapes of records to
89 Werneck, MPB/Hoje, pp. 69091.

90 Anon, De volta ao livre debate Viso, 9/6/75, p. 60.
91 Ibid., p. 60. Even so, the organizers adopted a cautious approach and due to concerns
that political activists might hijack the event they ensured that questions from the oor were
written and passed to the rostrum.
Brazil when all production costs had already been accounted for in the country of
origin and then received generous tax exemptions from the Brazilian government
for merely printing the slogan disco cultura [records are culture] on the record
sleeve because it had been manufactured in Brazil. In comparison, the total cost of
producing a Brazilian record had now become nancially prohibitive, and hence
new and less renowned Brazilian artists had an uphill struggle to have their work
recorded by the foreign record companies who dominated the Brazilian market.92 To
illustrate his point, Cabral informed the audience that the overwhelming majority of
the best-selling singles in Brazil that week were foreign, but he also stressed that this
was not a new phenomenon, as Brazil had been subjected to continual importation
of foreign music since the 1940s. Legislation had been passed in 1961 setting out a
minimum quota of 50 per cent for the broadcast of Brazilian music on radio and in
public places such as nightclubs, but it had been completely ignored. Cabral argued
for the vigorous imposition of this legislation, but Chico Buarque was equivocal on
this issue and maintained that not all imported music was of poor quality.
The Teatro Casa Grande debates represented a rare opportunity for a young,
mainly student audience to gather and express concern about what they perceived to
be the artistic crisis facing Brazilian society, and the debates received extensive press
coverage even though the content of the debates extended beyond merely artistic
matters, i.e. the impact of censorship itself was discussed. The huge attendance
at the debate on popular music demonstrates the intense interest in the subject at
the time, and questions from the oor echoed the concerns of the panellists about
foreign domination of Brazils music industry. These events reected the anxieties
of a generation growing up post-1968 and seeking some form of political leadership
and direction from gures within the eld of popular music. After the ight into exile
by so many of the key gures in popular music in the wake of the cultural censorship
imposed by the fth Institutional Act it was widely considered, by the public and
critics alike, that artists of an equal stature had not arisen to take their place. Hence
the widespread attention paid to Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque on their return to
Brazil in the early 1970s. Both these artists found themselves unwilling to adopt the
role that was expected of them by those critical of the military regime, and Buarques
discomfort in this respect was obvious at the Teatro Casa Grande debate.93 Some of
those present at the popular music debate were half expecting a show by Chico
Buarque and were consequently disappointed at the prosaic nature of the problems
facing popular music that were under discussion. Many others were impatient for
some decisive action to result from the event. The open question hovering over each
debate was what next? Yet to the frustration of many of the audience there were
92 Ciclo de Debates do Teatro Casa Grande (Rio de Janeiro, 1976), p. 73. It is hardly
surprising that foreign record companies were attracted to the potentially lucrative Brazilian
market, as it was in a period of growth at the time that would result in it being the fth largest
market in the world in 19789. Marcia Tosta Dias, Os Donos da Voz: Indstria Fonogrfica
Brasileira e Mundializao da Cultura (So Paulo, 2000), p. 58.
93 Returning to Brazil from exile, Caetano Veloso was quoted as stating: I dont want to
assume any leadership role. I only want to sing my songs so that people see that we continue
singing and working. There is no more hope for organizing people around a common ideal.
Christopher Dunn, Brutality Garden, p. 172.
no simple answers to be had. As one of the organizers admitted after the event: The
response to what can be done? is do it! Not always what you would like to do,
but always what you can. We did what we could.94
We Dont Play Samba Here: Radio and Cultural Invasion
Legislation passed by the Quadros government in 1961, which stipulated that 50

per cent of all music played in public and on radio should be Brazilian, was never
enforced. However, complaints about this at the Casa Grande debates seem to
have stung the government into action because the Ministry of Communications
announced in October 1975 that this gure was to be increased to 75 per cent for
ofcial radio and television stations.95 Nevertheless, in reality little changed regarding
this issue, except for the fact that increasing research and monitoring was carried out
by organizations such as Informa Som which had been set up in 1974 to enable those
working within the music industry to have access to hard data relating to the exact
number of radio plays in major cities of every record that was released in Brazil.96
This was of obvious benet to those concerned with the payment of artists royalties,
and also to those record companies attempting to monitor the airplay achieved for
their releases. Informa Soms statistics also provided the basis for a series of articles
in the magazine SomTrs from 1979 onwards, which analysed this data to draw
conclusions about trends and patterns within Brazilian radio. These articles, often
written by Maurcio Kubrusly, are fascinating for the depth of statistical information
they contain, and also for demonstrating the continuation of the concept of cultural
invasion in certain sectors of the media.
The importance of what was played on the radio in Rio de Janeiro and So
Paulo cannot be overestimated because syndicated radio stations all over Brazil
subsequently repeatedly played those same records. In 1979, of the ten most played
records in Rio de Janeiro only three were Brazilian, and in So Paulo during the
same period the ratio was four out of ten. Statistics such as these prompted Kubrusly
to ironically observe at the time:
. . . Brazilian radio station announcers will soon have to broadcast in English as some
stations have been doing recently. With this, the capitulation will be complete and radio
will also be inltrated by the strange colonized complex that guides the social columns,
where we are told everyday that foreign is best, whether it be an actress, a cigarette, a
household gadget or a bottle of Fedor perfume.97
To graphically illustrate his point, Kubrusly reported that when the singer-songwriter
Gonzaguinha was invited to an FM radio station in So Paulo to participate in a live
broadcast to promote his latest album and asked the interviewer to play a samba from
94 Anon, De volta ao livre debate, p. 61.

95 Anon, 75% de som nativo, Opinio, 24/10/75, p. 26.
96 Anon, Prova dos noves, Veja, 15/2/79, pp. 1034.
97 Maurcio Kubrusly, On the radio, SomTrs, no.16, April 1980, p. 96.
that album, he was greeted with the response: . . . we dont play samba here.98 The
preponderance of largely North American music chosen directly from the Billboard
charts played by Brazilian FM radio stations in the late 1970s was particularly
galling for many commentators as it coincided with the disco boom then sweeping
across Brazil. Those who viewed disco as lightweight, imported, musical fodder
for the masses as many in the Brazilian media did breathed a collective sigh of
relief as the craze nally passed and MPB once again came to the fore in the early
1980s due to massive investment and promotion by the record industry. However,
ironically one form of musical domination was replaced by another, as statistics
for radio play in Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo during the months of December in
1981, 1982 and 1983 revealed that the playlists were now swamped with MPB, with
virtually no foreign music present. Even Kubrusly saw this as problematical because
during those three years the most played artists were virtually the same in both cities,
namely, Gal Costa, Rita Lee, Roberto Carlos, Simone and Milton Nascimento, which
constituted what he considered to be a repetitive period of musical stagnation.99 Once
again, MPB was portrayed in the media as being in a phase of artistic crisis. This
state of affairs was partially responsible for the kick-start given to the Brazilian rock
movement in the mid 1980s through the support of independent FM radio stations
in various Brazilian cities. Further discussion of the implications of this saturation
of Brazilian radio by foreign music, and its relationship to record sales in Brazil will
be provided in Chapter 4.
Resisting the Tide: So Paulos Cultura FM
The domination of the airwaves by FM stations pumping out large quantities of

predominantly foreign music in the 1980s provoked a response in areas other than
the press. The Padre Anchieta Foundation was established in So Paulo in 1969 with
nancial funding from the state government to promote educational and cultural
activities and this resulted in the founding of Rdio Cultura and TV Cultura. One of
the foundations aims was to actively promote Brazilian popular music and to support
new artists working in that eld.100 Initially, Rdio Cultura was broadcast on both the
AM and FM wavelengths, with the FM frequency devoted to classical music, and the
AM frequency, with far poorer reception quality, reserved for popular music. That
policy changed radically when Maria Luiza Khfouri took over as musical producer
of Cultura FM in 1989, and initiated a programming change in which six hours
per day were allocated to Brazilian popular music. This was a conscious decision
to open up Cultura FM to a wider, but still predominantly middle-class, audience
and to full the stations remit to support popular music. Khfouri chose the music
herself, with no concessions to pressures from record companies to air their releases.
98 Maurcio Kubrusly, A democracia bem relativa da FM, SomTrs, no. 5, May, 1979,
p. 105.
99 Maurcio Kubrusly, A trilha sonora do status quo, SomTrs, no. 64, April, 1984,
pp. 956.
100 Walmes Nogueira Galvo and Waldimas Nogueira Galvo, Cultura 20 Anos (So
Paulo, 1989), p. 89.
Her selection was designed to reect both traditional and contemporary aspects of
Brazilian popular music, ranging from Chiquinha Gonzaga to Cazuza, and all points
in between. A series of thirty-two programmes about the life of Noel Rosa were aired,
as well as programmes featuring the music of artists such as Vinicus de Morais, Elis
Regina, Egberto Gismonti, Hermeto Pascoal and Wagner Tiso.
Because Cultura FM is not a commercial radio station and is nancially supported
by the state government, it does not operate within the same constraints that affect
other commercial stations. It is not overly concerned with audience ratings and
realizes that it is serving a niche market. Even so, Khfouri clearly considered her
work at Cultura FM between 1989 and 1995 to be a cultural counter-attack: an
attempt to provide an alternative to what she and her colleagues perceived as the
mediocrity of the mainstream media. To give just one example, Cultura FM was
one of the only major stations in Brazil during that period that would play music by
the likes of Gismonti and Pascoal. Khfouri considers Cultura FMs efforts to form
part of a wider movement of cultural resistance, concerned with the protection of
the tradition of quality popular Brazilian music and the importance of bringing
that music to a wider public.101 In the nal section of this chapter I will discuss the
impact of an organization dedicated to ghting on behalf of Brazilian popular music,
an organization of which Khfouri is a member.
The Association of Researchers in Brazilian Popular Music (APMPB) and the

Continuation of the Debate
Successive waves of imported musical trends such as rock, disco and reggae were
popular in Brazil during the 1970s and 1980s, yet echoes of arguments in favour
of the need to protect Brazilian popular music from cultural invasion continually
resurfaced at regular intervals. One of the principal forums for the continuation of
this debate, apart from the press, has been within the APMPB. Founded in 1975,
at the rst Encontro de Pesquisadores da Msica Popular Brasileira [Meeting of
Researchers in Brazilian popular music] in Curitiba, the APMPB has organized
several Encontros over the intervening years that have brought together academics,
critics, and researchers, all working in the eld of popular music. Those closely
associated with the Association have included celebrated writers and critics such
as Srgio Cabral, Ary Vasconcellos, Jos Ramos Tinhoro, Roberto Moura, Ruy
Castro, Trik de Souza, Zuza Homem de Mello and many others.
The 1975 Encontro issued an open letter to Ney Braga, then minister for Education
and Culture, calling amongst other things for the proper enforcement of the 1961
legislation specifying a xed percentage of Brazilian popular music to be broadcast
on radio and television. The second Encontro was held the following year in Rio de
Janeiro, and was jointly organized by the National Art Foundation (FUNARTE) and
the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC). Once again, practical solutions were
suggested to the government to arrest the perceived decline in the status of Brazilian
popular music. These included:
101 Author interview with Maria Luiza Khfouri, 22/8/03.

Financial levies on imported LPs.
The imposition of an obligatory ratio of 50 per cent of Brazilian music to be
broadcast on radio.
A code of practice for radio and television in order to protect national
culture.
Both Ary Vasconcellos and Jos Ramos Tinhoro were present at this Encontro
and both spoke out against what they considered to be the major threat of imported
foreign popular music. Vasconcellos emphasized that merely opposing foreign
imports was not sufcient, what was required was positive action in defence of
national popular music. Tinhoro repeated his now familiar condemnation of
cultural colonisation, and agreed that the only way in which Brazilian popular
music could compete on an equal footing with foreign competition was through the
imposition of surcharges on imports.102
Six years passed until the next Encontro in 1982, held in Rio de Janeiro and co-
sponsored by FUNARTE and the National Institute of Music. Although it had taken
that long to arrange adequate funding to cover the event, a large number of delegates
and the public attended the daily lectures and debates.103 Proof of the continuing
importance of Tinhoro in the eld of popular music research was that he found
himself the subject of much debate at the Encontro, as delegates either defended
his reputation or labelled him as a populist and a demagogue.104 A further Encontro
in 1985 was attended by 172 delegates and featured a debate between academic
writer and music critic, Jos Miguel Wisnik and Tinhoro, on the theme of cultural
invasion.
Due to a lack of funding it was a further fteen years until the next, and latest
Encontro, a week-long affair, attended by hundreds of delegates and organized by
the Rio de Janeiro branch of the Museum of Image and Sound in Rio de Janeiro in
November 2001. To provide some sort of thematic link with previous proceedings,
the debate between Wisnik and Tinhoro on the theme of cultural invasion was re-
convened to serve as the keynote debate of the Encontro. The obvious point to make
here is that despite the passing of fteen years in which the nature of popular music
in Brazil had changed greatly, the issue was still felt to be of great importance by
the Associations organizing committee. At the start of the debate, Wisnik recalled
the rst time that he met Tinhoro, several years previously. As a fellow writer and
critic specializing in popular music, Tinhoro admonished Wisnik in the following
manner: We live in a country dominated by foreign culture, and in such a country it
is our duty to oppose such domination. Despite going on to praise Tinhoros single-
minded, dedicated commitment to research in popular music in his presentation,
Wisnik also referred to the latter as a type of cultural Bin Laden in other words, a
cultural zealot. Whilst he freely conceded that cultural life and economic reality are
102 Emlia Silveira, Para vencer, a MPB ter que aprender Ingls, Jornal do Brasil,
16/11/76.
103 Anon, O passado e o presente da msica popular brasileira, em questo, O Globo,
24/4/82.
104 Ibid.
intrinsically linked, Wisnik chose to celebrate the positive aspects of transnational
cultural interchange rather than regret the dilution of the essence of Brazilian
culture. He claimed that Tinhoros stand against inauthenticity in popular music
(bossa nova and Tropiclia) and the quest for pure, uncontaminated Brazilian
popular music was no longer tenable. Like Caetano Veloso in 1966, Wisnik argued
that Brazilian popular music has always been a glorious hotchpotch of international
inuences, and that it was born out of an unholy process of mixture and synthesis,
the latest example of this being the burgeoning Brazilian hip-hop and rap movement,
which Wisnik considers to be the most signicant development in Brazilian popular
music since bossa nova.105
The debate between Wisnik and Tinhoro in 2001, illustrated that the ideology of
musical nationalism is now considered by some, but by no means all, Brazilian writers
and researchers in the eld of popular music to be an irrelevance. For example, many
in the audience at the Encontro poorly received Wisniks positive assessment of the
contribution of rap to Brazilian music. Echoes of Tinhoros longstanding concerns
about the dilution of Brazilian popular music by foreign inuences were also to be
heard in a presentation made by Marcus Vincius (the same songwriter and record
producer cited earlier in this chapter), who provided evidence of the power and
inuence of foreign multinationals within Brazil. To illustrate his argument, Vincius
informed the audience that a German company now owns the commercial rights to
Pelo Telefone one of the earliest recorded sambas. Vincius also gave several other
examples of Brazilian musical compositions that were no longer owned by Brazilian
interests.106 His moral outrage at this state of affairs was perhaps understandable, but
failed to address the key issue of the responsibility of those who took the decision to
cede control of the patrimonial rights to certain aspects of Brazilian popular music
in the rst place.
Through its Encontros and the writings of its members in the press, the APMPB
has acted as a pressure group, periodically alerting the government to what many
of its members have seen as threats to national popular music. The Associations
inuence was clearly present in some of the ideas expressed in the governments
Poltica Nacional de Cultura [National Cultural Policy] of 1975, and also in the
Projeto Pixinguinha initiative, both of which will be discussed in depth in Chapter
5. Members of the APMPB were responsible for a massive project to compile a
discography of all 78 rpm records produced in Brazil between 1902 and 1964. This
invaluable research that incorporates 55,000 recordings and 550,000 references was
funded and published by the Ministry of Culture. Members of the APMPB such
as Hermnio Bello de Carvalho have also been responsible for the publication of
dozens of studies on forgotten gures from the world of Brazilian popular music
(particularly in the eld of samba) through the auspices of FUNARTE, works that have
helped to perpetuate the memory of the contribution of such artists. Unfortunately,
the APMPBs Encontros have been irregular affairs, and it has to be conceded that
105 Jos Miguel Wisnik, Encontro Nacional De Pesquisadores de Msica Popular

Brasileira, UERJ, Rio de Janeiro, 29/10/01.
106 Marcus Vincius, Encontro Nacional De Pesquisadores de Msica Popular Brasileira,
UERJ, Rio de Janeiro, 1/11/01.
they now have a lower visibility in the media than they did in the 1970s. Despite this,
they have represented one of the very few opportunities that have existed in Brazil
for academics, writers, journalists, researchers, musicians and students to gather
together and discuss fundamental issues relating to popular music.
Conclusion
Mrio de Andrades writings on music have clearly informed the debate on values
within Brazilian popular music since the publication of his Ensaio Sbre a Msica
Brasileira. They have inuenced ideas about what constitutes the Brazilian element
in Brazilian popular music, and they have also been used to dene what is good and
bad in popular music by establishing the basis for a hierarchy of values. Mrios idea
of authenticity in music, and the importance he attributed to Brazilian folk music
in particular, can be clearly distinguished in the writings of Almirante, Vasconcellos,
Rangel and Tinhoro. Mrios writings also form the bedrock of various initiatives
which have attempted to preserve and protect Brazilian folklore and popular music,
such as the work of the APMPB, the establishment of the FUNARTE (discussed in
Chapter 5), Marcus Perreiras musical mapping of Brazil in the 1970s (discussed in
Chapter 6), and Ariano Suassunas Armorial movement, to name but a few.
Mrios notion of the need for Brazilian music to break away from the dominance
of foreign inuences to develop its own identity struck a particularly resonant
chord in the 1960s, when ideas of cultural dependency were very much in vogue.
Despite the brief moments of musical autonomy suggested by the Bossa Nova
and Tropiclia movements, the increasing domination of the Brazilian market by
multinational record companies from the early 1970s onwards, represented for many
musical nationalists and members of the public evidence of external manipulation
and exploitation designed to prevent the development of a truly independent form
of Brazilian popular music. In an increasingly globalized age such sentiments are
now far less common, but they can still be detected in the pronouncements of some
members of the APMPB, and journalists and critics who resent what they perceive
to be the ever more fragmented and international character of the Brazilian music
scene.
Having discussed the tradition of musical nationalism, the following chapter will
address how the sense of the national within popular music became symbolically
embodied within MPB from the mid 1960s onwards.
Chapter 2
Inventing the Idea of MPB
Attempting to dene the type of Brazilian popular music suggested by the term MPB
is not as simple as it might initially seem. The phrase appears on the face of it to be
self-explanatory, i.e. music that is both popular and Brazilian. However, due to a
variety of interconnecting factors the original signicance attributed to the acronym
shifted away from its original connotation in the mid 1960s and has developed over
the intervening years into a type of shorthand that alludes to a series of values and
assumptions about popular music in Brazil. The rst part of this chapter analyses
the distinguishing features of MPB in order to determine what it is that makes MPB
unique and distinct from Brazilian popular music as a whole, and why it has occupied
an iconic status within Brazilian culture for more than forty years. The second part
of the chapter examines the respective roles of the record industry and the press in
the formation of the notion of MPB as music of quality. Particular attention is
devoted to the part played by the recording industry in the 1970s in helping to create
the myth of MPB.
The Singularity of MPB
MPB came into existence as a musical hybrid, incorporating elements of jazz, bossa
nova and international popular music, and that original musical diversity, and MPBs
seemingly innite capacity to re-invent itself, are two of the principal reasons why
its inuence has been so long-standing in an era of increasing musical diversication
in Brazil. Marcos Napolitano has referred to MPB as having acted as a centrifugal
force within Brazilian popular music, attracting and absorbing elements of samba,
choro, rock music, pop, msica sertaneja [Brazilian country music] and many other
styles into its ambit, whilst at the same time retaining its position of dominance
in the musical hierarchy that exists within Brazilian popular music.1 However, to
counterbalance the notion of MPB as an all-embracing musical movement it is
important to consider another of its dening aspects. MPB was originally forged
in the heat of a erce rivalry between supporters of jovem guarda and international
pop music and bossa nova in the mid 1960s. During that period, an era when foreign
music dominated the national charts, MPB boldly proclaimed itself as Brazilian
by denition, and its supporters attempted to seize the nationalist high ground by
using MPB as a standard bearer for national popular music, seeking to repel not only
the incursions of imported music but also the enemy within represented by jovem
guarda.
1 Napolitano, Seguindo a cano, p. 290.

The record industry exploited this struggle during the 1960s with a largely
phoney war conducted in the media between the Philips label, associated with artists
in the MPB camp, and its main rival CBS, which represented many jovem guarda
artists. When sales for both labels boomed, due primarily to the popularity of MPB
and jovem guarda, each company set about creating a roster of artists.2 As MPB
grew in popularity and established its position within the music industry and the
media its position was further consolidated by the growing power of both the record
industry and the television networks. As Napolitano has observed, this simultaneous
development resulted in a synergetic boost for MPB at a critical stage.3 The heyday
of MPB in the late 1960s and the 1970s also coincided with a large growth in the
communications and entertainment industry, which provided the backdrop to an
explosion in youth culture markedly different to that which had gone before (this
issue will be explored later in this chapter).
Since the early 1970s, MPB has shown a marked ability to move with the times
in an attempt to retain and expand its popularity in the face of the rise of alternative
musical movements, so much so that it has come to represent an increasingly broad
church.4 However, this amalgamation of inuences normally takes the form of a
dilution of the essence of the musical style that is being absorbed. Theoretically, any
type of music can become MPB, but only if its regional roots are de-emphasized (if it
is derived from a regional form), its rough edges are honed (if it is overly percussive
or electric) or its harmonies are made more complex (if it is derived from a popular
form).5 Blurring of boundaries between genres has regularly occurred as artists from
the elds of samba, rock and pop have entered and re-entered the MPB camp. This
overlapping of artists from different musical styles was most pronounced towards
the end of the 1980s when even a former bastion of Brazilian rock music such as the
group Legio Urbana was considered to have become MPB.6
Those responsible for the marketing and image of MPB in the 1970s astutely
drew upon the established tradition of popular Brazilian music since the 1930s
to re-brand artists such as Noel Rosa, Pixinguinha and Clementina de Jesus as
forerunners and trailblazers for MPB. By imaginatively associating MPB with
these velha guarda artists, and by regularly re-recording their compositions, MPB
performers and songwriters were, and still are, imbued with part of the historical
aura of authenticity and musical status of their predecessors. Thus, MPB has been
projected at different times and sometimes simultaneously as part of a glorious
musical tradition, and also as an innovative, anthropophagic musical form capable
of adapting and transforming the latest trends in popular music for its own benet.
2 Napolitano, Seguindo a cano, p. 84.

3 Ibid., p. 84.
4 This becomes clear when one enters Brazilian music stores and often encounters
a diverse and ever-changing array of music gathered together under the catch-all title of
MPB.
5 Idelber Avelar, Heavy Metal Music in Postdictatorial Brazil: Sepultura and the
Coding of Nationality in Sound, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, vol. 12/3 (2003),
32946 (p. 342).
6 Arthur Dapieve, Brock: O Rock Brasileiro dos Anos 80 (Rio de Janeiro, 1995),
p. 196.
INVENTING THE IDEA OF MPB 41
As Paulo Cesar de Arajo points out, two contrasting and yet often complementary
schools of thought about popular music in Brazil have developed since the mid
1960s: one that venerates tradition, and another that champions modernity.7 This
can therefore be seen as having been another of the factors that has facilitated the
longevity and authoritarian status of MPB, for the movement synthesizes elements
of both these tendencies.
MPB has also beneted from being the focus of an intellectual debate, conducted
in academic journals and the press, that has often sought to portray it as the latest
stage in what Caetano Veloso famously referred to in 1965 as a linha evolutiva
within popular music.8 By using this expression Veloso was drawing attention to
the possibility (and implied necessity) for popular music to progress through the
selective choice of elements from Brazils musical tradition, in conjunction with the
periodic need to break free from existing musical patterns, as had been the case with
the innovations introduced into Brazilian popular music by Joo Gilberto and the
Bossa Nova movement.9 Consequently, MPB simultaneously has a foot in both the
present and the past, and can be projected as both the upholder of tradition and the
harbinger of musical modernization.
Definitions of MPB
At the height of its fame and exposure in the 1960s and 1970s, the use of the term
MPB in the Brazilian media became virtually synonymous with Brazilian popular
music as a whole. Acres of coverage of MPB in the press celebrated the rise of singer-
songwriters following in the footsteps of major stars such as Caetano Veloso and
Chico Buarque, who had come to fame via the televised song festivals of the 1960s.
The legacy of this so-called classic phase of MPB has been extremely long lasting
in the eld of popular music and the general cultural sphere in Brazil, which has
resulted in both positive and detrimental effects. The sheer quality and originality of
much of the music produced under the umbrella of MPB between 1965 and the late
1970s is undeniably impressive.10 Nevertheless, from originally being merely one of
the latest in a long line of musical currents to develop within Brazil, MPB came to
overshadow the entire eld of popular music, being viewed by many within the mass
media as a reference point and yardstick by which all other types of popular music
should be judged. That view was easier to understand, if not necessarily to agree with,
when it was relatively clear what kind of popular music MPB referred to. However,
by the 1980s it had become increasingly difcult to dene the precise parameters of
MPB due to the appearance of numerous alternatives in the eld of popular music,
7 Arajo, Eu No Sou Cachorro, No, pp. 33764.

8 Airton Barbosa, ed. Que caminho seguir na msica popular brasileira?, p. 378.
9 Marcos Napolitano, Histria & Msica:Histria cultural da msica popular (Belo
Horizonte, 2002), pp. 689. See also, Eduardo Granja Coutinho, Velhas histrias, memrias
futuras: o sentido da tradio na obra de Paulinho da Viola (Rio de Janeiro, 2002),
pp. 825.
10 For an outstanding survey of this period, see Perrone, Masters of Contemporary
Brazilian Song.
such as rock, ax-music [dance music from the state of Bahia] and msica sertaneja,
all of which occasionally included elements of MPB in their makeup.
The Enciclopdia da Msica Brasileira is generally accepted to be one of the
most authorative reference works yet published in the eld of study of Brazilian
popular music. It states that the rst use of MPB as an acronym was in the text of
the liner notes to a 1960 LP by bossa nova artist Carlos Lyra. The Enciclopdia
goes on to observe that MPB subsequently became synonymous with bossa nova,
but after 1965 was associated with all popular music in Brazil, apart from rock,
blues and soul. By 1981, MPB was considered to encompass all Brazilian popular
music, including rock.11 Evidently one could contest the Enciclopdias denition
of MPB on the grounds of reecting a partial view of the contributor and/or editor;
nonetheless, the point to stress here is that the acronym has signied very different
things to different people at various stages over the last four decades.
When I attended the national meeting of researchers in Brazilian popular music
(APMPB) in Rio de Janeiro in 2001, I was surprised by the wide-ranging and
conicting denitions of MPB expressed by many of the delegates present. Perhaps
it is therefore hardly surprising that this ambiguity also extends to consumers of
popular music in Brazil. A survey of self-confessed fans of MPB in 2002 revealed
that they included pagode [a form of samba] and the music of Roberto Carlos (the
high priest of msica romntica) within the category of MPB, neither of which
would have traditionally been considered to form part of the movement.12 This sense
of confusion and uncertainty is not so surprising if we recognize that genre labels
within popular music are uid and have always been imprecise, created to serve both
the record industry and individual consumers. Music can, of course, t into several
different categories at the same time.13
Carlos Sandroni has argued that the use of the term MPB between the 1960s and
the 1980s had three overlapping meanings: rst, it was a way of distinguishing MPB
from art and folkloric music; second, it carried with it an ideological signicance
associated with a support for the povo brasileiro [Brazilian masses]; and third, it
was a statement of personal taste that reected a liking for a broad range of music
including samba and bossa nova for example but with certain limitations (rejecting
European or US inuenced rock).14
11 Marco Antonio Marcondes (ed.), Enciclopdia da Msica Brasileira:Popular,Erudita

e Folclrica (So Paulo, 2000) p. 542.
12 Martha Tupinamb de Ulha, Categorias de avaliao esttica da MPB lidando com a
recepo da msica brasileira popular, presented at IV Congreso de la Rama Latinoamericano,
IASPM, Mexico City, April 2002 <www.hist.puc.cl/historia/iaspmla> [accessed 1 March
2003], pp. 67. For a further academic survey of what consumers consider to be MPB, see
Laan Mendes de Barros, O Consumo da Cano de Consumo: Uma anlise dos processos
de recepo da cano popular Brasileira por jovens universitrios, (unpublished doctoral
thesis, E.C.A, University of So Paulo, 1994).
13 Simon Frith, Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (Oxford, 1996),
p. 77.
14 Carlos Sandroni, Adeus MPB, in Decantando a Repblica: Inventrio Histrico e
Poltico da Cano Popular Moderna Brasileira, vol 1, ed. by Berenice Cavalcante, Heloisa
Starling and Jos Eisenberg (Rio de Janeiro, 2004), pp. 2335 (p. 29).
Martha de Ulha Carvalho has adopted a different approach to categorizing MPB
and has attempted to divide Brazilian popular music into two main categories: rst,
MPB, which has its roots in the lundu and the samba of the 1930s, and second,
msica romntica, which is derived from the modinha. Carvalho contends that social
class, gender, age and race all play crucial roles in determining how popular music is
distinguished and dened in Brazil.15 She contends that in the wake of the Brazilian
Modernist movement of the 1920s concepts of national identity were developed by
intellectual elites that sought to create an authentic Brazilian culture. In musical
terms, these intellectuals associated themselves with the values contained within the
European classical music canon. That canon attributed particular value to classical
music (as regards technique and erudition) and folk music (as a valuable source of
raw material capable of being developed into art for nationalist aims). For these
intellectuals and tastemakers some of whom were referred to in the previous chapter
the validity of urban popular music was to be judged in relation to its proximity to
classical or folk music. In Carvalhos opinion, the style of MPB that ourished in the
1960s and 1970s was imbued with high intellectual prestige due to its sophisticated
lyrics and harmonies and because it drew on traditional forms of folk music for its
inspiration, and is therefore an authentic reection of the national.16 Carvalhos
analysis helps to explain how the cachet of legitimacy that is attached to MPB is
denied to other genres, such as msica romntica for example, even though the latter
has always been far more popular in terms of sales in Brazil. Thus, intellectual and
class-based value judgements are behind the labelling of the music of Chico Buarque
and Caetano Veloso as MPB, and that of Amado Batista, for example, as brega.17
The existence of brega [also known as msica cafona, literally, bad taste], a
sub-genre of romantic, popular music has been common knowledge since at least
1984, when press reports revealed that the relatively unknown Amado Batista was
second only to Roberto Carlos in terms of record sales in Brazil.18 Despite being
massively popular, mainly in the peripheral areas of urban centres and in the interior,
brega has never met with the approval of the ofcial arbiters of taste in Brazil.19 From
the 1960s until the 1980s, MPB was an overwhelmingly middle-class product, made
by predominantly middle-class artists for a middle-class, often student, audience.
Consequently, middle-class music critics have largely ignored brega and it has been
almost completely airbrushed out of all ofcial histories of Brazilian popular music
because of its associations with a socially inferior public. This marginalization
15 Martha de Ulha Carvalho, Tupi or Not Tupi MPB: Popular Music and Identity in
Brazil, in The Brazilian Puzzle: Culture on the Borderlands of the Western World, ed. by
David Hess and Roberto Da Matta (New York, 1995), pp.15979 (pp. 1623).
16 Ibid., p. 164.
17 Ibid., p. 163.
18 See for example. Anon, Campees de audencia, Viso, 15/10/84, pp. 547.
19 The brega artists Milionrio and Jos Rico were extremely popular in China in the
1980s, and as part of an agreement for cultural interchange, the Chinese government sent the
Peking Symphony Orchestra to Brazil and requested Milionrio and Jos Rico to tour China.
When the Brazilian government refused to fund the trip on aesthetic grounds the duo paid for
it at their own expense. Samuel M. Arajo, Brega: Music and Conict in Urban Brazil, Latin
American Music Review, vol. 9, no.1, (1988) 5089 (p. 85).
has been recently rectied by Paulo Csar de Arajos major study, Eu No Sou
Cachorro, No: Msica Popular Cafona e Ditadura Militar. Without debating
the inherent quality or lack of it pertaining to msica cafona, Arajo persuasively
argues for a re-assessment of the value of this music and the cultural role that it has
played, and continues to play, in the lives of countless millions of Brazilians over the
last forty odd years.20 Arajos book has provoked considerable discussion in Brazil
due to its iconoclastic debunking of several of the myths that surround MPB. He
authoritatively demonstrates how msica cafona and MPB have been traditionally
portrayed in a two-tier fashion in the media, bringing to mind comparisons between
Mrio de Andrades views on msica popularesca in the 1930s, and music critics in
the 1970s who have referred to brega as submsica.21 Arajo also clearly identies
how msica cafonas role in providing various aspects of social criticism through its
lyrical content has been completely ignored by the Brazilian media.
MPB: Quality and Popularity
Carvalhos analysis, cited earlier in this section, raises the important issue of how
MPB is branded as a superior product. This is partly due to the strong links that
exist between MPB and Brazilian literature and poetry. Most studies of Brazilian
popular music of the 1960s and 1970s tend to make at least some reference to the
remarkable owering of song lyricists associated with this phase of MPB. The
outpouring of work by the likes of Jos Carlos Capinam, Aldir Blanc, Fernando
Brandt, Ruy Guerra, Vitor Martins and Ronaldo Bastos led at least one contemporary
writer to consider that the nest Brazilian poetry of that era was to be found within
the eld of popular music.22
A creative fusion between elements of Brazilian popular music and Brazilian
poetry has been a persistent feature of the cultural scene since the Modernist
movement of the 1920s. Affonso Romano de SantAnna has traced the development
of a tradition of lyrical sophistication in Brazilian popular music in the twentieth
century that commences with Noel Rosa in the late 1920s, and which encompasses
songwriters as diverse as Catulo da Paixo Cearense, Sinh, Antonio Carlos Jobim,
Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque. SantAnna argues that with the synthesis of
three interconnected factors in the 1950s the publication of Lcio Rangels Revista
de Msica Popular Brasileira (19546); the decision by the poet Vincius de Moraes
to write lyrics for popular music in the late 1950s; and the rise of bossa nova it
is clearly possible to identify a systematic link between popular music and literary
poetry.23
Jos Miguel Wisnik also considers Vincius de Moraess transition from lyrical
poet to songwriter to have been of the utmost importance for the development of
MPB. In his view, from that juncture lyricists and composers working within popular
20 (Rio de Janeiro, 2002).

21 Arajo, Eu No Sou Cachorro, No, p. 186.
22 Ana Maria Bahiana, Os novos poetas da msica, Opinio, 19/3/76, p. 18.
23 Affonso Romano de SantAnna, Msica popular e moderna poesia brasileira
(Petrpolis, 1986), p. 179.
music started to creatively explore the boundaries between written and sung poetry
by drawing upon the fertile tradition of Brazilian poetry contained in the works of
the like of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Joo Cabral, Manuel Bandeira and Mrio
de Andrade.24 This period of intense cross-fertilization between literary sources,
poetry, and popular song reached its height between the late 1960s and 1973, after
which it continued in the work of a few composers such as Caetano Veloso, Chico
Buarque and Marcus Vincius, but by 1980 it was no longer the norm.25
Some idea of the complex nature of MPB and how it possesses the capacity to
appeal on various different levels can be encapsulated in the following quote from
Carvalho:
Brazilians enjoy MPB for many different reasons: Elis Regina for her interpretations of
songs, Milton Nascimento for his communication of emotion, Caetano Veloso for his vocal
suavity and wit, and Chico Buarque de Hollanda for his perceptive and clever critique of
Brazilian politics. MPB is made for listening rather than dancing . . . MPB artists aim at
the creative communication of emotion by means of an elaborate language understandable
to persons of culture and good taste.26
This emphasis on the cerebral, rather than corporal aspect of MPB, is reinforced
by Nelson Ascher, who recalls attending a concert by MPB singer-songwriter Jards
Macal in the late 1970s at which he was astonished to see some of the audience get
up to dance. Although certain MPB compositions might have received an airing in
nightclubs at the time, in the main the music was considered serious and was not
composed with dancing in mind.27 By emphasizing the cerebral over the corporal,
MPB was differentiated from more popularesca styles of music that were designed
primarily for dancing to. Within the internal hierarchy of MPB, even the standing of
a celebrated singer-songwriter such as Jorge Ben is diminished because much of his
output is dance or party music.
As stated earlier, the use of the term popular in relation to MPB has a specic,
historical association with ideological ideas of afliation with the povo brasileiro.
However, if sales gures are taken as a reection of popularity then the notion that
MPB is popular is untenable. Despite the fact that MPB still occupies a somewhat
privileged status within the boundaries of Brazilian popular culture, it has extremely
poor sales.28 Highly signicantly, a major survey in 2002 showed how far MPB had
24 Jos Miguel Wisnik, The Gay Science: Literature and Popular Music in Brazil,
Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, vol. 5, no. 2 (1996), 191202 (p. 191).
25 Charles Perrone, Letras e Letras da Msica Popular Brasileira, pp. 1656.
26 Carvalho, Tupi or Not Tupi, pp. 1723.
27 Nelson Ascher, MPB esplendor e glria, Livro Aberto, ano 2, no. 7, 1998, 259
(p. 27).
28 Over the last forty years MPB has only very rarely gured as one of the largest sellers
in the Brazilian market. In 2002, MPB accounted for less than 10 per cent of sales in Brazil,
compared with pop (21 per cent); rock (15 per cent); religious music (14 per cent); pagode and
samba (12 per cent), and msica sertaneja (11 per cent). Source: O Mercado Brasileiro de
Msica 2002, Associao Brasileira dos Produtores de Discos (ABPD). The gures available
did not include rap, as Trama, the major Brazilian rap label was not part of the ABPD. In an
interview with Mrcio Gonalves at the ABPD in Rio de Janeiro on 12/11/01, he informed
fallen from favour with the public, who now ranked it second to last in popularity,
trailing even behind religious music.29 This raises the familiar and thorny issue
of what constitutes popularity within the eld of popular music. Simon Frith is
of the opinion that although sales gures of popular music are often presented as
scientic data, they are a partial view of a larger whole, merely being reective of
sales in certain types of shops, and radio play on certain types of stations.30 Frith
has suggested that other indicators of popularity might include readers polls in the
music press, attendances at live shows, music industry awards, and general visibility
in the media. The problem with a market-based denition of popularity is that there
is no certainty that the gures provided are accurate and furthermore, those gures
do not give us more subjective information such as why a particular product sold,
and whether the consumer enjoyed it or not.31
Bearing in mind that MPB has only occasionally been the most popular sector
of Brazilian popular music (at least purely in terms of sales) one could argue that
an essential component in the longevity of MPB has been its popularity amongst
journalists and those working in the media, many of whose formative years were
probably spent listening to the icons of 1970s MPB and watching the televised
song festivals. Their enduring affection for MPB has ensured that media exposure
for artists such as Maria Bethnia, Chico Buarque et al. has continued even during
periods of relatively poor sales for those artists. In addition, these writers and critics
have consistently made a case for the inclusion of artists working in the elds of
jazz or instrumental music under the broad denition of MPB: artists who in terms
of sales gures alone could hardly be deemed to be popular by any stretch of the
imagination.32
Jairo Severiano has spent many years studying Brazilian popular music, and he
is co-author with Zuza Homem de Mello of A Canco no Tempo, a marvellously
entertaining and meticulously researched two-volume study of Brazilian popular
song during the period 19011985.33 This work selects a variety of compositions
from each year in question, chosen with a view to two criteria of popularity: rst,
the commercial success of the song, measured by its time in the charts and number
me that ofcial sales of rap in Brazil were minimal, i.e. less than one per cent. Obviously,
this takes no account of the massive sales of pirated CDs in Brazil, an important issue that is
discussed in Chapter 4.
29 Marcelo Marthe, Quem compra o qu, Veja, 25/9/02, p. 118.
30 Simon Frith, Towards an aesthetic of popular music, in Music and Society: The
Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception, ed. by Richard Leppert and Susan
McClary, (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 13349 (p. 138).
31 Frith, Performing Rites, p. 15. A stimulating debate on the contemporary relevance
of the term popular music (in which Simon Frith participates) can be found in Can we
get rid of the popular in popular music? A virtual symposium with contributions from the
International Advisory Editors of Popular Music, Popular Music vol. 24/1 (2005) 13345.
32 I am referring here to artists such as Joo Donato, Luis Melodia, Egberto Gismonti
and Hermeto Pascoal who were regularly championed by music critics in the 1970s and 1980s
in mainstream magazines such as Veja and Isto, but whose record sales were minimal.
33 A Cano no tempo: 85 anos de msicas brasileiras: vol. 1: 19011957, vol. 2:
19581985 (So Paulo, 1998).
of radio plays, and second and far more subjective the longevity of the song in
the public consciousness.34 Consequently, the authors include a song such as Chico
Buarque and Edu Lobos Beatriz, which has never been a commercial success since
its release in 1985, because in their opinion it has become a classic over a period
of time and is apparently often cited by the public as an all-time favourite in radio
polls.
. . . Beatriz became famous as time went by, imposing itself through its beauty [beleza]
like a classic of modern Brazilian music. From beginning to end its score is enchanting, on
the same creative level as the greatest composers from any age or country.35
The authors choice of Beatriz, a waltz written for a ballet score, reects an
underlying ethos that forms one of the foundations of the value system underpinning
MPB. Sophisticated arrangements, elaborate harmonies, and an implicit comparison
with European classical music are all factors which enable a composition to transcend
the boundaries of short-lived popular acclaim to ascend to a higher level, that of
works initially overlooked by the public which eventually receive the merit that they
deserve.36 Severiano and Mellos choice of songs such as Beatriz is symptomatic
of a desire to associate MPB tangentially with a higher form of culture and to
distinguish it from lesser forms of popular music. The attention devoted by the
authors to compositions such as Beatriz in contrast to the omission of numerous
equally popular brega compositions for example reects their own musical tastes
and is also an indication of their desire to elevate the contemporary musical taste of
the general public in an era dominated by what they consider to be an extremely poor
level of musical creativity.
What is chosen, and equally what is omitted, tells us much about the values
of those involved in the selection process of what they consider to be important
in popular music. One is reminded here of the writings of Pierre Bourdieu, which
emphasize that cultural preference is the direct result of education and social class.
For Bourdieu, nothing more clearly afrms ones class, nothing more infallibly
classies, than tastes in music.37 He views taste as a concept that is utilized by social
groups to differentiate and distance themselves from other social groups, and one of
the ways in which this can be achieved is by the accumulation of cultural capital.
This idea of cultural capital in relation to popular music could include such factors as
a detailed knowledge about a certain musical tradition or genre, or the acquisition of
detailed information about musicians and performers.38 This is particularly evident
in one of the most visible and inuential strands of writing on popular music in
Brazil: a trend that accentuates the importance of detailed information about the
34 Jairo Severiano, Encontro Nacional de Pesquisadores de Msica Popular Brasileira,

UERJ, Rio de Janeiro, 30/10/01.
35 Severiano and Mello, A Cano no tempo, vol. 2, p. 303.
36 Ibid., p. 9.
37 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London,
1984), p. 18.
38 Roy Shuker, Understanding Popular Music (London, 2001), pp. 21516.
lives and work of musicians and composers, often at the expense of serious analysis
of their musical signicance.
Severiano and Mellos writings on popular music fall into an ever-growing body
of work which has systematically set out to rescue forgotten or undervalued musicians
and performers from the past in an attempt to bring their work to a new generation
of listeners. Their writings, and those of Srgio Cabral, Ruy Castro, Joo Mximo,
Carlos Didier and Jos Ramos Tinhoro for example, are extensively researched and
represent an extremely valuable source of reference material but at the same time
they are also often tinged with a nostalgic hankering for a bygone era of musical
purity. Several of these writers are members of the Associao dos Pesquisadores
da Msica Popular Brasileira (APMPB), or are associated with the organization.
Simon Frith has argued that the writing of genre histories in popular music derives
largely from a usually mythical account of its own past. A problem arises in his
opinion, . . . when the academic account is written over the mythical one by
the collector and the history of the genre is rewritten in terms of a new purism39
(his emphasis). As I argued in the previous chapter, several writers and critics have
participated in such a rewriting exercise over the last forty-odd years, guided by a
concept of musical nationalism and notions of authenticity that were rst formulated
in Brazil in the late 1920s. The signicance of A Cano no tempo and similar works
is that their authors occupy a position of authority in the eyes of the Brazilian media
and their opinions as cultural gatekeepers are therefore likely to be enshrined in the
popular view, thereby perpetuating the myth of the cultural importance of MPB.
The Political Dimension to MPB
One of the major distinguishing factors that has historically given MPB a particular
cultural resonance is its socio-political linkage. Alberto Ribeiro da Silva (amongst
others) has described what he sees as a specically political aspect to the movement.
During the 1960s, the type of music represented by the abbreviation MPB gradually
appropriated the common perception of what constituted popular urban Brazilian
music. Despite notionally representing Brazilian popular music as a whole,
Silva argues that in the 1960s and 1970s MPB actually formed a geographically,
ideologically, and socially discrete subsection, namely, the output of a group of
songwriters and performers that was targeted at a university-educated, middle-
class public based in Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo who were politically opposed
to the military dictatorship.40 In Silvas opinion, MPB of the 1970s was the spiritual
heir to the legacy of the Brazilian Cano de Protesto movement of the 1960s.
With the demise of the military regime in 1985, and the ascendancy of alternative
musical trends such as Brazilian rock and msica sertaneja, this type of politically
tinged MPB faded away and the acronym began to take on a wider, more inclusive
signicance.41
39 Frith, Performing Rites, p. 89.

40 Alberto Ribeiro da Silva, Sinal Fechado: A Msica Popular sob Censura (Rio de
Janeiro, 1994), p. 148.
41 Ibid., p. 147.
Nevertheless, by the mid 1970s, MPB had undeniably assumed a hugely
signicant role in the political and cultural lives of numerous Brazilians. In the
absence of democratic governance and the lack of other channels for freedom of
expression, MPB was imbued with the responsibility for articulating the political
aspirations of the liberal, urban middle-class.42 The multiple effects of military
dictatorship, modernization and urbanization, and the growth of issues such as
trade unions and womens rights overshadowed an era of extreme social change. All
these factors were transmitted, to a greater or lesser degree, into MPB, which found
itself assuming the mantle of popular resistance to the regime. Of all the forms of
Brazilian popular culture, it was only music that possessed the necessary prole
and social uidity (as opposed to literature or cinema for example) to perform this
role of deance.43 The communitarian aspect of MPB its ability to be enjoyed
by groups of friends singing together, often accompanied merely by an acoustic
guitar symbolized for many the solidarity of those unable to express opposition
to the military regime in other forms. Having been appropriated by the political
left through the ideological split in bossa nova that resulted in the formation of the
Cano de Protesto movement in the 1960s, MPB subsequently developed its own
sub-divisions, with individual composers consciously or unconsciously associated
with particular left-wing factions.44 As governmental repression intensied between
1968 and 1973, the political dimension to MPB came to the fore in a more oblique
fashion through the work of severely censored songwriters such as Chico Buarque
and Gonzaguinha. These songwriters, and many others, had to resort to increasingly
inventive methods to get their work past the eagle eyes of the censors, developing in
the process an often densely metaphorical language within their lyrics to continue to
pass social comment on Brazilian society under military rule.
The music of a particular generation of artists principally Caetano Veloso,
Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque and Milton Nascimento came to articulate political
consciousness for a middle-class generation in their formative years under the
dictatorship. The intensity of attachment between MPB and some on the political
left was such that during the 1970s, so-called patrulhas ideolgicas [ideological
patrols] in the press began to hound those performers and songwriters who were
perceived to be failing to oppose the military regime through their artistic output and/
or public utterances. During the mid 1980s, as the military gradually ceded power
back to civil society, MPB played a slightly different political role: through its use in
political television commercials and the appearance of MPB artists at political rallies,
MPB became the soundtrack to the process of abertura or redemocratization.45 As
Idelber Avelar has indicated, MPBs role in the campaign in support of free and
direct elections in 1984, and the subsequent endorsement of the Tancredo-Sarney
political alliance by several MPB stars demonstrated to the more cynical how MPB
42 Silva, Sinal Fechado, p. 26.

43 Ascher, MPB esplendor e glria, p. 29.
44 Ibid., pp. 289.
45 See Charles A. Perrone, Open Mike: Brazilian Popular Music and Redemocratization,
Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, vol. 7 (1988), 16781.
had lost its once oppositional edge and had now become the acceptable face of the
democratic post-authoritarian establishment.46
MPB Today
Because of all the factors set out above, and especially for those of a certain age,
MPB possesses a resonance that goes beyond that normally associated with popular
music. In David Treeces view, MPB represented the continuation by other means,
of the dialogue between the intellectual avant-garde and popular culture from the
early 1960s until the return to civilian rule.47 Yet for Treece, what was once an
oppositional movement has now become a hegemonic tradition, in the way that it
appears to validate one particular current of songwriting and performance, out of
many, as the exclusive bearer of national-popular authenticity.48 This view has also
been endorsed by Lus Antnio Giron, who has argued that the recent spate of books
celebrating the so-called golden era of the televised song festivals demonstrates that
the creative cycle of that generation of artists is now at an end. Giron goes further,
arguing that in some ways the overwhelming inuence of MPB has actually been
detrimental to popular music in Brazil: The MPB fraternity formed such a tight-
knit group that nobody else was accepted into that group. It became a movement
that was self-devouring, self-absorbed and worst of all, over-powerful.49 In Girons
opinion, it was this overwhelming, suffocating dominance that prevented artists such
as Chico Csar, Lenine, and Chico Science (three of the most creative songwriters
of the 1990s) from enjoying success until they were in their thirties, and then only
via the initial route of rock music rather than MPB.50 Girons point is pertinent, but
the evidence leads one to think that it is the inuence of the record industry, rather
than that of individual stars of MPB, that has prevented the owering of young
talent. A further voice has been recently added to the growing chorus of dissent,
with Carlos Sandroni arguing that MPB is now ofcially dead, in the sense that its
original capacity to unify various strands of popular music is no longer relevant, and
that MPB has reverted to being just one of many categories to be found in record
stores.51
Although MPBs standing has slowly but steadily diminished since its heyday
there still remains a residual core of respect for the movement based around certain
long-established artists such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and Chico
Buarque. These artists, most of whom are now in their early sixties, are also those
still most often presented on the global stage as emissaries of Brazilian popular
46 Idelber Avelar, Defeated Rallies, Mournful Anthems, and the Origins of Brazilian
Heavy Metal, in Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization, ed. by Charles A. Perrone and
Christopher Dunn, (Gainesville, 2001), pp. 12335 (pp. 1245).
47 David Treece, Mapping MPB in the 1990s: Music and Politics in Brazil at the end of
the Twentieth Century, in I Sing the Difference: Identity and Commitment in Latin American
Song, ed. by Jan Fairley and David Horn (Liverpool, 2002), pp. 99105 (p. 103).
48 Ibid., p. 103.
49 Lus Antnio Giron, A MPB acabou, Bravo!, July 2003, p. 59.
50 Ibid.
51 Sandroni, Adeus MPB, p. 31.
music, regardless of their standing at home. Occasions such as Chico Buarques
sixtieth birthday provoked unprecedented coverage in the quality press, with lengthy
supplements devoted to retrospectives of his career.52 Yet it is increasingly clear
that assumptions about the continuing cultural signicance of MPB may not be
universally shared. A major nationwide survey carried out by the magazine Veja
in 1996 revealed that only one per cent of those questioned believed that Brazilian
music was a cause of national pride.53
Trik de Souza has ironically referred to MPB as that mega-abbrieviation that
just wont shut up54 and it appears that despite the steady decline in public interest in
the genre, those in control of the media are reluctant to abandon it completely because
it has exerted such a strong symbolic role in Brazilian culture over so many years. The
situation is complicated by the fact that contemporary denitions of MPB now have
to encompass elements of genres that stretch far beyond the traditional conception of
MPB. As Souza observes, MPB of the late 1960s and early 1970s was ltered through
the primary prism of bossa nova, whereas current Brazilian popular music is ltered
through the prism of diverse international inuences, including hip-hop.55
As I demonstrated in the previous chapter, many Brazilian writers who have
specialized in popular music have warned of the harmful effects of a cultural
invasion of Brazil by external inuences, primarily from the United States. In such
circumstances, and over a period of several decades, MPB has fullled a totemic
role, symbolically demonstrating resistance to the encroachments of the invader.
This underlying anxiety lies at the root of the numerous articles in the Brazilian press
that have periodically agonized over the crisis affecting MPB during the last forty
years. It is precisely because the perceived strength and creative fertility of MPB is
seen by some as an indicator of the health of Brazilian cultural life in general that it
has remained at the heart of any discussion relating to Brazilian popular culture for
such a long period.
The Influence of the Record Industry and the Press in the Ascendancy of MPB
MPB and the Brazilian Record Industry
An underlying system of aesthetic values permeates the Brazilian record industry,

a system that owes much to developments within that industry that occurred during
the 1960s and 1970s, and which was largely responsible for the creation of the
idea of MPB. The largest record companies operating within Brazil have always
been international, and strategies developed and perfected abroad were gradually
introduced into the Brazilian market from the end of the 1960s. Not surprisingly, it
was, and remains, as difcult to predict the success of record releases in Brazil as it is
anywhere else. In order to overcome some of this unpredictability, record companies
52 See for example, O Globo, Segundo Caderno, 18/6/04, pp. 118.

53 Ricardo Grinbaum O brasileiro segundo ele mesmo, Veja 10/1/96, p. 54.
54 Trik de Souza, Gerao 00, Jornal do Brasil, Caderno B, 16/4/03, p. B1.
55 Souza cites Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gils Haiti as an example of this. Interview
with the author, Rio de Janeiro, 15/11/01.
have devised marketing strategies to create commercial hierarchies in an attempt
to dene potentially commercial music and to categorize types of music in terms
of their saleability. In the United States and Britain the music that has traditionally
received the most favourable treatment by the record industry, and that which could
be said to occupy the apex of the hierarchical pyramid, has traditionally tended to
be white, rock and pop. In terms of promotion and media exposure in Brazil, the
equivalent position has been occupied by MPB.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Brazilian record companies attempted to contract
artists from every genre of popular music to increase their chances of success, in
other words they adopted a throwing mud against a wall approach; large amounts of
records in different genres were produced in the hope that some would become hits.
However, over time certain labels became associated with specic types of music;
CBS with jovem guarda, Phonogram with MPB, Sigla with telenovela [TV soap
opera] soundtracks, for example. Some smaller Brazilian labels such as Continental
were able to target specic niche markets such as artists who were particularly
popular in the north or south of the country a substantial market that accounted for
30 per cent of all recordings in the mid 1970s.56 Several of the larger labels opted
for the longer-term development of a roster of artists that could be nurtured over
time, and who, it was hoped, would form the nucleus of a cast of stars that would
eventually generate regular repeat sales and lend identity and prestige to the label.
Andr Midanis Innovations
One of the most inuential label executives in this respect was Andr Midani, who
was in charge of Phonogram and Warner Brothers in Brazil during the 1970s. Like
CBS supremo Clive Davis in the United States, Midani had a gift for anticipating and
exploiting future developments in popular music. When he took over at Phonogram
in 1973, he used rigorous analysis of sales trends and market share to ruthlessly
cut the number of contracted artists from 170 to 32.57 Midani had long been aware
that the average age of record buyers in Brazil was far higher than in Europe and
the United States due to lower spending power amongst the young. However, the
Brazilian consumer boom of the late 1960s and early 1970s dramatically reversed
this trend and the average age of those buying record players, cassette players and
radios tumbled.58
Midanis long-term vision rested on the creation of a cast of national artists capable
of providing an alternative to international popular music, and he was conscious of
56 Damiano Cozzela (ed.), Disco em So Paulo, IDARTDepartamento de Informao

e Documentao Artsticas (So Paulo, 1980), p. 33. This fascinating study was carried out in
1976 and contains a wealth of valuable information on the workings of the Brazilian record
industry at the time. The objective of the study was to clarify the use of records as a means of
communication within So Paulo.
57 Ana Maria Bahiana, Os ps-caetanistas, Opinio, 23/7/73, p. 16. For an amusing
account of Midanis equally rigorous approach to the search for the formula for success,
including the use of psychological analysis of his top selling artists, see Nelson Motta, Noites
Tropicais (Rio de Janeiro, 2000), pp. 2567.
58 Paiano, O Berimbau e o Som Universal, p. 215.
the importance of tapping into the burgeoning market for Brazilian popular music
that had been identied.59 His strategy was to recognize that the appetite of Brazilian
consumers for foreign music was not going to disappear and that a specic type of
Brazilian popular music (MPB) could be promoted as a sophisticated alternative to
imported rock and pop. Despite turning Phonogram into the most successful record
company in Brazil at the time, Midani was red in 1976. Taking many of his cast
of stars with him to Warner Brothers, his aim was to specically target the newly
discovered youth segment of the market and he declared that the only artists he would
be employing in future were to be under the age of thirty and singer-songwriters.60
Despite Midanis decision to actively promote MPB, record companies in
Brazil generally tend to follow trends rather than initiate them. Marcia Tosta Dias
included several interviews with record company staff in her comprehensive study
of the Brazilian record industry, and many of those interviewed point out that their
companies merely reect the existence of musical movements and trends that already
exist, rather than create them themselves:
There is a marketing project[projeto de marketing] and a marketing artist, [artista de

marketing] both of which only exist because of the record company. A true artist [artista
verdadeiro] and a musical movement exist even without a record company. Bossa Nova,
Roberto Carlos, Jovem Guarda, Tropicalismo, Ax [music], Sertanejo would all have
existed irrespective of the inuence of record companies or radio. Its just that they would
not have had such a big impact. We just help to spread the music, ourselves and the
communication networks.61
As I have previously indicated, Brazilian record companies have tended to either opt
for a diversied approach of contracting artists in all existing genres to maximize
sales opportunities, or have decided to focus on a strictly segmented area of the
market such as telenovela soundtracks. A problem can arise when a record label
has a large cast of contracted stars working in a genre that suddenly becomes
unfashionable. The periodic economic crises that have adversely affected the record
industry in Brazil have inevitably led to artists contracts not being renewed at times,
or to a reduction in investment in the promotion of new artists. At such moments,
labels have to make difcult decisions about which artists to support. Nonetheless, it
seems that some companies are prepared to allow the prots generated by artistas
de marketing to fund their support for less successful but more prestigious artistas
verdadeiros.62 Such thinking reects an awareness that musical trends are cyclical,
and that yesterdays musical trend or star may rise again this is particularly true in
Brazil, where artists such as Jorge Benjor, Z Ramalho, Caetano Veloso and Maria
Bethnia, for example, are periodically rediscovered by a new public, often due
59 Rita C.L.Morelli, Indstria Fonogrfica: Um Estudo Antropolgico (Campinas, 1991)

pp. 689.
60 Ibid., pp. 778.
61 Marcos Maynard, President of Polygram records, Brazil, quoted by Marcia Tosta
Dias, Os Donos da Voz: Indstria Fonogrfica Brasileira e Mundializao da Cultura (So
Paulo, 2000), p. 79.
62 Dias, Os Donos da Voz, pp. 8990.
to the use of their music in telenovelas or unplugged appearances on MTV. This
strategy also demonstrates a sensibility to the need to protect a type of Brazilian
popular music that has cultural signicance beyond the merely commercial, and
illustrates an underlying conception of what constitutes music of quality on the part
of the record companies.
Such thinking has its origins in one of the most signicant changes in consumer
trends in the record business in the late 1960s: the increasing importance attached to
the sales of albums as opposed to singles. The prots to be made from the sales of
albums were much higher than the seven-inch format, but it was extremely difcult
to sell large numbers of a rock album in the 1960s unless it contained a hit single.
After the critical acclaim afforded to the Beatles album Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts
Club Band (1967) rock music was suddenly seen in a new, more serious light, and
rock artists and record companies were now convinced of the benets to be gained
by recording signicant works of artistic merit which demanded the release of
albums, rather than singles that were associated with ephemeral chart success. The
crucial signicance of this development was that whereas the success of singles had
been due largely to the popularity of a song, the sales of albums were now linked to
the artists themselves.
Due to the rise of rock music in Europe and the United States, sales of albums
in those markets started to outstrip those of singles in 196768. Aided by the effects
of the consumer boom in the late 1960s, to which I have already referred, and the
adoption of similar marketing strategies which had proved successful abroad, the
same pattern occurred in Brazil, and by 1970, the album was considered the driving
force of the record industry, with the artists themselves now considered the product
to be marketed, rather than merely the music that they produced.63 This paved the
way for the development of the highly creative period of MPB of the mid 1970s,
that was characterized by the willingness of record companies to invest heavily in
the marketing of albums with elaborate packaging (covers utilizing the photography
of Ca, and the imaginative artwork of Elifas Andreato, for example), the routine
inclusion of lyric sheets, and sophisticated orchestration and arrangements. Such a
quality product was primarily aimed at a university-educated, middle-class market,
that was economically consumerist and also capable of being persuaded by suitably
targeted marketing campaigns that MPB was its music, and worthy of support and
protection.
Editora Abrils, Histria da Msica Popular Brasileira
One of the most important factors in xing the importance of MPB in the
publics consciousness in the early 1970s was the release of a series of ten-inch
records and accompanying booklets that went under the title, Histria da Msica
Popular Brasileira. This series was commissioned by the Abril publishing group
in conjunction with RCA records, and was sold fortnightly at news stands, with
the music of a different artist featured in each issue between 1970 and 1972. The
series was the brainchild of Joo Luiz Ferrete (who was also one of the founder

members of the APMPB in 1975) and was lavishly produced, with superb artwork
by Elifas Andreato and extensive text written by illustrious writers and critics such
as Jos Ramos Tinhoro, Trik de Souza, Ary Vasconcellos, Sergio Cabral and Lcio
Rangel amongst others.
Of the forty-eight artists featured in the series, more than two-thirds were from
the 1930s. This is highly signicant, because it coincides with the idea of a so-called
musical golden age during that period, which had been championed by writers such
as Lcio Rangel and Ary Vasconcellos in the 1950s and 1960s, which I discussed in
the previous chapter. These views also coincided with Ferretes desire to educate the
public about its musical heritage. As he proudly proclaimed a few years later: for
the rst time, names such as Pixinguinha, Lupicnio Rodrigues, Assis Valente and
even Noel Rosa became familiar to an enormous number of people.64 The series
was a massive success with the public, with sales totalling nearly two and a quarter
million, and a second series followed in 1976 due to public demand.65
Apart from acting as a form of cultural rescue mission by reminding the public
of the contribution of many forgotten artists from the 1930s and 1940s, the Histria
da Msica Popular Brasileira series also placed contemporary performers and
songwriters such as Chico Buarque, Jorge Ben, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and
Geraldo Vandr rmly in the pantheon of the musical great and the good at a time
when several of the aforementioned were in exile and in danger of being written out
of the ofcial history of Brazilian popular music. Part of the success of these series
is almost certainly due to the fact that they lled a gap in the publics knowledge
about national popular music that was not met elsewhere through television, radio
coverage, or even general education at the time. This had been one of the principal
campaigning aims of the APMPB, set out in the open letter to the government after
the organization was established in 1975. The success of the series also had a knock-
on effect, which encouraged record labels to re-issue neglected recordings by artists
such as Pixinguinha, Noel Rosa and Carmen Miranda. It also boosted sales of less
well-known artists who had been brought to a wider public by their inclusion in the
series, and provoked a broader public discussion of the history and development of
Brazilian popular music.66
Hierarchies of Genre
Enor Paiano has drawn attention to the existence of a hierarchical treatment of

artists within Brazilian popular music, which he traces back to the time of bossa
nova. For Paiano, the release of Joo Gilbertos Chega de Saudade LP in 1959
represents perhaps the rst example of a Brazilian record that was a complete
creative project in terms of material, arrangements, interpretation, and even
its idiosyncratic cover. Paiano also cites Rogrio Duprats work with Gilberto
64 Anon, O especialista, Veja, 24/3/76, p. 53.

65 Disco em So Paulo, IDART, p. 36.
66 N.Y. Hamakawa, A. Jacobsberg, L.H. Jucak, G. Marton, Livro Disco, Cadernos
de Jornalismo e Editorao 12: Produo de Discos, ECA, USP (June 1979), 4959
(pp. 567).
Gil (196768), Nara Leos Opinio de Nara LP (1964), and the Tropiclia ou
Panis et Circencis manifesto album (1968) as further examples of records that
were deliberately intended to be artistic statements rather than simply records.67
Artists considered to be signicant in cultural terms, such as the cream of the
movement that came to be known as MPB, were afforded preferential treatment
by their companies and were often paid more than popular artists on the same
label. MPB has been, and still is to a large extent, viewed in a favourable light
in the media, despite often relatively low sales gures in comparison with other
types of popular music. To understand why this is so, it is crucial to recognize
the aura of cultural prestige that MPB artists lend to a record label. Andr Midani
addressed this issue in 1974 in the following terms:
In order for the record industry to be succesful we believe, pragmatically rather than
paternalistically , that it is important not just to think about record sales but also about
culture . . . We believe that a record should either have great commercial potential or
great cultural content.68
Martha de Ulha Carvalho has argued that MPBs aura of prestige is directly
linked to its proximity to aspects of msica erudita [art music], which occupied
the position of supremacy in Brazilian music from the 1920s to the 1950s. In her
opinion, both bossa nova and Tropiclia were afforded musical kudos by being
respectively linked with the post-war Msica Viva and Msica Nova art music
movements, and with the demise of Tropiclia, MPB was specically selected to
occupy the position previously held by msica erudita.69
A prime example of the type of privileged treatment enjoyed by the stars
associated with MPB is provided by the way in which Milton Nascimentos career
was handled in the mid 1970s. Although sales of Nascimentos early albums were
poor, his record company (Odeon) decided to invest heavily in his career because
they were convinced of his artistic merit, as explained by a senior ofcial at his
record company at the time:
Odeon has three different groups of artists, and these groups are dened in relation to
the consumer. There is the popular group, the mid-range group and the sophisticated
group. Artists such as Paulinho da Viola and Clara Nunes can reach all three types of
consumer. At the moment Milton is reaching the sophisticated group and the mid-range
group, continually increasing this part of the market.70
Odeon set no limits on the amount of money to be spent on recording Nascimentos

albums at this time production costs of Minas (1976) for example, were over
twice the average for a Brazilian album71 and he and his fellow musicians
(many of whom were from the state of Minas Gerais and therefore referred to as
Mineiros) were given carte blanche by the labels executives regarding artistic

68 Cited in Paiano, O Berimbau, p. 212.
69 Martha de Ulha Carvalho, Nova Histria, Velhos Sons, pp. 8790.
70 Anon, Mariozinho: Um Investimento, Jornal da Msica, 23/7/76, p. 14.
71 Ibid.
freedom in the studio: We have already got our commercial artists. You Mineiros
are the crme de la crme [nossa faixa de prestgio]. The record company will
not interfere: record whatever you want.72
This stratication extended to sub-divisions being created within record
companies, with separate labels being set up for popular artists, and those considered
to be MPB.73 The popular labels often featured singers such as Odair Jos,
Amado Batista and Agnaldo Timteo, who were all successful with their romantic
style of music that came to be known, rather disparagingly, as brega. As previously
mentioned in this chapter, artists such as these, and brega itself, have been almost
completely written out of the history of Brazilian popular music, despite being
enormously successful in terms of sales and popular appeal.74 Some measure of that
success can be gauged by the fact that it was estimated in 1981 that popular labels
accounted for at least 60 per cent of the sales of the major record companies.75
Brega, sertanejo, carimb and other regional styles of popular music have often
been marketed at what is considered a peripheral audience, with the price of such
records selling at up to 50 per cent less than full-price, due to the lower spending
power of the target audience.76 Nonetheless, during the periodic crises that have
affected the Brazilian record industry, sales of such records held rm at an average
of 34 per cent of all sales in Brazil for each year between 1977 and 1984.77 The lowly
status attached to brega and other peripheral styles by the musical establishment
has been criticized by some commentators, who perceive a form of thinly veiled,
class-conscious, musical snobbery. As the artistic director of the Continental record
label put it: These artists sing for class C, which is the class of the Brazilian poor
and destitute.78 Ricardo Schott has also referred to the hypocritical attitudes that
have created this two-tier system:
It is seen as acceptable to like Cartola e Paulinho da Viola [traditional samba artists]

because samba was historically a genre that was always maverick in nature but it is
seen to be bad taste to listen to Fbio Jr., Odair Jos, Waldick Soriano and others [brega
artists].79
72 Milton Miranda, Odeon records, quoted in Mrcio Borges, Os Sonhos No Envelhecem:

Histrias do Clube da Esquinha (So Paulo, 1996), p. 209.
73 Ibid., p. 204.
74 An excellent analysis of brega can be found in, Samuel M. Arajo, Brega: Music and
Conict in Urban Brazil, Latin American Music Review, vol. 9, no. 1 (1988) 5089.
75 Anon, A cano surbana, Veja, 28/1/81, p. 78.
76 Arajo provides one denition of msica perifrica, with a quotation from an
interview with the singer Eduardo Dusek, in which he states that it is for the great masses of
the interior, with interior signifying an economic category rather than a geographical one,
i.e. relatively distant from the metropolis, and possibly including a small coastal city or the
favelas [shanty towns] of a large city. Brega: Music and Conict in Urban Brazil, p. 52.
77 Anon, Disco: a bolsa ou a vida?, SomTrs, no. 79, July 1985, p. 88.
78 Anon, Campees de Audincia, Viso, 15/10/84, p. 54.
79 Ricardo Schott, Histria e glria (?) de um estilo maldito, <http://www.cliquemusic.
com.br/bracontecendo/acontecendo.asp?nu_materia=3762> [accessed 23 September 2002].
Brega and the like have been almost totally excluded from the mainstream media,
and the coverage that these genres receive is almost entirely through the medium
of AM rather than FM radio. This is signicant in social terms, as AM radio is
associated in the popular imagination with the music that an empregada [domestic
servant] might listen to whilst at work in the kitchen for example, whereas FM
radio is often projected as the more upmarket sound of the living room, i.e. the
empregadas employers.80
The Press and the New Wave of Music Criticism
For many years, the media has sustained this conception of a pyramid within
Brazilian popular music, with MPB at the apex. This has been most evident in the
press, which has played a signicant role as a tastemaker or cultural gatekeeper
regarding popular music. In Chapter 1, I referred to the inuence of writers such
as Lcio Rangel, Ary Vasconcellos and Jos Ramos Tinhoro, whose journalistic
writings were instrumental in shaping public views on popular music. From the early
1970s, a new wave of writers such as Ana Maria Bahiana and Trik de Souza began
writing about popular music in alternative, left-wing magazines such as Pasquim,
Movimento and Opinio. These writers started their careers at a time when MPB was
undergoing a particularly creative phase, and their writings not only gave a boost to
MPB at a crucial moment, but also provided the quality of prose and analysis that
the music itself merited. Solidly in support of Brazilian popular music in general,
and MPB in particular, through their perceptive and imaginative articles, reviews
and columns, they championed the idea of a broader, less dogmatic conception of
MPB, a view that encompassed elements of jazz, rock and progressive music, and
which reected the increasing eclecticism of MPB of the period. Both these writers,
and others such as Jos Miguel Wisnik, were responsible for regular critiques and
polemical pieces in magazines and newspapers, designed to create an ongoing debate
on future directions for Brazilian popular music.
Trik de Souza was probably the rst professional Brazilian music critic when he
started working for Veja in 1968. In the 1970s, he was often writing for six different
magazines or newspapers at the same time, partly to make a living, but also as part
of his desire to provoke and expand this debate about popular music.81 In 1976, he
stated how he saw his role as a music critic:
. . . my work has several intentions. The rst is to selectively inform the reader about
what is happening in the eld of music. Secondly, there certainly is a concern to shape
that opinion and allow it to develop as openly as freely as possible from Stockhausen to
Tonico e Tinoco [a msica sertaneja duo], from Miguel Aceves Mejia [a Mexican mariachi
star of the 1950s] to Caetano Veloso always searching for an analysis that is objective
rather than dogmatic.The third concern is to inuence the artistic movement itself. In the
following way: publicising as much as possible (but always when justied) the best of
80 Arajo, Brega, pp. 535.

81 Author interview with Trik de Souza, Rio de Janeiro, 15/11/01.
what is happening in all sectors of music, and criticising (without being professorial) what
the editorial policy of the magazine considers to be of poor quality.82
Souzas comments were made in a letter to the author of a study of the Brazilian
music industry, but they read almost as a manifesto for the new school of popular
music criticism in Brazil in the way that they emphasize a fresh, diverse approach
to popular music. What is also apparent is Souzas intention to avoid sitting on
the critical fence and his desire to actively inuence the development of Brazilian
popular music. His approach, and that of writers such as Ana Maria Bahiana, was
designed to expand the publics awareness of all aspects of Brazilian popular music
(but particularly MPB) and to champion the best of foreign music such as jazz, rock
and soul. There is a freshness of approach and a level of penetrating analysis in the
work of these writers that is completely at odds with what preceded them.83
This is even more remarkable when one considers the constraints that they were
working under due to artistic censorship. Working for magazines as diverse as the
pro-establishment Veja, and the left-wing Opinio meant that Souza was writing
for extremely different audiences and employers, and his articles and reviews
were subject to severe censorship at times, so much so, that for long periods it was
impossible for him to even write the names of artists such as Chico Buarque or
Geraldo Vandr who were out of favour at the time. When reviewing records, Souza
had to be extremely careful not to make it evident to the censor that he was aware
of the controversial nature of songs with hidden lyrical meanings and had to pretend
that he had not understood any lyrical subtext that might be present.84
Ana Maria Bahianas work was also heavily censored, and she quickly came
to realize that any use of words such as a youth, conict, and oppressed, or
references to drugs and homosexuality were strictly out of bounds. This made her
job as a critic more arduous because she was obliged to prepare at least double the
amount of material for publication to take account of potential cuts by the censor.
Like Trik de Souza, she swiftly learned the importance of the use of oblique
references and euphemisms to enable her work to be published.
The early 1970s were a key period in the development of both Brazilian popular
music and Brazilian music journalism. It was an era marked by the emergence of a
new generation of music critics such as Bahiana, Jos Miguel Wisnik and Okky de
Souza, all of whom had a different view of Brazilian popular music, belonging as they
did to a generation more in tune with rock music. All these writers were resoundingly
pro-Tropiclia, and less reverential about bossa nova than their predecessors. This
generation found allies amongst slightly older writers such as Maurcio Kubrusly and
Trik de Souza, who had been students at the time of Tropiclia, and who had been
82 Cited in Othon Jambeiro, Cano de Massa: As Condies da Produo (So Paulo,

1975), p. 126.
83 For representative samples of their work, see Bahianas, Nada sera como antes: MPB
nos anos 70 (Rio de Janeiro, 1980) and Souzas, O Som Nosso De Cada Dia (Porto Alegre,
1983).
84 Author interview with Trik de Souza. For a series of illuminating articles dealing
with the issue of press censorship in Brazil during this period see Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro
(ed.), Minorias Silenciadas: Histria da Censura no Brasil (So Paulo, 2001).
enormously affected by the movement. These new writers found it difcult to make
their voices heard in the post-Woodstock era, as they confronted the conservative
attitudes of the established musical press who were antagonistic towards the legacy
of Tropiclia, which they merely considered to be a short-lived burlesque aberration,
and largely ignorant of worldwide developments in Blues, progressive rock and
the like.85 Not surprisingly, the new wave of music journalists turned initially to
sympathetic left-wing alternative magazines such as Movimento and Opinio, and
marginal publications such as Bondinho and Verba Encantado, in order to publish
their work. Having found their feet journalistically, they then graduated into the
mainstream press and their writings found a far wider readership, exerting in the
process a signicant inuence on public attitudes towards MPB.
Those Brazilians who had access to information about the developments in
youth culture in the United States and Europe in the early 1970s, and who afliated
themselves to those cultural movements, felt themselves to be at a disadvantage
because they had tantalizing glimpses of the counterculture developing outside
Brazil, but lived in the shadow of an extremely repressive military dictatorship.
Nevertheless, some signicant signals of imminent cultural change in Brazil occurred
in 1972, with the explosive national success of the outrageous rock group Secos e
Molhados, and the high media prole of rock musicians such as Raul Seixas and
Walter Franco at the 1972 Festival Internacional de Cano, held in Rio de Janeiro.
The small tribe of Brazilian rock fans, who were hitherto accustomed to a siege
mentality of us and them, began to sense that a cultural change was taking place in
Brazil that mirrored that which had already taken place abroad.86 In the pre-Internet
age, these fans of popular music were severely restricted in the means by which they
could communicate with each other outside of their immediate communities. That
changed with the growth of letters pages in music journals, which acted as a forum
for discussion, sales or exchanges of records, and above all demonstrated that like-
minded souls were to be found in other Brazilian cities outside Rio de Janeiro and
So Paulo. Accompanied by the rapid growth of coverage of popular music in the
cultural supplements of the major newspapers such as the Folha de So Paulo and
the Jornal do Brasil, a number of music magazines sprang up in the 1970s. These
included the Brazilian version of Rolling Stone, Jornal da Msica and SomTrs, all
of which regularly featured writers and critics such as Trik de Souza, Ana Maria
Bahiana, Slvio Lancellotti and Ezequiel Neves.
Although often short-lived, these publications acted as the Brazilian equivalent
of Rolling Stone or Melody Maker, as they included much material on foreign pop,
rock and jazz, accompanied by reports on the Brazilian counterculture, hippie
festivals and the like. Lengthy, thoughtful reviews of albums, readers letters, and
information on fan clubs were also accompanied by translations of song lyrics into
Portuguese. What is highly signicant is that none of these publications focused
solely on Brazilian music, reecting the continuing interest of their readership
(largely middle-class students) in foreign pop, and increasingly, rock music. It was
not considered commercially viable to launch a serious music journal specializing
85 Author interview with Ana Maria Bahiana, 23/9/03.

86 Ibid.
solely in Brazilian music. The impact of these magazines combined with the expanding
coverage in the mainstream press, reected the increasingly serious attention paid to
popular music in Brazil by the media, and both factors were instrumental in shaping
consumers views through reviews and polemical articles.
Bizz and the Critical Assault on MPB
The music magazines cited above also provided an important cultural link with
the outside world for Brazilian readers eager to keep up to date with developments
in international popular music. Perhaps the most inuential of these publications
to date was Bizz (19852001), which was the rst major circulation, Brazilian
journal specializing in popular music and youth culture. Thomas Pappon worked
as a journalist at Bizz between 198688, and he reveals that he and his colleagues
deliberately set out to adopt a more critical approach to music journalism, directly
modelled on the style of the British music paper New Musical Express.87 Bizz was
launched at a time when many editors and journalists felt that Brazilian popular music
was undergoing a period of stagnation and that readers would be more interested in
what was happening musically outside Brazil rather than at home. Several of the
journalists working at Bizz were in bands themselves and were heavily inuenced
by groups such as Joy Division, The Smiths and the Cure. These journalists were
in favour of the post-punk ethic that attacked the vast majority of establishment
performers as self-satised dinosaurs, and they were ready to act as standard
bearers for the incipient independent rock movement growing in Brazil in the wake
of the epochal Rock in Rio concert of 1985. The critical edge that had made the
journalistic style of the New Musical Express notorious in England was something
that had not existed in Brazil before, and part of Bizzs mission was to bring this
ercely attitudinal approach to bear on aspects of the Brazilian music scene by
attempting to attack some of the myths surrounding the hierarchical status enjoyed
by the sacred cows of MPB.88
Bizzs success (monthly circulation gures in 198687 reached 120,000) was due
to its ability to tap into the underground rock culture that had developed in Rio de
Janeiro, So Paulo, Braslia and Salvador. In each of these cities, alternative radio
stations had helped to foster a semi-alternative culture based on non-mainstream,
independent rock music, both Brazilian and foreign. Bizz rapidly developed as the
mouthpiece for this new wave movement, as it served to inform its readership of
the latest developments both abroad and within Brazil. The editorial policy of Bizz
towards MPB artists was epitomized by a sense of frustration with the medias long-
standing obsession with a group of well-established artists such as Caetano Veloso,
Chico Buarque and Gal Costa. The late writer and journalist Roberto M. Moura also
referred to this protective critical shield, revealing that when he worked for Veja in
87 Author interview with Thomas Pappon, London, 22/2/03.

88 In Pappons opinion, cultural differences in Brazil make it difcult for a critic to
be openly hostile about the work of an artist they are reviewing, particularly if the artist is
present. Author interview as above.
the 1980s the magazines editor advised him that he was never to critically attack
major, established stars such as Maria Bethnia and Roberto Carlos.89
In the same way that the British punk movement and its allies in the music press
attacked the sacred cows of the rock establishment for their complacent domination
of the music business, so MPB artists eventually felt the critical lash:
Instead of uniting musical genres, the acronym MPB ended up uniting groups of people,
lobbies, marketing strategies. If it was once a musical symbol, it turned into the trade
mark of a few singers and songwriters whose repertoire is, and was, dotted with baroque
boleros, sambas and rhetorical reggaes. In other words, it became the trademark of
Simone, Djavan, Fagner and numerous other kings of ego.90
Ironically, the Brazilian rock movement of the 1980s, which had posited itself as the
antithesis of MPB, eventually lost momentum, and those bands that survived did so
by adopting a less aggressive, more melodic approach, which led some to conclude
that rock music had become the new MPB.91
The demise of Bizz in 2001 coincided with the rise of various Internet sites
dedicated to Brazilian popular music. Of these, the most ambitious to date has been
CliqueMusic, which was founded in 2000 with the intention of using the Internet to
publicize every aspect of the richness and diversity of Brazilian popular music.92 The
website became a massive archive of information on almost every artist and genre
within the eld of Brazilian popular music, utilizing newly commissioned writings
by Jos Ramos Tinhoro, Carlos Calado and Jairo Severiano, amongst others. The
site also served as a means of accessing information about live shows in Rio de
Janeiro and So Paulo, and of listening to new releases which can also be bought
from the website directly.
Trik de Souza was the rst editor of CliqueMusic, and he considers that the
website was designed to provide more exposure for quality music, such as that
released on smaller labels like CPC-UMES which struggle to achieve widespread
publicity in Brazil. That a market exists for a service similar to that provided by
Cliquemusic does not seem in doubt, as the website received a staggering one and a
half million hits in its rst year of operation, solely by word of mouth and without
advertising.93 Unfortunately, lack of funding has adversely affected the website since
that time, and the frequency with which it is updated has diminished accordingly.
At the time of writing, no national magazine covering popular music as a whole
89 Roberto M. Moura, Encontro de Pesquisadores da Msica Popular Brasileira, UFRJ,

Rio de Janeiro, 1/11/01.
90 Lus Antnio Giron, O m do que era doce, SomTrs, no. 100, April 1987, p. 70.
Giron was one of the very few journalists writing in mainstream newspapers such as Folha
de So Paulo who had the audacity to criticize the major gureheads of MPB, and he was
regularly sacked from various journals for such attacks.
91 Patrcia Farias, Sobre Rock, Jornais e Brasil, Papis Avulsos, Centro Interdisciplinar
de Estudos Contemporneos, Escola de Comunicao, Universidade Federal de Rio de
Janeiro, no. 46 (1993), 328 (p. 23).
92 Anon, Sobre CliqueMusic, mission statement at Cliquemusic website, <http://
cliquemusic.uol.com.br/br/Sobre/Sobre.asp> [accessed 7 january 2003].
93 Author interview with Trik de Souza, 15/11/01.
exists in Brazil, and this predicament has been seen by some as the death knell for
traditional forms of music periodicals in Brazil.94 Whether the Internet can full that
need remains to be seen.95
Conclusion
It is seemingly paradoxical that MPB, which has only very rarely been one of the
biggest selling types of popular music in Brazil, can have been able to occupy such
a symbolically commanding role in Brazilian popular culture for so long. That
MPB has been assigned this role is due to several interconnected factors; the most
important of which are the support and investment given to MPB by the record
industry and the press, and the fact that for many years MPB was a cultural form that
embodied political, artistic and social values that encapsulated for many the essence
of the national. Now that those values are either outdated or increasingly questioned,
MPB no longer exerts the same cultural power and inuence as before. Nevertheless,
it would be incorrect to assume that the media will abandon MPB altogether, so
long as those in positions of inuence continue to hold MPB in high esteem and
disseminate the idea that it somehow symbolizes aspects of national pride.
The following chapter will develop and expand this discussion, by demonstrating
that the Brazilian media have been preoccupied over a period of decades with
recreating the golden age of the televised song festivals that gave birth to the modern
era of MPB. This xation is revealed through an analysis of the mutually benecial
relationship that developed between the television networks and the record industry
from the early 1970s onwards.
94 Tatiana Tavares, Internet passa a informao musical em revista, <http:www.

cliquemusic.com.br/br/Acontecendo/Acontecendo.asp?Nu_Materia=3154> [accessed 10 June
2007. One of the only magazines to feature a wide range of solely Brazilian popular music
has been Msica Brasileira, which was published between 1996 and 2001, and at the time
of writing was only available online on the Internet. However, there are several magazines
dedicated to specic genres such as rap, reggae, msica sertaneja etc.
95 There are numerous websites devoted to Brazilian popular music, of varying quality.
Useful points of reference for this type of material at the time of writing were, <www.slipcue.
com>, <www.geocities.com/altadelidade> and <http://loronix.blogspot.com/>.
Chapter 3
Television and Popular Music
The televised song festivals of the 1960s have left an indelible mark on the Brazilian
cultural scene and are considered by many to have been the crucible for the formation
of the concept of MPB. Most accounts of the history of these festivals end with the
last International Song Festival (FIC) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1972. One would
therefore assume that nothing further of note occurred at the several festivals that
have taken place since that date. The detailed analysis of the later festivals provided
in the rst part of this chapter is intended to serve two purposes. First, to show
that these events, although seen by some as a poor reection of the festivals of the
golden era that preceded them, are extremely signicant for those seeking to study
underlying patterns in Brazilian popular music since 1972. They demonstrate the
continuation of the search by television networks and record companies for new
artists and msica de boa qualidade (quality music, in other words MPB) to match
the standards of that which was unearthed by the festivals of the 1960s. Second,
they clearly indicate the increasingly close relationship between the record industry
and television networks (primarily TV-Globo) that developed over that period, and
which reached a new peak at MPB-80.
This symbiotic relationship is explored further in the second part of this chapter
through an analysis of the pivotal role played by popular music in telenovelas.
Specic attention is paid to the overwhelming inuence of TV-Globo in this eld,
and I consider the interdependent connection that exists between telenovelas and
MPB. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of the increasingly important impact
of the satellite/cable channel MTV Brasil on Brazilian popular music.
Farofa-f: the Return of the Song Festivals
The Growth of Television in Brazil
Television rst started broadcasting in Brazil in 1950 when Assis Chateaubriands

TV-Tupi station went on air. Initially, the medium was elite-orientated due to the
scarcity of television sets in Brazil and the consequent lack of advertising revenue.
However, from humble beginnings the industrys development mushroomed to
such an extent that whereas in 1960 only 760,000 homes possessed a television
set, by 1970 that gure had soared to 6.7 million, 19.6 million by 1977, and 33
million by 1990.1 The initial impetus for such rapid growth was directly linked to
1 Joseph D. Straubhaar, The Electronic Media in Brazil, in Communication in Latin

America: Journalism, Mass Media, and Society, ed. by Richard R. Cole (Wilmington, 1996),
substantial levels of government incentives and investment from 1964 onwards, and
in particular the introduction of credit policies in 1968 that enabled members of the
lower-middle class to buy television sets. The military government was determined
to develop a sophisticated communications network nationwide to act as an adjunct
to its political programme of centralized authoritarianism. Another motive behind
the militarys support for a national television network lay in its desire to create
a communications system of a similar standard to those of the advanced capitalist
nations at the time, part of the ongoing project to modernize Brazil and to create
the image of a powerful nation that would be taken seriously by the international
community.
Television was specically chosen to play a crucial role in the communications
revolution, and to this end the Empresa Brasileira de Telecomunicaes
(EMBRATEL) was created in 1965, establishing twenty-four television centres in
large and medium-sized Brazilian cities, whose remit was to monitor the output
and distribution of programmes. This was a distinctly political project and the
government was acutely aware of the importance of television as a medium for
improving economic development and for fostering a sense of national identity.2
Cultural events were specically intended to be included within these parameters,
and the series of televised song festivals which started in 1965 can therefore be
considered as forming part of this process, alongside other epochal broadcasts
watched by millions of viewers, which were billed as national shared experiences
bringing the country together, such as the televised moon landings of 1969 and the
soccer World Cup held in Mexico in 1970.3
The unprecedented success of the televised TV-Record and FIC song festivals
in the late 1960s coincided with a frenzied search by the television networks
for new audiences. Popular music features on television were not a new
phenomenon: there had been regular shows since 1956 on TV-Tupi and TV-Rio
for example, featuring artists such as Ari Barroso, Jackson do Pandeiro and Luiz
Gonzaga. Nevertheless, the startling success in terms of television ratings and
media attention of the programme O Fino da Bossa, which showcased talents
such as Elis Regina, Jair Rodrigues, and Chico Buarque (all of whom had been
discovered through the early song festivals) paved the way for the development
of the importance of the televised festivals in the public consciousness.4 Other
televised music programmes during this period included, Bossaudade, Pra Ver a
Banda Passar and Ensaio Geral. Jovem Guarda, which started broadcasting in
1965, featured the youth idols, Roberto Carlos, Erasmo Carlos and Wanderlea.
pp. 21743 (p. 227).

2 Straubhaar, The Electronic Media in Brazil, p. 236.
3 Sean Stroud, Msica para o povo cantar, p. 94. Even so, it is interesting to
note that as late as 1970, 75.5 per cent of television sets were still concentrated in the
economically developed southeast. Alberto Ribeiro da Silva, Sinal Fechado, p. 94.
4 For a fuller discussion of the cultural signicance of this phase of the festivals
see Stroud (2000). Napolitano (2001) provides an in-depth analysis of many aspects of
the festivals from 196569. Zuza Homem de Mellos A Era dos Festivais: uma parabola
(So Paulo, 2003), presents a wealth of material (including wonderful photographs) on the
festivals between 1960 and 1972. See also Treece (1997) and Vilarino (1999).
TELEVISION AND POPULAR MUSIC 67
The show rapidly reached viewing gures of four million and by 1967 was
the most popular programme on Brazilian television, demonstrating that a new
youthful audience for popular music had emerged, a development that sparked a
war between the major television networks as they chased higher ratings to attract
this burgeoning market. The most powerful television networks were dominated
by individuals who also controlled various sectors of the national Press and
communications system, namely Roberto Marinho (TV-Globo) and Machado de
Carvalho (TV-Record).5
Festival Internacional de Cano 1972: End of an Era?
The televised song festivals held in Brazil between 1965 and 1972 changed the face
of Brazilian popular music by bringing a host of new innovative performers and
songwriters to the publics attention within a very short period. A seemingly endless
stream of talent took advantage of the exposure provided by the festivals to launch
their careers, and legions of fans vociferously supported their idols either at the
festivals themselves or through watching the events on television. However, most
contemporary observers considered that the 1972 FIC represented the closure of a
glorious cycle of festivals that had started in 1965 with Elis Reginas all-conquering
performance of Arrasto at the inaugural TV-Excelsior festival. Much had changed
in the eld of Brazilian popular music and in Brazilian society during the intervening
period, but it was clear that the televised festivals had left an indelible impression
on the era. That the formula had run out of steam can be attributed to a number of
factors, the most important of which were falling attendances and television ratings;
the rise of cultural alternatives (the telenovela was rst launched in 1963 and was
well established by the following year); and the proliferation of numerous poor
imitations.
Some of the criticism of the latter FICs was due to a feeling that the festivals
were getting out of control, triggered by press reports of widespread mob
disorder at the 1971 FIC.6 Some criticism also appears to have been provoked by
the public success of compositions that were largely in the U.S. soul idiom, such
as BR-3, sung by Tony Tornado, which won the 1970 FIC, and Erlon Chavess
performance of Eu tambm quero mocot at the same event. In live performance
Tornado came across as a Brazilian version of James Brown, with his soulful
voice and expressive dancing. The lyrics to Eu tambm quero mocot were full of
sexual doubles entendres, and Erlon Chaves nal stage appearance at the festival
featured him dancing erotically with two white women (Chaves was black) that
led to boos from the audience and Chaves being led away by the police to be
charged with offending public decency. Both these songs were essentially light-
hearted crowd pleasers, but to some they seem to have signied a challenge,
representing further evidence of the decline of Brazilian popular music and the
threat posed by an imported foreign model (black U.S. soul), which had little in
5 Stroud, Msica para o povo cantar, pp. 945.

6 See for example, Anon, E o tumulto cantou mais alto, Jornal do Brasil, 5/10/71.
keeping with Brazilian traditions.7 Nelson Motta, who was a member of the jury
at the festival, recalls that many of his fellow jurors who were critics and writers on
popular music were still overly concerned about being seen to be encouraging what
they perceived to be good music, rather than judging a composition purely on its
popularity at the festival. Motta makes the astute observation that at this juncture,
radical changes in popular music in Brazil the growing inuence of rock and
soul music in particular made it much harder to dene what exactly constituted
good music, and that the festivals had not been simply about musical excellence
for some time:8
The new music that was springing up demanded new criteria. The festival had not been
merely a competition of musical excellence for some time, it was now a shop window of
ideas, a window of freedom within an oppressive climate, an opportunity for new talents
and new languages . . . Popular music was much more than just music and lyrics. It was
one of the rare spaces which remained to express, however metaphorically, insatsfaction
with the [military] regime and a minimum of hope for change.9
Abertura 1975: TV-Globos Search for New Talent
TV-Globo had dominated the eld of the major televised song festivals since 1970
and while ratings remained high the FIC represented a glamorous agship of live
popular music. Yet when ratings plummeted in 1972, the network decided to end its
involvement for good.10 Nevertheless, within three years the network had made an
abrupt volte-face and launched Abertura, a new televised song festival in January
1975. Abertura was co-sponsored by TV-Globo and the So Paulo city council, and
was broadcast nationwide over ve evenings. The networks decision to re-launch
the festivals was symptomatic of a pattern of periodic investment in popular music
by television networks that would continue over the next twenty-ve years. This
investment has nostalgically sought to recreate the heady success of the televised
song festivals of the 1960s, which are still enshrined in certain sections of the
media as the yardstick by which standards of popular music should be judged. TV-
Globos decision to reinvest in an apparently outmoded format was inuenced by a
widespread feeling expressed in the press that Brazilian popular music had endured
a particularly barren phase since 1972 and that new performers of note had been few
7 Tony Tornado lived for a period in the United States and was arrested in Brazil on
one occasion for giving the black power salute associated with the Black Panthers. For a
comprehensive and long-overdue assessment of Brazilian soul see Bryan McCann, Black
Pau: Uncovering the history of Brazilian soul, Journal of Popular Music Studies 14 (2002)
3362.
8 Nelson Motta, Noites Tropicais (Rio de Janeiro, 2000), pp. 20911.
9 Ibid., pp. 21011.
10 TV-Globos decision was almost certainly inuenced by political considerations.
Various songwriters (including Tom Jobim and Chico Buarque) presented an anti-censorship
manifesto at the 1970 FIC that led to their arrest and provoked the sacking of the events
organizer, Augusto Marzago. Jlio Hungria, Quais sero as novas aberturas?, Opinio,
14/3/75, p. 21.
and far between during that period. With the exception of Novos Baianos (1972),
and Secos e Molhados, Joo Bosco and Fagner (all 1973), that was the case.
Phases of intense musical creativity in any country are short-lived and rare at
the best of times. However, a major factor in the paucity of new stars appearing at
this time must have been to a large extent the straightjacket of artistic censorship
that existed in Brazil. For example, Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gils performance
of Clice at the Phono 73 show in May of that year was dramatically terminated
by the censor cutting the sound to the artists microphones,11 and Buarques 1974
album Sinal Fechado was a collection of songs by other composers, apart from one
written in the name of his pseudonym, Julinho da Adelaide. In a clear attempt to
evade the attentions of the censor, many established artists had resorted to covering
lyrically uncontroversial older standards, and record companies rushed to record
velha guarda artists such as Moreira da Silva, Lupicnio Rodrigues and Z Keti. For
many inside the music industry, this was clearly a time for musical introspection
rather than innovation.
Another major factor inuencing TV-Globos decision to return to televising song
festivals was the ongoing crisis in the Brazilian record industry caused by the sharp
rise in the price of oil imports that started in 1973. Brazil imported 80 per cent of its
oil at this time, and more expensive oil meant dearer vinyl. As these increased costs
were passed on to the consumer (by 1975, the cost of an LP was the equivalent of 10
per cent of the minimum wage) record sales dropped alarmingly by 24 per cent in
the period November 1973March 1974.12 This was in stark contrast to the golden
year of 1973, when the massive success of the group Secos e Molhados had boosted
record sales to new heights. However, the commercial potential of popular music
can also be judged by the fact that during the 1960s the Brazilian record market grew
by 300 per cent due to the impact of the Bossa Nova movement.13 Record companies
were well aware of the spin off effect of such a boom on the market; as customers
ocked to record stores to buy a new release by the latest sensation, they could
be enticed to buy records by other artists.14 The problem for the music industry in
197475 was that there were no new artists of sufcient stature to resuscitate sales.
This explains the decision to attempt to unearth new talent through the route of the
song festivals.
TV-Globo arranged that of the forty compositions in competition at Abertura,
thirty-one were by composers unknown to the general public. These newcomers
included Leci Brando, Ednardo, Jorge Mautner, Alceu Valena and Lus Melodia.
The festival also featured malditos such as Jards Macal, Hermeto Pascoal and
Walter Franco. Shows by established MPB artists including Gal Costa, Quarteto em
Cy, Toquinho, Gilberto Gil, Jorge Ben, Ney Matogrosso and Ivan Lins closed each
programme to ensure that ratings did not drop too low. The jury awarded rst prize
11 Brief lm footage of this dramatic moment is now available on the DVD Phono 73:
O canto de um Povo (Universal Music, 2005).
12 Anon, Um mercado em crise, Viso, 12/5/75, p. 67.
13 Jlio Hungria, Quais sero as novas aberturas? p. 21.
14 Anon, Um Mercado em crise, p. 67.
to Carlinhos Vergueiro (Como um ladro), second place went to the then unknown
Djavan (Fato consumado) and third prize to Walter Franco (Muito tudo).15
Several aspects of this festival provoked considerable comment in the press.
There was much criticism of the quality of compositions submitted, the vast majority
of which were considered to be mediocre at best, which it was argued demonstrated
a continuing crisis within Brazilian popular music. Walter Francos performance
provoked great hostility from the audience, who booed him viciously. The audience
had taken to chanting Farofa-f (the title of a particularly bland song which was
eliminated in the preliminary rounds) during the competition to display its disapproval
of any composition that they disliked. Subjected to a storm of booing as he attempted
to perform Muito Tudo at the conclusion of the festival, Franco incorporated part
of the melody of Farofa-f into his own composition and taunted the audience:
but isnt it Farofa-f that you want?16. Unable to make himself heard above the
din, Franco abandoned his attempts to perform the song and sat on the stage, cross-
legged, playing a bizarre game of dice with the songs arranger, Jlio Medaglia and
autist Tony Osanah as the audience continued their howling.17 This confrontational
reaction was nothing new for Franco, as he had suffered a similar fate at the 1972
FIC, where his performance of the experimental Cabea an almost wordless
composition which focused on the use of breath and the body was too much for the
audience, who vented their displeasure all too audibly.
Yet Jards Macal, Jorge Mautner and Hermeto Pascoal (all so-called malditos)
were also booed at Abertura, which led some observers to lament the increasing
conservatism of the audience at these events. Some commentators considered this
conservatism to be a direct consequence of the increasingly bland popular music
used in telenovelas. This in turn provoked a debate in the press on the increasingly
problematic interrelationship between television and popular music. The writer
and critic Ana Maria Bahiana had already tackled this theme the previous year,
in an article in which she had traced the manner in which television had moved
away from featuring popular music on a regular basis in the early 1970s, and was
now attempting to redress the balance with the announcement of the plans for the
Abertura festival.18
Bahianas article was based on several interviews with a number of representatives
from the world of popular music and television, and revealed a fundamental split
in notions of how popular music should be dealt with by television. In the article,
a representative of TV-Globo expressed the view that the network felt a sense of
cultural duty to drag Brazilian popular music out of its torpid state of low creativity,
and the network was prepared to take the risk of investing in popular music (IBOPE
ratings for music programmes had dropped to extremely low levels) a risk which was
15 Details of the performers and songs featured in all the televised song festivals can be
found in Mellos, A Era dos Festivais: Uma Parbola.
16 Mello, A Era dos Festivais, p. 20. For more information on disruptive behaviour by
the audience at the festivals, see Stroud, Msica para o povo cantar, pp. 100104.
17 Jos Mrcio Penido, A fenda, Veja, 12/2/75, p. 55.
18 Ana Maria Bahiana, Msica popular & televiso: a dicl aliana, Opinio, 12/8/74,
pp. 1516.
minimized by using the tried and tested festival formula. TV-Globo considered that
MPB was merely in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the right moment to
awaken refreshed and revitalized. On the other hand, Jlio Medaglia contended that
it was not televisions responsibility to act as the creative source for a renovation of
popular music it was only the vehicle of transmission. For him, televisions relentless
consumption of musical raw material had been damaging to MPB, as it rapaciously
devoured everything in its path. Medaglia did not wish to see another explosion
within MPB, as had occurred during the 1960s largely through the influence of the
early televised song festivals, and he thought that television should allow popular
music to go back to basics and be allowed to develop naturally over time. This view
was shared by the composer Gutemberg Guarabira, who felt that the festival format
was only successful at the outset, when it was a novelty:
There was a huge reservoir of static creativity that the festivals mobilized, used up and
wasted until it was exhausted, without allowing time for another reservoir of talent to
develop.19
Bahianas article proved to be remarkably prescient because all these issues

received a further airing in the press after the conclusion of Abertura. Writing
in the magazine Veja, the journalist Silvio Lancellotti acknowledged that at least
TV-Globo had organized a platform for new artists to showcase their talents,
but he regretted that the networks influence on the event resulted in success for
bland compositions that would not have been out of place in a soundtrack to one
of the networks own telenovelas.20 Even Aberturas producer admitted this and
conceded that some of those who had participated in the festival would be invited
to contribute to future TV-Globo telenovela soundtracks.21 Given the importance of
the role of the telenovela in Brazilian cultural life by 1975, it was already evident
that a continuous supply of new compositions and stars would be required to supply
the aural backdrop to the daily programmes.22 The Globo organization had eagerly
seized the opportunity to exploit the commercial potential of the telenovela, and
had founded its own record label (Som Livre) in 1971 solely to market telenovela
soundtracks, which swiftly came to dominate the best-selling LP charts.23 I shall
return to the issue of the powerful influence of telenovelas on Brazilian popular
music later in this chapter.
As the Abertura festival closed, TV-Bandeirantes launched a new musical
programme, produced by Walter Clark who had been responsible for the legendary
TV-Record festivals of the 1960s. Clark had also been in charge of the screening of
the first appearances of Walter Franco, Simone, and Secos & Molhados on his show
19 Bahiana, Msica popular & televiso, p. 16.

20 Slvio Lancellotti, Entupimento mental, Veja, 12/2/75, p. 56.
21 Anon, Msica: quem quer os novos?, Viso, 10/2/75, p. 67.
22 Examples of festival composers whose careers were accelerated by the use of their
songs in telenovelas in the 1970s include Lus Melodia, whose Juventude Transviada was
used in Pecado Capital (1976) and Ednardos Pavo Misterioso, featured in Saramandaia
(1978).
23 Marcia Tosta Dias, Os Donos da Voz, p. 60.
Mixturao, aired by TV-Record in 1973. His new brief with TV-Bandeirantes was
to produce Mambembe, a programme which could not be further from the TV- Globo
style of musical show. TV-Bandeirantes gave Clark a free rein to produce a show
without any need to meet a ratings level, its only criterion being to unearth music
of quality. This was possible because the budget for the show was low, and also
because TV-Bandeirantes was not the market leader for this type of programme and
was therefore not having to defend ratings figures.24
Despite their apparent differences, Abertura and Mambembe were similar
programmes in the respect that they both acted as a shop window for new talent at
a time when the unearthing of fresh faces was seen as essential in order to generate
interest and income, not only for television networks, but also for the record industry,
radio, theatre impresarios, publishers and performing rights organizations.25 The
dilemma facing the television networks was how to avoid the expensive failings
of TV-Globos short-lived programme Som Livre Exportao, which was taken off
the air in 1971. That shows attempt to encourage new talent had been laudable,
but some critics felt that its failure had been due to an elitist approach which was
off-putting to a mass audience and the fact that the show featured a crop of talent
who were pushed to prominence before they had the chance to develop a significant
repertoire.26
TV-Tupi Festival da Msica Popular 1979: Identifying New Values in Popular

Music
The So Paulo based television station, TV-Tupi sponsored the next major televised
song festival after an interval of four years in which the charts had been dominated
to a large extent by music from telenovela soundtracks and imported disco music.
Of the seven thousand entries to the competition, thirty-six were aired at the
festival, which was broadcast live to an audience of ten million via the EMBRATEL
network. The veteran festival producer Solano Ribeiro was brought in to organize
the proceedings, which were won by Fagner (Quem me lever sou eu), with Walter
Franco (Canalha) second, and Oswaldo Montenegro (Bandolins) in third place. This
latest festival once again attracted much press coverage, and as in 1975 again offered
an opportunity for journalists to speculate on what the festival revealed about the
contemporary state of Brazilian popular music. Polemic and controversy marked
the outset of the competition when Caetano Veloso criticized the composition of the
jury, which included Zuza Homem de Mello and Jlio Hungria, for being exclusively
white and male. Somewhat ludicrously, Mello argued that an attempt had been made
to recruit a female juror but without success, and in an attempt to deflect the charge
of racism he retorted that the jury did not contain any Japanese members either.27 To
ensure adequate television ratings the festival also included shows by established
24 Anon, Msica: quem quer os novos?, p. 68.

25 Ibid., p. 67.
26 Anon, Terceira corrida do ano, Veja, 20/10/71, p. 88. Anon, Motivo de muito
orgulho?, Veja, 16/6/71, p. 74.
27 Anon, Cad os novos?, Viso, 24/12/79, p. 134.
artists, and Velosos own appearance inspired the audience to give him an ovation
on his entry, swiftly followed by jeering and hooting when he performed a song by
Jorge Ben which was not to their liking. Large sections of the audience also turned
their backs on Veloso at this point.28
Press reports suggest a climate of tension at this festival, with several younger
un-established performers complaining of discrimination by the jury, which they felt
was biased in favour of professional artists who were merely using the event to gain
greater publicity for themselves. These younger performers found this particularly
galling, as the proclaimed aim of the event was to discover new values in popular
music. Several regional artists such as Kleyton and Kledir (Rio Grande do Sul) and
Z Ramalho (Paraba) complained that the festival was dominated by the patronizing
attitudes of elitist Cariocas and Paulistanos, either unaware or dismissive of the
musical creativity that existed outside of Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo.29 Kleyton
and Kledirs appearance at the festival was early evidence of the potential of the
new wave of msica sertaneja to make a significant impact on the national scene.
The other revelation of the festival was Arrigo Barnab, whose Sabor de Veneno was
greeted by a fusillade of eggs from the audience, yet Barnab went on to become the
leading light of the Vanguarda Paulista in the early 1980s and was hailed by Jlio
Medaglia as the greatest musical talent to emerge in the 1970s.30
Nevertheless, the majority of critics at the time felt that the TV-Tupi festival had
failed in its avowed aim: new values in popular music had not been discovered.31 The
significance of this was that many concluded that the music industry was once again
at a point of crisis. Although the Brazilian music industry was ranked at the time as
the sixth largest in the world, fresh stimulus from new talent was urgently required
because the disco boom had run its course in Brazil and sales by old favourites
such as Chico Buarque and Roberto Carlos were insufficient, on their own, to
satisfy potential demand from record buyers. Musical television programmes were
still few and far between, and as I demonstrated in Chapter 1, radio networks were
criticized in several quarters for playing a large proportion of foreign music, in
direct contravention of laws that demanded a fixed percentage of Brazilian music.32
A vicious circle had developed, whereby a limited number of records that record
companies had heavily invested in, were repeatedly played on the radio to ensure the
success that would meet the financial outlay of the record companies.33
In these circumstances, the TV-Tupi festival acted as a marvellous opportunity for
record companies to gauge the potential viability of new artists, at minimal financial
outlay to themselves. However, composers presenting their work at a festival were
faced with a dilemma. The festivals represented one of the only ways for new
28 Anon, Conflito de geraes, Veja, 21/11/79, p. 161.

29 Nei Ducls, O som desconhecido das novas geraes, Isto, 12/12/79, pp. 768.
30 Jlio Medaglia, A MPB hoje um coc!, Pasquim, 12/9/80, p. 17.
31 See for example, Anon, Conflito de geraes, pp. 1612, and Ducls, O som
desconhecido das novas geraes, pp. 768.
32 Anon, A dura escalada ao sucesso, Viso, 12/11/79, p. 127. These laws were never
properly enforced and were consequently ignored.
33 Ibid., p. 127.
artists to make a name for themselves the other was to have their compositions
covered by established artists, as was the case for Fagner, Belchior and Joo Bosco
and Aldir Blanc, whose songs were recorded by Elis Regina early in their careers.
Yet if composers entered the competitions they had to decide whether to have the
courage to persevere with their own work, or maximize their chances of winning,
and launching a potentially lucrative career, by churning out predictable, festival
music.34 The festivals therefore ran the risk of endlessly repeating the same formula,
as Mrio Rocha from EMI-Odeon was well aware:
In the beginning the festivals opened up an opportunity to present compositions stored

up by songwriters who had no chance of recording them or getting them known by other
means; they werent songs specifically composed for festivals, as was the case with A
Banda and Disparada. When the stock of songs and songwriters ran dry, festival songs
appeared and it was this that killed the festivals.35
Spare a thought then, for the team who had the unenviable task of sifting through
the seven thousand entries for the TV-Tupi festival, the vast majority of which were
judged to be woefully inadequate. An extensive analysis of the lyrics to all entries
was carried out at the time, and it provides an interesting insight into the state of
Brazilian popular music in 1979. The overwhelming majority of compositions were
based on themes of bitterness, indecision, confusion and insecurity. Half of the
entries were lyrically nostalgic, in that they looked back with longing to a rosy
past, and expressed fear for the future. The writers of half the entries expressed
doubt about where their future lay, and incredibly, more than three thousand of
the songs submitted contained the verb caminhar [to march].36 That such themes
of pessimism and self-examination were permeating the field of popular music is
hardly surprising after fifteen years of military rule and repression. It was, after all,
only at this juncture that the severest effects of censorship were being reduced as the
government tentatively moved towards a policy of re-democratization.
Festival da Nova Msica Popular Brasileira MPB-80: Television and Record

Industry in Perfect Harmony
In the wake of the 1979 TV-Tupi festival, TV-Globo planned their own event, larger
in scope and significantly different from that of its rivals. The festival was advertised
throughout Brazil by TV-Globos national network and the compositions that
reached the finals were selected by record companies (rather than members of a jury)
affiliated to the ABPD. This was evidence of a significant new, closer relationship
34 Anon, A dura escalada ao sucesso, p. 126.

35 Ibid.
36 Slvio Lancellotti, Procurado: o compositor, Isto, 12/12/79, p. 78. Interestingly,
Geraldo Vandrs Pra no dizer que no falei de flores: Caminhando, which had been banned
by the censor since 1968 because of its left wing associations, started to be played on the radio
in the middle of 1979 and was finally released from its ban on 21/11/79. The TV-Tupi festival
ran throughout the month of November 1979, although obviously entries for the festival
would have had to been submitted some considerable time before.
between the television networks and the music industry regarding the televised song
festivals. However, this had been explicit the year before, when in November 1979,
Solano Ribeiro, organizer of the TV-Tupi festival, revealed that he had been put
under extreme pressure before the start of his festival:
I was accosted by a guy who said he represented various record companies; he pushed me
up against the wall and said: Either you do the festival with us or the songs featured in
the festival will not be played on Brazilian radio.37
Ribeiro was able to maintain the independence of the TV-Tupi festival, but MPB-80
was a decisive shift away from any attempt at impartiality. Television, radio and the
record industry were all now working hand in hand to promote the same product.
The festival was held over a period of two months in front of an eclectic group of two
hundred jurors. This massive number was ostensibly to avoid charges of jury-rigging,
however, individual numbers of votes that were cast were never revealed. In a highly
symbolic break with the festival tradition, the general public was excluded from the
event itself, and jurors, journalists and representatives of the record industry took
their places. Oswaldo Montenegro (Agonia) won the festival, Amelinha (Foi deus
quem fez voc) was second, and Raimundo Sodr (A massa) third. In unprecedented
circumstances, three songs featured in the festival were receiving repeated radio play
during the competition, and Foi deus quem fez voc was topping radio ratings in Rio
de Janeiro and So Paulo in July 1980, before the festival had even finished.38
By October 1980, it was clear that MPB was enjoying a huge revival within
Brazil, and that MPB-80 had played a major part in that change. The festival had
acted as a five month-long showcase for artists selected by record companies to
represent the new face of Brazilian popular music, backed up by the promotional
power of the Globo empire. In 1979, the percentage of foreign music played on
Brazilian radio was 60 per cent, in comparison with 40 per cent Brazilian music.
Towards the end of 1980, those figures had been reversed, and sales figures showed a
similar pattern.39 This was almost wholly due to a massive investment by the Brazilian
record industry in promoting MPB artists such as Joanna, Fagner, Gonzaguinha,
Simone, and Amelinha to the Brazilian public, a strategy that was achieved through
more sophisticated marketing and product placement. At the MPB-80 festival, TV-
Globo was careful to arrange for songs from virtually every area of Brazil to be
featured, thereby encouraging high viewing figures across the whole nation. Record
companies jostled to ensure that their contracted artists were featured in the opening
section of the festival programme, guaranteeing a television audience of twenty
million who had just finished watching the nightly soap opera gua Viva.40 After
his success at MPB-80, Oswaldo Montenegros record company (WEA) swiftly
37 Anon, A dura escalada ao sucesso, p. 127.

38 Bencio Medeiros, A agonia chega MPB, Isto, 3/9/80, p. 49.
39 Mrcio Bueno, Ai, ai meu Deus, o que foi que aconteceu?, Movimento, 20/10/80,
p. 20.
40 Joaquim Ferreira dos Santos, Terceiro round, Veja, 18/6/80, p. 110.
negotiated with Som Livre and TV-Bandeirantes for the inclusion of his music in the
soundtrack of telenovelas that were broadcast at the time.41
The end of the disco boom that had dominated the Brazilian charts for some
time also facilitated this explosion of media attention towards MPB. In the resultant
vacuum that was created, record sales dipped, and the Brazilian record companies
the majority of which were controlled by multinational corporations made a
strategic decision to invest heavily in home-grown talent. Previous commercial
strategies to substitute reggae for disco in the national consciousness had not proved
successful, but a new generation of female artists such as Fatima Guedes, Sandra
S, ngela Ro-Ro, Marina, and Joyce was on the point of breaking through to a
wider audience. An added impetus to the flowering of this new-wave of MPB was
a climate of increased artistic freedom due to a relaxation in the severity of artistic
censorship, exemplified by the end of the ban on Geraldo Vandrs, Pra no dizer
que no falei de flores, which resulted in huge sales for recordings of that song.
TV-Globos decision to feature acts from all over Brazil at MPB-80 also resulted
in an upsurge in interest in regional music. Nonetheless, sceptics were quick to
point out that the multinational record companies controlling the Brazilian music
industry were likely to close the window of opportunity for MPB as soon as a new
international musical trend could be identified.42 Such views were prophetic, and that
new trend would prove to be rock music.
Fifteen songs featured at MPB-80 went on to be commercial successes after the
festival, a fact that unsurprisingly encouraged TV-Globo to continue their investment
in the festivals. MPB-81 received sixty thousand entries from all over Brazil,
Portugal, Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay. Nevertheless, this festival,
and MPB-82 and MPB-83 that followed, failed to unearth new talent capable of
major commercial success, with the exception of the new-wave pop act Gang 90 e
as Absurdettes. To coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the first televised song
festival, Solano Ribeiro was hired once again by TV-Globo and their co-sponsors
Shell to produce the Festival dos Festivais in 1985. Public interest in the event
remained high, with ten thousand entries for the competition, which was won by
Tet Espndola (Escrito nas estrelas). Espndolas live performance garnered much
praise from the critics, but apart from revealing the talent of Leila Pinheiro, hailed
in some quarters as the new Elis Regina, the festival was generally judged to have
been a resounding flop.43 Critics once again perceived the overall quality of entries
as lamentable, typified by diluted Brazilian rock music, uninspired regional themes,
and stultifyingly banal lyrics. Solano Ribeiro argued that it would take time for talent
introduced for the first time at the festival to come to fruition, but his reasonable
pleas fell on largely deaf ears.44 Vejas reviewer took the opportunity to paint a wider
41 Medeiros, A agonia chega MPB, p. 49. Som Livres links with the Globo
telecommunications empire gave it a significant advantage in the amount of free publicity that
could be generated to promote its telenovela soundtracks.
42 Bueno, Ai, ai meu Deus, p. 21.
43 Adones de Oliveira, No entanto, preciso cantar, Viso, 6/11/85, pp. 467.
44 Anon, A ressaca da festa, Veja, 6/11/85, pp. 1245.
picture of Brazilian popular music once again in crisis, characterized by even major
stars such as Chico Buarque stuck in a period of creative paralysis.45
Rock music was considered to be in the ascendancy at this juncture, hardly
surprising in a year overshadowed by the mammoth Rock in Rio festival. The
vice-president of the countrys largest record company put it in these words: For a
song to be successful on the FM radio stations it has to have at least a little flavour
of rock.46 This standardization also extended to the ubiquitous predominance
of a specific set of studio production techniques based around the use of drum
machines, synthesizers and electric keyboards, which came to be known as the FM
sound. Originally emanating from Los Angeles, this method of production rapidly
became ubiquitous, and was used in 1985 on LPs by the likes of Gal Costa, Fagner,
Gonzaguinha and Djavan, drawing criticism from some for creating a homogenous
uniformity that negated the individuality of the artists in question.47
Festival da Msica Brasileira 2000: Flogging a Dead Horse?
During the 1990s, the televised song festivals disappeared from sight, but somewhat
surprisingly they were revived once again by TV-Globo, who sponsored the Festival
da Msica Brasileira in August 2000. The festival was another giant affair, with
over twenty-three thousand entries, and was won by Ricardo Soares (Tudo bem,
meu bem). Solano Ribeiro was once again employed to run the festival, which he
declared to be a shop window for new musical talent. In order to avoid any allegations
of manipulation, the identity of those submitting entries was withheld from those
selecting the finalists, with the result that compositions by well-known artists such
as Lenine and Billy Blanco were excluded.48
The festivals stated aim was the recuperation of quality MPB but the glossiness
of the event could not prevent extremely low television ratings and a critical press.
Once again, the artistic merit of the songs in competition was adjudged to be pitifully
poor. The live audience roundly booed the winning composition (a mediocre pop-
rock affair) and Hermeto Pascoal accused the organizers of planting supporters in
the audience to create an artificial sense of drama at the event.49 Jlio Medaglia
defended the competition despite the low ratings, but he also referred to the harmful
consequences of Globos alliance with the record industry: What is important is
that Globo are trying to bring back what they themselves destroyed, by abandoning
their links with Brazilian popular culture in favour of the interests of the large record
companies.50 The most vehement criticism of the event came from the singer and
composer Lobo, who scornfully argued that TV-Globo was attempting to revive
something that no longer existed:
45 Anon, A ressaca da festa, p. 125.

46 Ibid., p. 125.
47 Ibid., pp. 1256.
48 Srgio Martins, Festival para qu?, Veja, 23/8/00, p. 148.
49 Fabio Danesi Rossi, Artistas condenam e Ibope confirma fracasso de festival, Jornal
do Commercio, 17/9/00, p. 5.
50 Rossi, Artistas condenam e Ibope, p. 5.
Its the mausoleum of the dead tongue, an absurd anachronism, a constraining thing. Father
Christmas, Chico Buarque, Elis Regina, they dont exist any more . . . Chico [Buarque] is
not going to come again, he was already an anachronism when he recorded A Banda! The
truth is that no clone of Caetano Veloso is going to appear, MPB is dead in that sense.51
Ivan Lins was more measured in his criticism, but also pointed out that MPB was
now out of step with the modern world:
When MPB fell out of the medias view in the 1980s a whole generation were without
a reference point. My music developed because I had feedback from the public. Today,
there is no interest in discussing MPB and an artist has no idea whether what they are
doing is any good.52
Whatever the merits of these arguments, yet another attempt has been made to
relaunch competitive song festivals in Brazil, this time via the Internet. In 2001, IBM
organized the first e-festival, which attracted eleven hundred entries, of which forty
were selected for competition. A series of heats were interspersed with live shows
by Daniela Mercury, Toquinho, Joo Bosco, Gilberto Gil and Milton Nascimento.
The public cast fifty thousand votes via the Internet, and the winning contestant had
the honour of sharing the stage with Milton Nascimento in front of an audience of
three thousand people on the closing night of the festival. The commercial success of
the first e-festival led IBM to repeat the event in 2002. Zuza Homem de Mello was
responsible for the selection of songs to be featured at the festival, and stressed that
any type of music could be entered, the only stipulation being that the lyrics were in
Portuguese.53
There are obvious advantages to an Internet-based festival, not least that the
audience can listen to the songs at its own leisure and as many times as it wishes before
it casts its votes. IBMs decision to sponsor the festival is based on the importance of
Brazil in economic terms; the country figures within the top ten global markets for
the company. IBM are also marketing their products at a youth audience and have
identified the significance of the song festivals as a Brazilian cultural tradition which
may be past its peak, but still has the capacity to attract public interest.
The Cultural Significance of the Festivals
In the late 1970s and the 1980s it became increasingly costly for record companies
to launch the careers of new artists, and the festivals acted as a cheap way to test
the popularity of new talent in front of a demanding public. What has also been
demonstrated time and time again since the heyday of the festivals in the late 1960s
is that many in the media see them as the epitome of quality and innovation within
Brazilian popular music. This idea has been repeatedly presented in the media,
51 Rossi, Artistas condenam e Ibope, p. 5.

52 Rodrigo Cardoso, Perdi a virginidade aos 20, Isto, 11/9/00, p. 60.
53 Anon, Para Zuza, efestival IBM 2002 ser melhor do que o primeiro, <http://
efestivalibm.terra.com.br/efestival/noticias/noticia_interna.jsp?w_news=6> [accessed 1 July
2002].
particularly at times when it is considered that the standing of MPB has fallen to a
new low and when it is posited that the regular cycle of musical renovation in Brazil
is in danger of drying up.54 Part of this obsession with the festivals probably lies in
the fact that they have represented one of the rare opportunities for popular music to
be aired on Brazilian television. Programmes dedicated solely to popular music have
been few and far between since the 1960s, and it has been more common for artists
to be allotted slots to publicize their latest release on popular variety shows such as
Domingo do Fausto.55
The festivals of the 1960s are often nostalgically seen in Brazil as a highpoint
in national cultural production, played out against a backdrop of social and political
ferment, with the public and the media as central actors in the drama. With hindsight,
it was hardly surprising that the flight into exile of the musicians and singers who
left the country after the imposition of the fifth Institutional Act in 1968 would
have a detrimental effect on the future development of popular music in Brazil for
several years to come, leaving an artistic vacuum waiting to be filled. For those who
attempted to fill that vacuum, the challenge was to work within new constraints of
governmental censorship and also with record companies less inclined to pander to
their whims than before. The numerous subsequent attempts by record companies
and television networks to revive the festivals demonstrate a stubborn belief in the
possibility of re-creating a golden age when audience and performers united in a
passionate celebration of popular music.
The Inter-relationship between Popular Music and Telenovelas
The Overwhelming Influence of TV-Globo
It would be hard to overestimate the cultural impact of television in Brazil. In 1996,

out of a population of nearly 160 million, 77 per cent watched television habitually,
and the average daily household viewing time exceeded five hours. Broadcasting
in Brazil has been dominated by TV-Globo since the 1960s. The network reaches
about half of the Brazilian population and is considered to be the fourth largest in the
world after the three largest networks in the United States.56 TV-Globos hegemonic
influence has been due to several factors, not the least of which has been the close
links the network maintained with the military governments that ruled Brazil between
54 This was also demonstrated by the advertising campaign for a festival of Brazilian
music held in London in 2004, which was marketed as being a festival like in the good old
times. Anon, brazilian festival, Leros, May 2004, p. 59.
55 There have been occasional attempts to launch more ambitious programmes featuring
live music such as Chico & Caetano (TV-Globo 1986) and Som Brasil (TV-Globo 1994) but
these were not popular with the public and also received extremely poor critical press. See for
example, Anon, Talento mal aproveitado, Veja, 28/9/94, p. 131 and Anon, Final aptico,
Veja, 24/12/86.
196485.57 During this period, TV-Globo exerted an almost monopolistic control
of broadcasting in Brazil, with a 6070 per cent share of the viewing audience
in the major cities at any given time, a figure that sometimes rose as high as 90
per cent. Despite the emergence of competition from networks such as SBT/TVS,
TV-Manchete and TV-Bandeirantes in the 1980s and 1990s, TV-Globo still retains
an average audience of over 60 per cent.58 TV-Globos success has also been based
on efficient marketing, research, investment in the latest technology, and its ability to
worm its way into the national consciousness, representing itself as an ever-present
that viewers can rely upon to provide a product of high quality, the so-called Globo
trademark of quality.59
One of the most important, if not the most important means by which popular music
has been disseminated within Brazil since the early 1970s, has been through the use
of music as the soundtrack to telenovelas. The template for these telenovelas was the
radio serials produced in Argentina and Cuba in the 1940s, and televised soap operas
broadcast in the United States in the 1950s. The first home-produced telenovelas
were broadcast in Brazil in the early 1950s. These rapidly rose in popularity and
began to be aired daily at peak hours, which in turn attracted greater advertising
revenue. Increasingly sophisticated production values were accompanied by the
exploration of quintessentially national themes from 1965 onwards, a development
that has been referred to as the Brazilianization of an imported cultural model.60 By
the 1970s, telenovelas were the most popular programmes in Brazil and their impact
was such that they were regularly influencing changes in cultural behaviour, and
even the use of the Portuguese language, both at home and abroad. They continue to
exert a key cultural role in Brazil and they are still the most popular television shows,
with millions of Brazilians tuning in on a daily basis to the various telenovelas that
occupy the key slots of daily broadcasting during the evening.
TV-Globo rapidly exerted a stranglehold on the production of telenovelas,
becoming the market leader, a position that it has never relinquished. TV-Globo
forms part of a vast, multimedia organization, and realizing the potential to be
generated from the sales of music played during telenovelas, a separate record label
(Som Livre) was set up in 1971 to market the soundtracks to those shows. Incredibly,
within three years the label had grabbed 38 per cent of all record sales, and by
1977 it was the top selling record label in Brazil.61 The all-encompassing scope of
the Globo communications empire enables popular music played during TV-Globo
telenovelas to be advertised through radio stations and newspapers also controlled
by the network in a perfect example of media synergy. TV-Globo shamelessly
57 For more information on the rise of TV-Globo see Michle and Armand Mattelart, The
Carnival Of Images: Brazilian Television Fiction (New York, 1990).
59 Jos Marques de Melo, As Telenovelas da Globo:Produo e exportao (So Paulo,
1998), p. 17.
60 Joseph Straubhaar, The Development of the Telenovela as the Pre-Eminent Form of
Popular Culture in Brazil, Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, vol. 1 (1982), 13850
(pp. 1412).
61 Rita C.L. Morelli, Indstria Fonogrfica: Um Estudo Antropolgico (Campinas,
1991), p. 70.
uses product placement in its telenovelas to generate income, and the use of popular
music in these programmes follows similar lines.
The sophisticated practice of cross merchandising and promotion of the music
contained in a TV-Globo telenovela has been outlined in the following manner by
Thomas Tufte. A well-known musician is contracted to record the opening song of
a new telenovela, which is then recorded by Som Livre and starts to appear as a
jingle on the radio. Television adverts are broadcast to advertise the telenovela using
this song. Prior to the start of the new series, a CD of the Brazilian music featuring
in the telenovela is launched in the shops. Som Livre also plan their sales strategy
around the probability that the sales of artists featured in the telenovela soundtrack
will start to pick up once the show is on air. For the duration of the airing of the
telenovela (normally six months) radio plays of featured songs are intense. Months
after the start of the telenovelas run, a CD of the international songs featured in the
show is released as a separate recording, which is then the subject of intense radio
exposure.62 Simon Frith has referred to the reasoning behind this symbiotic type of
relationship when writing about the use of popular music in British television:
Here is the circular argument beloved of advertisers: because this is your sort of music
this must be your sort of television; because this is your sort of television this must be
your sort of music. The relationship of music and television is not organic but a matter of
branding.63
Uses of Popular Music in Telenovelas
One of the most potent elements in a telenovela is the use of popular, and less
frequently, classical music in the soundtrack to underline the action. This technique
is often used to associate a particular song or musical theme with specific characters
in the drama. Thus, a snippet of the theme associated with a character or couple
starring in the telenovela will often accompany their appearance in the drama itself.
Other functions of music in these programmes can include: the evocation of emotion,
the conjuring up of regional atmosphere, and the scene setting of a historical period
or era. With daily domestic broadcasting of telenovelas running at four to five hours,
the demand for music to serve as a soundtrack to the dramas is intense. But what
kind of music (national and international) is chosen to feature in telenovelas, and
what are the criteria for such choices? Are there acceptable types of music for
telenovelas that are aired at 6pm as compared to 9pm, for example? Why do some
telenovelas feature almost incessant musical dialogues with the characters, and
others have much less musical input? Why have telenovela soundtracks remained so
popular with Brazilian consumers for over thirty years, and how does this compare
to other Latin American countries? All these issues are potentially intriguing because
of the substantial impact of telenovelas on sales (official and un-official) in Brazil,
and the all-pervading musical and cultural influence that these programmes exert.
62 Thomas Tufte, Living with the Rubbish Queen: Telenovelas, Culture and Modernity in
Brazil (Luton, 2000), pp. 1278.
63 Simon Frith, Look! Hear! The uneasy relationship of music and television, Popular
Music, vol. 21/3 (2002), 27790 (p. 282).
Unfortunately these topics lie outside the scope of this present work but they would
undoubtedly merit further research.64
The musical soundtrack to telenovelas almost exclusively utilizes pre-existing
recordings. As I have mentioned, the Brazilian music featured in these programmes
has traditionally had a higher profile in marketing terms than the foreign music also
featured in the shows, and has had its own recording that is released onto the market
first.65 Two months prior to the start of a new TV-Globo telenovela, record companies
receive a dossier from TV-Globo outlining the plot and the personality traits of each
character. The record companies then submit songs from their existing repertoire to
TV-Globo that they feel will convey the essence of these characters.66
The decision to approve a particular song at TV-Globo lies with Mariozinho Rocha,
who has been musical director at the company since 1989. Rocha has stated that the
use of music in a telenovela is of fundamental importance in ensuring its popularity
with the public.67 Ever since the first telenovela soundtracks were produced in the
early 1970s, they have been extremely successful in terms of sales, and the impact
of the inclusion in a telenovela soundtrack on an artists career is often considerable
particularly if their music is used as the opening theme or is associated with a major
character in the drama almost always guaranteeing increased sales and a higher
media profile. Consequently, a recording artist often sees the opportunity to feature in
the soundtrack to a telenovela as akin to winning a lottery.68 Occasionally, unknown
artists are introduced to the public through this sort of exposure, and it has also been
used to revamp the careers of those that have been out of the limelight for some time,
such as Lus Melodia, Fagner, Sidney Magal and Z Ramalho.69 The guaranteed high
sales of a telenovela soundtrack enable Som Livre to negotiate the rights to use music
from record companies at extremely low rates. This has been particularly useful
for record companies in times of economic recession, when overall record sales
have dropped alarmingly. Both Sony and Polygram formed joint record labels with
Globo in 1993 to boost sales, further evidence of the increasingly close relationship
between television networks and the record industry.70
64 Two studies that deal very briefly with the specific role played by music in the
soundtrack to telenovelas are: Fernando de Jess Giraldo Salinas, O Som na Telenovela:
Articulaes Som e Receptor (unpublished doctoral thesis, E.C.A, University of So Paulo,
1994), and Rafael Roso Righini, A Trilha Sonora da Telenovela Brasileira: De Criao
Finalizao (unpublished doctoral thesis, E.C.A, University of So Paulo, 2001).
65 In November 2003, Celebridade was the first telenovela to have its national and
international soundtracks to be included on the same release.
66 Srgio Martins, Gincana sonora, Veja, 14/6/00, p. 156.
67 Tnia Fusco, Central de sucessos, Isto Senhor, 5/2/92, p. 58.
68 For statistics showing the dramatic effect on an artists sales after inclusion in a TV-
Globo telenovela, see Maria Elisa Alves, Comunho de bens, Veja, 21/7/93, p. 105.
69 Fusco, Central de sucessos, p. 59.
70 Alves, Comunho de bens, p. 105.
The Impact of Telenovelas on MPB
The telenovelas of the early to mid 1970s (Vu de Noiva, Pigmalio 70, Assim na
Terra como no Cu) featured music by some of the biggest contemporary names
in MPB such as Elis Regina, Ivan Lins, Maria Bethnia, Gilberto Gil and Caetano
Veloso. As musical tastes changed over the years, and MPB diversified, that musical
diversification was reflected in the music featured in telenovelas, which although
still regularly including artists associated with MPB, also featured more outright
pop, rock music, ballads and msica sertaneja. Some critics have expressed concern
about the long-term effect of the novelizao of Brazilian popular music, feeling that
it has resulted in the creation of a genre that merely serves to enhance the dramatic
effect of a television series without having any other inherent musical merit.71 This is
reminiscent of criticism that was levelled at the quality of entries to the later televised
song festivals, where it was widely believed that contestants were submitting festival
music, in other words, music that was similar to previously successful compositions
and that was likely to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Despite the
exposure given to their work through use in telenovelas, songwriters such as Chico
Buarque and Edu Lobo have also registered their concern that the public who buy
telenovela soundtracks are often completely unaware of the identity of the writers
and performers of the songs they include, merely associating them with the themes
of central characters in the telenovelas themselves.72
The monopolistic influence on Brazilian popular music exerted by the Globo
organization has also been criticized for making it almost too easy to create hit
records, due to the overwhelming promotional and distributional power that Globo
can bring to bear through its multifaceted empire.73 Yet ironically, in recent times
telenovelas often denigrated in the past as the arch-enemies of quality music
have been hailed as the potential saviours of MPB as they currently represent
one of the only outlets for the public to hear such music, a current that has been
largely excluded from mainstream radio broadcasting. The argument has also been
made that telenovela soundtracks now provide one of the rare opportunities for new
MPB artists to achieve public recognition and that they act as a springboard for the
careers of such artists who are in the process of attempting to establish themselves.74
Certainly at the time of writing there seems to be a far higher profile for the use of
music by classic MPB composers and performers such as Joo Donato, Gilberto Gil,
Maria Bethnia, Noel Rosa and Chico Buarque, in telenovelas such as Celebridade,
Mulheres Apaixonadas and Belissima. Maria Ritas eponymous first CD achieved
enormous sales in Brazil in 20032004, and in 2004 a song from the CD was used as
the title music of a prime time TV-Globo telenovela, which was in itself a reflection
of Ritas success. It is still a little early to judge whether this represents a short-lived
71 Alves, Comunho de bens, p. 105.

72 Anon, Um pega que durou uma noite inteira (Rountable discussion with Chico
Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Edu Lobo and Aldir Blanc), Homem, 1975, p. 6.
73 Maurcio Kubrusly, Quem escolhe o que voc ouve?, Jornal da Tarde, 13/9/75.
Anon, Sucessos a reboque, Viso, 23/7/73, p. 93.
74 Joo Pimentel, Uma trilha de sucesso, O Globo, 9/11/03.
trend or the start of a renaissance for MPB as a whole, but Ritas success and the
appearance of artists such as Max de Castro, Wilson Simoninha, and Pedro Mariano
does suggest that there may be a new wave of MPB on the horizon.
The influence of the music contained within the telenovelas produced by TV-
Globo is not confined to the national market. In 1988, TV-Globo was exporting
its telenovelas worldwide, to countries including Italy, Portugal, France, Poland,
Hungary, China, and the whole of Latin America. In 1997, the global revenue from
exported telenovelas was worth U.S. $100 million to the Globo organization.75 These
exports started in 1975, and the decision by French television networks to broadcast
Baila Comigo in 1985 was seen as extremely significant by Globo, who were
aware of Frances position as a cultural leader in Europe, and the possibility that
success in France might open the gates to other French-speaking countries.76 The
most difficult market to crack has been that of the United States, due to protectionist
measures existing in the North American market and the aversion of many viewers
in the U.S. to subtitled programmes. Another problem was commercial in nature; the
telenovela soundtracks produced in Brazil normally featured some North American
popular music that TV-Globo was not authorized to promote commercially in the
United States. To alter the original soundtrack would have been time-consuming
and expensive, so subsequent TV-Globo telenovela soundtracks featured only
Brazilian music. TV-Globos decision also allowed for the independent marketing of
Brazilian popular music in their soundtracks by their label Som Livre in Europe and
elsewhere.77 Crucially, it also gave a major boost to sales of Brazilian music within
Brazil itself.
Brazilian telenovelas offer an insight into Brazilian culture for those who watch
them worldwide. Those viewers are also directly exposed to Brazilian popular music
via the soundtracks, and it would seem that there might be a link between exposure
to telenovelas and a corresponding popularity of Brazilian popular music. For
example, MPB has been popular in France for many years and Brazilian performers
regularly tour France and other European countries in the summer months. Some
idea of the potential cultural impact of Brazilian telenovelas abroad can be gauged
by the success of the screening of A Escrava Isaura in Poland in 1985. Twenty-
eight million viewers (86 per cent of the viewing public) voted the series as the best
television programme of the last ten years, and long after the series was screened
songs from the telenovela were still played on Polish radio.78 I would not claim
that telenovelas have always achieved such levels of success outside Brazil, but the
Polish experience is an interesting example of a type of reverse cultural invasion.
75 Daniel Mato, Miami in the Transnationalization of the Telenovela Industry: On

Territoriality and Globalization, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, vol. 11, no. 2
(2002), 195212 (p. 199).
76 Melo, As Telenovelas da Globo, p. 43.
77 Ibid., p. 46.
78 Mattelart, Michle and Armand, The Carnival Of Images, pp. 1213.
MTV Brasil and MPB
The most recent development in the transmission of popular music through the
medium of television in Brazil has been the introduction of Music TV (MTV) in
1990. The Brazilian version of this satellite/cable channel is owned by the Editora
Abril publishing group, and in 1995 was received by twelve million households in
one hundred and seventy cities.79 Established in the United States in 1981, MTV has
been a colossal success with its formula of music videos broadcast twenty-four hours
a day. These videos have become the mainstay of the music industry worldwide.
Increasingly sophisticated, and often produced at vast expense, they are seen as
the major promotional tool in publicizing a new release. MTVs motto is Think
globally, act locally, and that reasoning has influenced the strategy employed in
Brazil. Recognizing that national music accounted for about 65 per cent of record
sales in Brazil, MTV Brasil increased its broadcasting of Brazilian music videos
proportionally, at the expense of imported videos from the United States and
Europe.80
The influence of MTV Brasil on Brazilian popular music has been important
in two major ways. First, it has acted as a means by which new talent (bands such
as Skank, and Chico Science Nao Zumbi, for example) has been exposed to a
nationwide public for the first time. The second trend has been the ability of the
channel to recycle the careers of older MPB stars such as Gilberto Gil to a younger
generation unfamiliar with their work via the Acstico [Unplugged] series.81 MTV
Brasils target audience is the 1524 age group from social classes A and B, and its
average daily audience is estimated at 1.2 million.82 Joseph Straubhaar has identified
a possible limitation on the potential audience for MTV Brasil as only 45 per cent
of Brazilian households had a second television set in 1992, and younger viewers
may not be able to control family viewing patterns.83 Additionally, the growth of
the market for satellite/cable services in Brazil remains static at 56 per cent.84
Nevertheless, it should also be taken into account that MTV Brasils music videos
are also reaching an additional unrecorded audience through public spaces such as
airport waiting lounges, record shops, fitness centres, and bars and restaurants.85 By
1999, MTV Brasil had become the major showcase for popular music in Brazil, and
the channel started to widen its scope by moving away from pop and rock music to
79 Anon, Sabor tropical, Veja, 6/9/95, p. 104.

80 The amount of MPB videos transmitted by MTV Brasil varies, but is in the region
of 3060 per cent of all that are broadcast. Email correspondence with Yone Sassa, musical
programmer, MTV Brasil, 12/10/03.
81 Sales of Gilberto Gils Parabolicamar LP received good reviews but only sold
68,000 copies. After exposure on MTV Brasil, his next release Acstico sold 270,000. Anon,
Sabor tropical, Veja, 6/9/95, p. 106.
82 Anon, Sabor tropical, p. 104.
84 Straubhaar, Brazil: The Role of the State in World Television, in Media and
Globalization: Why the State Matters, ed. by Nancy Morris and Silvio Waisbord (Lanham,
2001), pp. 13353 (p. 140).
85 Srgio Martins, Choque no visual, Veja, 18/8/99, p. 141.
broadcast videos of samba, pagode, rap and ax-music in keeping with the growing
markets for those genres. However, in 2005 the director general of MTV Brasil
made it clear that the channel did not feel that it had a democratic responsibility
to support all types of Brazilian popular music and stated that gospel and msica
sertaneja for example would not be broadcast on MTV Brasil.86
Conclusion
The televised song festivals that have taken place since 1972 have reflected an
ongoing search for music of a certain type (quality music) and stature to match
the significance of that produced in the golden era of Caetano Veloso, Elis Regina,
Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque et al. It appears that many in the Brazilian media wish
to project the notion that there exists a cultural void that can, even at this late stage,
be filled by a return to a winning formula that produced so many performers who
still dominate the field of MPB over four decades later. Part of that search for new
performers via the festivals is tied up with the increasingly incestuous relationship
that has developed between television networks and the record industry, a liaison
that constantly requires fresh talent to stimulate sales in an ever more competitive
market. By harnessing the massive exposure provided by television, particularly
TV-Globo, the festivals became a relatively cheaper way of unearthing new talent,
and testing that talent before a live audience, than investing in unknown artists.
However, by the time of MPB 80, the symbolic link with the public at the festivals
(acting as jurors) was broken, and the events were revealed to be merely exercises
in naked commercialism, which nevertheless, helped to provoke a major revival for
MPB at the time.
The use of popular music in telenovelas is ubiquitous and immensely powerful.
It is the single major source by which Brazilians access popular music, and the
soundtracks to these programmes regularly top the lists of best-selling CDs (both
official and pirated). The Brazilian popular music that is featured in telenovelas
therefore forms an integral part of the daily lives of the vast majority of the Brazilian
population. The power of these programmes to influence popular music can be judged
by the fact that TV-Globos decision to use only Brazilian music in the soundtrack
to the 1985 telenovela, Roque Santeiro immediately raised the profile and sales of
MPB, and catapulted the careers of artists such as Dominguinhos, Elba Ramalho and
Z Ramalho, whose music was featured in the show. The most recent trend of using
classic MPB in telenovelas demonstrates the enduring symbolic power of that
music, and also the continuation of a link with the past (Maria Rita is the daughter of
the late Elis Regina). The Brazilian music featured in telenovelas also finds a global
audience when those programmes are exported worldwide, and therefore fulfils a
cultural role because it represents what many abroad will consider to be typical
Brazilian music.
86 Andr Mantovani, in Admirvel Mundo: MTV Brasil, ed. by Maria Goretti Pedroso
and Rosana Martins (So Paulo, 2006), p. 7.
The role of Brazilian popular music in the post-1972 festivals and telenovelas has
reflected powerful changes in the relationship between the public, popular music and
television. As popular music has become more and more of a commodity, marketing
strategies and product placement have ensured that music has increasingly been
seen as a means to benefit television networks, record labels and the entertainment
industry in general. The profile of Brazilian popular music in both the festivals
and telenovelas is especially important because there has never been a tradition of
television programmes on the major networks that have regularly featured popular
music. That may be in the process of changing with the continuing growth of MTV-
Brasil (which is now open to air) which may offer a future platform for new ways
of presenting Brazilian popular music. In the next chapter I examine the relationship
between the Brazilian record industry and popular music from a different perspective.
I will consider theories relating to cultural imperialism and globalization in an
attempt to determine whether they are relevant to the specific case of Brazil.
Chapter 4
Cultural Imperalism, Globalization,

and the Brazilian Record Industry
Brazilian popular music is often considered to be the flagship of Brazilian culture

but the industry responsible for its production is almost completely under the control
of multinational companies, and has been since the 1930s. The Brazilian market
has long been targeted as being potentially lucrative, and as recently as 1998 rose
to being the sixth largest in the world.1 Yet by 2002, the Brazilian record industry
had slipped out of the top ten and was facing the worlds second largest incidence
of music piracy, with an estimated 115 million pirate CDs sold in Brazil during that
year.2
This chapter has two main parts, the first of which starts by briefly outlining
the development of the powerful transnational conglomerates that control the
production and distribution of popular music globally. This is followed by a general
discussion of theories of cultural imperialism and globalization, with particular
emphasis on how they have been applied to the field of popular music. The second,
more substantial part of the chapter focuses on how relevant these theories are to
the Brazilian record industry and Brazilian popular music in general. The chapter
as a whole is intended to complement the discussion in Chapter 1 surrounding the
fears about cultural invasion and is an attempt to examine those anxieties from a
theoretical and ideological standpoint.
The Global Setting: Commerce and Theory
The Record Industry Worldwide
Considering the vast global demand for popular music and the undoubted enjoyment
that it brings to countless millions of consumers it is striking that the industry
responsible for its production and distribution is still often widely regarded with
deep suspicion, if not downright hostility, by those opposed to the more manipulative
and commercial aspects of the music business. Part of this reaction can be attributed
to the abiding influence of the writings of Theodor Adorno who argued in the 1940s
that popular music was the product of a culture industry which viewed it as a
commercial product like any other, to be ruthlessly marketed to a mass audience
1 Marcia Tosta Dias, Os donos da voz, p. 176.

2 O Mercado Brasileiro de Msica 2002, ABPD, p. 41.
with scant regard for aesthetic considerations.3 Adornos scepticism was based on
his observations of the effect of technological innovations in the media such as the
introduction of the phonograph, radio, and talking cinema in Nazi Germany, from
which he fled in 1933, and subsequently in the United States where he eventually
settled.4 Adorno concluded that the use of popular music as a form of entertainment
was deliberately manipulated by the music industry and the state to induce passivity
among the listening audience in order to promote acceptance of authoritarianism and
to reduce the opportunity for individual or radical thought.5
Three decades later, Chapple and Garofalo expressed their concern about the
hijacking of popular music by capitalist interests over the course of the intervening
years. More specifically, they highlighted the role played by a handful of gigantic
companies that monopolized the control of the production and distribution of
popular music in the United States throughout the twentieth century.6 The effect of
the commercial stranglehold exerted on the distribution of popular music outside the
United States is an issue that has gained increasing significance since the 1970s, and
a number of writers such as Malm and Wallis (1984), Negus (1992), Burnett (1996)
and Wicke (1999) have documented the wave of mergers that have consolidated
the dominance of a small number of transnational companies within the global
entertainment industry. In terms of popular music, the six largest companies in 1996
(Sony, Warner, Polygram, EMI, BMG and MCA) were responsible for over 90 per
cent of sales in the United States, and 7080 per cent of sales worldwide.7
The frantic round of mergers within the industry that took place in the late
1980s and early 1990s was an indication of the increasing importance of popular
music within the wider global framework of the media, leisure and communications
industries. The popular music industry generates revenue of billions of dollars
annually, and has been increasingly seen as a powerful adjunct to the portfolios of
multinational companies seeking to diversify their interests in the entertainments
sphere. This policy of media synergy allows for potentially lucrative tie-ins
whereby corporations can stage-manage the promotion of a product, such as a singer
contracted to themselves, through a variety of media that they already control, such
as the press, radio and television.8
3 Theodor W. Adorno (with the assistance of G. Simpson) (1941) On Popular Music,

in On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written word, ed. by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin,
(London, 1990) pp. 30114.
4 Keith Negus, Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction (Cambridge, 1996) pp. 89.
5 Ibid., p. 10.
6 Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo, Rock n Roll is Here to Pay: The History and
Politics of the Music Industry (Chicago, 1977) p. 300.
7 Robert Burnett, The Global Jukebox: The International Music Industry (London:
Routledge, 1996), p. 18. Keith Negus makes the important point that statistics relating to
worldwide record sales and market share of the major record companies have to be viewed
cautiously due to a prevailing air of secrecy within the industry. The most reliable source of
information on this subject in the UK is the annual report produced by the British Phonographic
Industry. Keith Negus, Producing Pop: Culture and Conflict in the Popular Music Industry
(London, 1992), pp. 1567.
8 Negus, Producing Pop, pp. 45.
THE BRAZILIAN RECORD INDUSTRY 91
The recording industry was originally established in the United States and Europe,
and the pattern of control by a small number of companies from those regions, and
latterly Japan, has persisted until today. Commercial domination of a large percentage
of the global market has enabled those companies to increase sales of European and
American artists outside the boundaries of their home territories. This is not a new
phenomenon even in 1977, CBS and RCA were reporting that more than half their
income was generated from sales in their international divisions however, due to a
major recession in the US music industry in the 1980s, systematic exploitation of the
world market now became a priority for further growth.9
Theories of Cultural Imperialism and Globalization
A major source of discussion in the field of popular music studies in recent years has
revolved around the issues of cultural imperialism and the effects of globalization
on popular music around the world. Cultural imperialism has been defined as the
way in which the transmission of certain products, fashions and styles from the
dominant nations to the dependent markets leads to the creation of particular patterns
of demand and consumption which are underpinned by and endorse the cultural
values, ideals and practice of their dominant origin (original emphasis).10 More often
than not, cultural imperialism has been loosely associated with Americanization or
westernization. A fear of the effects of cultural Americanization has been present
since the start of the twentieth century, and was experienced at various periods in Nazi
Germany, the Soviet Union, Europe, and Latin America (particularly in the 1970s).11
This developed into a more academic theory of cultural imperialism in the 1970s,
one that has often been associated with the political left, who have frequently focused
on the effects of transnational capitalism and consumerism. It was these arguments
that set the scene for the initial critical reception of the effects of globalization.12
The internationalization of the music industry, as described earlier, has often been
cited as evidence of a continuing form of cultural imperialism.13 For those who
have accepted the veracity of the cultural imperialism thesis, the most commonly
expressed solution has centred on some form of restriction on the importation of
foreign culture and/or positive action by the state to protect and promote national
music.14 During the 1980s, theories of cultural imperialism were increasingly
9 Reebee Garofalo, Whose World, What Beat: The Transnational Music Industry,
Identity and Cultural Imperialism, The World of Music 35 (1990), 1632 (p. 19).
10 T. OSullivan, J. Hartley, D. Saunders, M. Montgomery and J. Fiske, Key Concepts in
Communications (London, 1994), p. 74.
11 Negus, Popular Music in Theory, p. 165.
12 John Tomlinson, Internationalism, Globalization and Cultural Imperialism, in Media
and Cultural Regulation, ed. by Kenneth. Thompson (London, 1997), pp. 11762 (p. 122).
13 Roy Shuker, Understanding Popular Music (London, 2001), p. 67.
14 Ibid., p. 71. An example of such protectionism was the introduction by the French
government of legislation in 1996 to ensure that 40 per cent of music played on the radio should
be sung in French. Tomlinson, Internationalism, Globalization and Cultural Imperialism,
p. 130. As I have shown previously, similar legislation in Brazil has been unsuccessful because
it has not been enforced.
critiqued because it was considered that they were over-simplistic in some respects
and did not pay sufficient regard to factors such as changing economic and cultural
circumstances. One of the most serious criticisms of the cultural imperialism thesis
was that it over-emphasized the notion that the mere importation of cultural goods
into a nation necessarily implied that those goods would exert a profound cultural or
ideological significance within that country.15
Several writers have argued that a hegemonic one-way flow of popular music
emanates from the United States and Britain, and that it is distributed to other
nations in the forms of recorded music, radio and television, the effects of which
can be damaging for the national culture of developing nations.16 However, this
one-way flow theory has been challenged by some, such as Garofalo, who argues
that the traditional idea of a purely centre-periphery relationship between dominant
and subordinate nations is outdated as it does not take into account factors such as
cultural resistance in developing countries, and that it is a theory that is too heavily
reliant upon the idea of a passive audience, unable to creatively consume popular
music which is imported from abroad.17 Wallis and Malms groundbreaking study
of the music industry in small countries, published in 1984, revealed that by the
early 1970s most of the twelve countries they studied, which included Tanzania,
Tunisia, Sweden and Chile, shared music cultures with many features in common.
In their opinion this factor, and the existence of an adequate level of music industry
technology in each nation, reflected the existence of a process of transculturation,
which coincided with the simultaneous emergence of national pop and rock music
in all the countries in question.18 Wallis and Malm present transculturation in this
context as being a by-product of three factors: the rise of transnational corporations
working in the cultural field; increased coverage of global technology, and more
sophisticated worldwide marketing strategies. The resultant musical product the
global disco boom of 197578 is cited as an example is then marketed on a
worldwide scale to appeal to the largest possible audience.19 Wallis and Malms idea
of transculturation seems to reflect an early awareness of aspects of the phenomenon
that subsequently came to be referred to as globalization.
One way in which cultural patterns are imposed globally within popular
music is through the privileging of what international record companies refer to
as an international repertoire, i.e. Anglo-American artists singing pop or rock in
English, a practice that has been commonplace for decades. Yet this trend has not
gone unopposed, and it can also be argued that in many countries consumption of
imported culture is severely restricted to the ruling elites, often barely touching large
sectors of the poorest in society. It is also significant to point out that many so-called
15 Tomlinson, Internationalism, Globalization and Cultural Imperialism, p. 135.

16 Negus, Popular Music in Theory, p. 170.
17 Garofalo, Whose World, What Beat, p. 18.
18 Roger Wallis and Krister Malm, Big Sounds from Small Peoples: The Music Industry
in Small Countries (London, 1984) p. 302.
19 Ibid., p. 300. One could also point to the marketing of Michael Jacksons Thriller
album that eventually notched up worldwide sales of 40 million copies, and which was
responsible to a large degree in reviving the global music industry in the mid 1980s. Burnett,
The Global Jukebox, p. 5.
authentic and traditional cultures are actually the result of long-standing cross-
cultural interchange between the centre and the periphery.20 Writers such as Nestor
Garca Canclini and Jess Martn-Barbero have highlighted the importance of
cultural hybridization in Latin America, and their arguments have been subsequently
invoked by those who refute the inevitability of the development of a homogenous
global culture.21 Jocelyn Guilbault has argued that increasing trends towards cultural
globalization have provoked two contrasting responses in developing countries, either
a protectionist defence of the local form of popular music, or a vigorous attempt to
promote local culture within the global marketplace.22 The Brazilian situation, at
least at the institutional and the commercial levels, appears to confirm the former of
these two trends, reflecting a generally insular approach that has failed to develop
a coordinated strategy to implant Brazilian popular music within the world market.
The recent success of Bebel Gilberto in Europe and the United States, and the
establishment of an influential Brazilian drumnbass movement are two examples
of Brazilian music that have flourished without the assistance of governmental help
or a major marketing campaign.
The Marketing of Popular Music
The issues of cultural imperialism and globalization are highly relevant to any
analysis of the Brazilian music scene over the last forty years, and they are particularly
relevant to the recurrent themes of protectionism and preservation within Brazilian
popular music that underpin this book. I will discuss these issues shortly. However,
I first wish to briefly consider a number of facets of the music industry itself, which
are relevant to the ways in which popular music is marketed in Brazil.
It is important to bear in mind that the term music industry refers to a complex
entity comprising of a network of record companies, studios, agencies, the mass
media radio, television, film and press local promoters, publishing houses, chains
of record shops and specialist shops, a network which is difficult to disentangle.23
Within the confines of the music industry, the key relationship is that which is forged
between the artist and the audience. Without a product to promote in the marketplace
success will always be limited. Without promotion of that product, it is unlikely
that the prospective audience will know of its existence. To produce a CD that is
marketable, the artist first has to convince representatives of a record company that
their work is worthy of consideration. Despite the investment of colossal sums in
market research, the ability of record companies to predict whether a record will be
20 Negus, Popular Music in Theory, pp. 1724.

21 Nestor Garcia Canclini, Hybrid Cultures: strategies for entering and leaving modernity
(Minneapolis, 1995). Jess Martn-Barbero, Communication, Culture and Hegemony (London,
1993).
22 Jocelyne Guilbault, On Redefining the Local Through World Music, The World of
Music 35(2) (1993), 3347 (pp. 345).
23 Peter Wicke, Rock Music: Culture, Aesthetics and Sociology (Cambridge, 1999),
p. 118. It is also useful to remember that a large percentage of popular music is produced
completely outside the confines of the music industry, in settings such as social clubs, bars
and churches.
a hit is still a woefully inexact science. When such hopeful inefficiency proved to
be too costly, record companies turned to more effective marketing and promotional
techniques in an attempt to reduce the margin of error. It is impossible to persuade
someone to buy a record, but the more a particular record is brought to the attention
of the buying public, the less likely it becomes that it will not be bought simply
because it is unknown.24 Thus, a concerted and expensive media campaign is
mounted to make the consumer aware of a new release, and television and radio
exposure are critical elements in that process.
Even so, it is still the case that record industry personnel are always aware that
it is only possible to know what will be successful with hindsight, and the timescale
within which the industry operates, from signing an artist to producing and promoting
a CD, is extremely lengthy. The continual dilemma for record companies is how to
anticipate future trends, whilst at the same time retaining a substantial portion of
the existing market.25 To try and combat the uncertainty of predicting success, the
music industry relies upon a set of commercial hierarchies (as described in Chapter
2) to define potentially commercial music and to prioritize types of music in terms
of saleability. As Negus points out, in Britain, since the success of the Beatles in the
1960s the apex of this hierarchy has tended to be occupied by white, guitar-led rock
music, whereas other music such as reggae or soul has not received the equivalent
exposure and promotion.26
Record companies wage constant costly promotion campaigns designed to drive
their competitors out of the consciousness of the potential record buyer. It is far more
cost-effective to promote the stable image of a star performer or a long established
group rather than continuously seek to introduce new acts to a sceptical public.27
Critics of this industry-centred line of analysis might argue that it fails to make
allowances for the possibility of an active audience for popular music, rather than
the passive audience envisaged by Adorno. The ability to download music for free
from the Internet through the sharing of music files between consumers represents a
major challenge to the music industry and has resulted in punitive legal action against
companies such as Napster and even individual members of the public. Piracy is also
a major problem for the industry worldwide, and one that currently seems almost
insurmountable in Brazil. Both practices are examples of consumers deciding to
engage with popular music outside the official scope of the music industry. I will
now analyse the themes and issues addressed above, within the more particular
context of the Brazilian experience.
24 Wicke, Rock Music, p. 132.

25 Keith Negus, Where the mystical meets the market: creativity and commerce in the
production of popular music, Sociological Review 43 (1995) 31641, (pp. 33031). The
emergence of Internet sites such as MySpace and YouTube is now revolutionizing the ways in
which groups can market themselves, often without the aid of record companies.
26 Ibid., pp. 3312.
27 Wicke, Rock Music, p. 133.
The Specific Case of Brazil
The Record Industry in Brazil
In the decade between 1969 and 1979, the Brazilian record industry moved from
fourteenth to sixth place in the world in terms of sales.28 In the preceding years,
record sales had been modest for a nation of such a size and were seen more as an
adjunct to artists live appearances on radio in the 1950s, and concert appearances in
the 1960s.29 The major factor that provoked the rapid growth in the sales of records
that occurred in the early 1970s was the explosion in sales of consumer goods,
including record players, cassette players and televisions, due to greater availability
of consumer credit that was deliberately stimulated and supported by the military
regime and which accompanied the advent of the so-called Economic Miracle from
196872.30 This gave the Brazilian record industry massive momentum that was
only temporarily reversed by the global economic downturn in Brazil engendered by
the 1973 oil crisis. Other factors stimulating growth in the early 1970s included the
substantial sales of telenovela soundtracks, more sophisticated marketing strategies
within the industry, and the tax relief allowed to foreign recordings produced within
Brazil, which displayed the slogan disco cultura on the record sleeve.31 Such
rapid growth led to an intensification of investment by foreign record companies,
principally concerned with selling foreign records within Brazil, from 1976
onwards.32 Despite the onset of economic recession, diversification of the types of
music produced and sold, including the disco boom that swept Brazil in 197778,
pushed sales figures to record heights in 1979.33
As hyper-inflation played havoc with the Brazilian economy during the 1980s,
the fortunes of the record industry fluctuated accordingly, and the situation worsened
during 199092. However this state of affairs stabilized once more due to the
return of consumer confidence associated with the success of the economic plans
implemented by the Itamar Franco administration, and increased sales of CDs to a
wider sector of Brazilian society.34 Further periods of alternating financial stability
and uncertainty during the period 19942000 meant that music sales in 1996 grew
28 Rita C.L. Morelli, Indstria Fonogrfica: Um Estudo Antropolgico (Campinas,

1991), p. 74.
29 Paiano, O Berimbau e o Som Universal, pp. 1923. Paiano reveals that the most
successful records of the late 1950s only sold about 50100,000 copies and that sales of
35,000 copies of Joo Gilbertos Chega de Saudade in 1958 were considered exceptional.
Paiano, p. 193.
30 Ibid., p. 195.
31 Paiano, O Berimbau e o Som Universal, pp. 1978.
32 Morelli, Indstria Fonogrfica, p. 52.
33 Dias, Os Donos da Voz, pp. 767. Dias provides an excellent survey of developments
within the Brazilian music industry during this period, incorporating numerous statistics on
sales figures. An invaluable source of statistics relating to music sales in Brazil is the annual
report produced by the Associao Brasileira dos Produtores de Discos.
34 Ibid., pp. 1067.
by a staggering 35 per cent in relation to 1995, but in 1999 they fell by around 30 per
cent after the devaluation of the Brazilian currency.35
The epidemic growth of musical piracy in Brazil in recent times has undoubtedly
dealt a massive blow to sales in the last few years. Other factors cited as reasons
for the downturn in sales cited by the Associao Brasileira dos Produtores de
Discos (ABPD) [Brazilian association of record manufacturers] have included the
increasing use of the Internet to download music, general global financial instability,
and the rise of alternative forms of leisure pursuits.36 Research carried out in 2002 by
the ABPD revealed that virtually the same percentage of women buy CDs as men in
Brazil, and that the average Brazilian consumer of CDs is young (between eighteen
and thirty-five), and middle-class.37
Musical Piracy
Musical piracy is an increasingly critical issue in Brazil, with the sales of pirated
CDs having soared from 3 per cent of the market in 1997, to 59 per cent in 2002.
This represents total sales of one hundred and fifteen million pirate copies, despite
a costly anti-piracy campaign carried out by the record companies in Brazil since
1996.38 The scale of this problem can be judged by the fact that at the time of writing
Brazil ranked second in the world after China in terms of the volume of pirated
material. Somewhat surprisingly, even though it is an offence under Brazilian law to
produce such material there have been no known prosecutions for such offences. It is
common knowledge in Brazil that vast amounts of pirated CDs and DVDs reach the
country from Paraguay and are then distributed throughout Brazil. The attractions
of pirated CDs for Brazilian consumers are obvious. The cost of a pirated CD in the
street in 2007 was approximately one fifth of the price for the same CD in a retail
outlet. The massive figures involved in this trade reveal that millions of Brazilian
consumers are obtaining recorded music without the consent of the recording
industry. It also appears that this phenomenon is not restricted to those who are
unable to pay the full price of a CD. In 2002, a major survey of fifteen hundred
consumers from all social classes all over Brazil found that no less than 63 per cent
of those surveyed admitted to buying pirated CDs.39
One of the most fundamental problems for the record industry to overcome is
that it is widely considered by Brazilian consumers that official CDs are overpriced.
In a nation such as Brazil, where popular music forms such an integral part of
national culture, efforts to take action against those who make popular music more
35 Maria Elizabeth Lucas, Gaucho musical regionalism, British Journal of Ethnomusicology

9/1 (2000), 4160 (p. 41).
36 Joo Bernardo Caldeira, Balano musical, Jornal do Brasil, 26/9/03. Caderno B,
p. 5.
37 O Mercado Brasileiro de Msica 2002, pp. 333.
38 Ibid., p. 41.
39 Marcelo Marthe, Quem compra o qu, Veja, 25/9/02, p. 118. Pirated copies of musical
DVDs are also very popular and can be bought on the streets of almost every Brazilian city.
accessible to those on low incomes will more than likely be highly unpopular.40
Setting aside the ethical and financial issues of the loss of royalties to the artists
involved, the situation in Brazil represents a clear example of an active audience
deciding to take advantage of a situation which benefits them financially, and in
doing so, sidestepping the traditional methods by which consumers have purchased
popular music. This, along with the increases in the downloading of music from
file-sharing websites, will inevitably result in continuing serious implications for the
Brazilian record industry.41
Cultural Imperialism and the Brazilian Record Industry
A recurrent theme in press coverage of the Brazilian record industry since 1968
has been an overwhelming preoccupation with the cultural, political, and economic
ramifications of the influence of foreign music in Brazil, and the power exerted by
foreign record companies within the country.42 By regularly featuring articles that
have criticized the extent of the penetration of the Brazilian market, the press have
exploited or possibly helped to foster, it is difficult to tell which an underlying
uneasiness about the levels of foreign cultural domination in Brazil. A representative
example of this type of attitude is provided by the following quotation by Marcus
Vincius from an article written in 1978:
. . . the problem with the record industry became more acute from 1968 onwards, when
the multinationals discovered that Brazil was the worlds fifth biggest market for record
sales. From then on, the multinationals started to bring in the master copies of foreign
records and we started to receive international rubbish. This created a terrible problem:
we receive terrible music and end up drowning in it. The first serious consequence of
this invasion was the unfair competition with local product. The second, the extremely
low quality of the product that was imported. And the third, the avoidance of payment of
authorship rights.43
40 Jack Bishop, Quem so os piratas? A poltica de pirataria, pobreza e ganncia na

indstria da msica popular no Brasil, Mxico e Estados Unidos, presented at IV Congreso
de la Rama Latinoamericano, IASPM, Mexico city, April, 2002. <www.hist.puc.cl/historia/
iaspmla> [accessed 1 March 2003].
41 Sales of pirated CDs were one of the major factors cited for the collapse in February
2003 of the Brazilian record label, Abril Music. The labels forty-eight contracted artists were
all Brazilian, and included Gal Costa, Rita Lee and Tits. The other major reason for the labels
financial failure was attributed to the difficulty of competing with foreign multinational record
companies. Marco Antonio Barbosa, Mercado fonogrfico na encruzilhada em 2003, <http://
cliquemusic.uol.com.br/Acontecendo/Acontecendo.asp?Nu_Materia=3902> [accessed 11
February 2003].
42 See for example; Anon, Proteo legal para nossa msica popular, A Tarde, 17/11/72;
Ilmar Carvalho, Esto matando a msica popular brasileira, Correio da Manha, 19/5/70;
Carolina Andrade, A liberdade relativa do som, Jornal do Brasil, 13/7/78, Caderno B,
pp. 45, and Irlam Rocha Lima, Congresso vai debater a msica brasileira, Correio
Braziliense, 22/2/85, p. 21.
43 Andrade, A liberdade relativa do som, p. 4.
Vinciuss argument demonstrates a concern about the aesthetic consequences of a
flood of imported music into Brazil, but at the same time he also raises political and
economic issues that were of major concern to the political left at the time. Ariano
Suassuna expressed similar views in 1996:
. . . I am opposed to the mass culture that they are trying to disseminate. At the moment,
the Americans dont even need to send bombers or the navy to dominate Brazil. They
send Michael Jackson and Madonna. In this way they will undermine the basis of [our]
popular culture.44
It is impossible to state with absolute certainty how widely views like these that
express concern about cultural imperialism have been held among the general public,
but it is surely significant that they have been regularly aired in major newspapers
and magazines over the last forty years. Any discussion of the impact of theories of
cultural imperialism in Brazil has to take into account a deeply rooted sentiment of
anti-Americanization that is often held by those on the political left in the country.
This attitude seems to be inspired by a number of factors, which include a general
distaste for the effects of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America since 1945, and a more
specific hostility towards alleged U.S. cooperation in the 1964 coup and the support
given to the brutal military dictatorship that followed. Foreign domination of sectors
of the Brazilian economy such as the automobile, advertising, and pharmaceutical
industries is nothing new, and television and the cinema in Brazil have also long
been overshadowed by the influence of the United States. However, it seems that it is
the totemic role occupied by popular music in the formation of concepts of Brazilian
national identity for such a long period that has had some part to play in provoking
such regular expressions of protectionist and nationalistic sentiment in the media.
This protectionism has also extended to the disapproving reactions by sections of
the media and public given to Brazilian performers who are perceived to have sold
out by deciding to pursue their careers in the United States with perhaps a little too
much enthusiasm. Some examples of this that spring to mind are Carmen Miranda
in 1940, Sergio Mendes in the 1970s, and Gilberto Gil in 1979.45
When discussing the level of so-called cultural imperialism within Brazil
in relation to popular music it is notable that the Brazilian media often provides
contradictory messages about the subject. Despite the aforementioned concern and
anxiety about the effects of foreign infiltration of the market, there is also often
evidence of a sense of national pride in the fact that Brazils record industry is ranked
as one of the largest in the world, and this has regularly served as a preface to press
reports on the subject over the years. Thus, Brazils world ranking in terms of music
sales, which has fluctuated anywhere between fifth and fourteenth since 1968, is often
presented as a symbol of Brazils pre-eminence in the world, a kind of cultural and
44 Gerson Camarotti, De quinta categoria, Veja, 3/7/96, p. 8.

45 For a discussion of the reaction to Miranda, see McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil,
pp. 14550. For Srgio Mendes views on the issue see Anon, Srgio Mendes, bananas para
a crtica, Folha de So Paulo, 2/9/79. Gilberto Gil discusses his treatment by the critics in,
Lus Cludio Garrido, Gil Depe, in Gilberto Gil Expresso 2222, ed. by Antonio Risrio
(Salvador, 1982), pp. 21326 (pp. 21618).
economic thermometer of national well-being. Of course, it was precisely the size
of the potential market and the potential profits to be made that lured multinational
record companies to Brazil in the first place. Foreign record companies were
dominating the Brazilian record industry as early as the 1930s. Between 197475
of the eight largest record companies operating in Brazil three were Brazilian. By
1988, only one of the six largest companies was Brazilian.46 It is therefore clear that
the Brazilian record industry is dominated by foreign capital, which is in keeping
with the global trends of domination by a handful of media giants, as outlined at the
start of this chapter.
The commercial benefits for foreign companies operating in Brazil during this
period were considerable: imported records had already had their production costs
met, and therefore had to meet lower sales figures than in the country of origin to realize
a profit.47 Further financial incentives were provided by the Brazilian government,
which had introduced tax relief for the production of Brazilian records since 1969.
This strategy was originally designed to stimulate the production of Brazilian
popular music but it backfired when the multinational record companies operating
in Brazil also took advantage of the tax breaks to produce even more foreign music
within Brazil. Promoting new records by national artists was much more costly than
the promotion of international artists who had already generated success abroad, and
whose recordings costs had already been met. With these economies in mind, it was
argued that up-and-coming national artists were being unjustly penalized by foreign
record companies who, when they did invest in Brazilian artists, concentrated on
the well-established, big-sellers rather than taking a risk on unknowns.48 A common
perception in the 1970s also seems to have been that the presence of foreign record
companies in Brazil was acting as barrier to the development of Brazils own record
industry, whilst at the same time contributing to the denationalization of Brazilian
culture.49 That view is supported by the comments of a representative of Phonogram
Records in Brazil in 1978, who admitted that one of the principal criteria for the
release of a record in Brazil at that time was that it had appeared in the top positions of
the charts supplied by Cash Box and Billboard in the United States, and Music Week
in England a clear example of the powerful effect of the influence of international
repertoire that I referred to earlier.50
During the 1970s, lists of best-selling records regularly appeared in the magazine
Veja and the newspaper Jornal do Brasil. These statistics related to sales in Rio
de Janeiro and So Paulo, which was understandable as the two cities accounted
for between 60 and 70 per cent of total national sales.51 The figures also regularly
revealed that the majority of the best sellers were foreign rock and pop, rather than
46 Dias, Os Donos da Voz , pp. 745.

47 Morelli, Indstria Fonogrfica, p. 48.
48 Anon, Disco: a bolsa ou a vida?, SomTrs, No. 79, July 1985, pp. 845.
49 See for example, Andrade, A liberdade relativa do som, Caderno B, p. 4.
50 Sonia Maria Teixeira, A imposio concreta dos custos, Jornal do Brasil, 13/7/78,
Caderno B, p. 5.
51 Disco em So Paulo, IDARTDepartamento de Informao e Documentao
Artsticas, ed. by Damiano Cozzela, (So Paulo, 1980), p. 137.
Brazilian music. However, concern about the accuracy of these figures led the ABPD
to appoint their own researchers to produce an unbiased list of best sellers. What
those new statistics revealed was that the tastes of those living in both cities did not
coincide.52 In Rio de Janeiro, in 1979 for example, in spite of a higher percentage of
imported music played on the radio, sales of Brazilian music still outstripped foreign
imports, whereas in So Paulo the reverse was true.53 Even more significantly, the
figures as a whole also revealed that despite the release of a larger percentage of
foreign records over Brazilian, total sales of Brazilian music in both cities over a
longer period were higher.54 It would therefore appear that despite alarmist reports to
the contrary, Brazilian popular music was not being swamped during this period,
at least in terms of sales.
The Rock in Rio Factor
Sales of Brazilian popular music soared in 197980, due in the main to the conscious
decision by the record industry to invest in, and to promote MPB that I referred to
in the previous chapter. However, after this bright interlude, the Brazilian record
industry entered a period of crisis that lasted until 1986. This was caused by a general
economic downturn in Brazil, which was triggered by escalating foreign debt and
galloping inflation.55 The change of fortunes in 1986 was due to governmental
economic stabilization plans and the spin-off effect of the monumental success of
the first Rock in Rio festival held in Rio de Janeiro in January 1985. Produced at a
cost of more that $11 million, and attracting a public of 1.4 million (a world record
for a single event at that time), the ten-day event was the biggest investment in
the history of Brazilian show business.56 A mini-city, complete with two shopping
centres, was constructed on the edge of Rio de Janeiro to accommodate the enormous
audiences. The international artists chosen to perform came from a wide spectrum
of pop, rock, heavy metal and new-wave, and included Queen, Rod Stewart, James
Taylor, AC/DC, Whitesnake and the Scorpions. The choice of Brazilian performers
was predominantly MPB, with a smattering of rock groups, and included Ney
Matogrosso, Alceu Valena, Eduardo Dusek, Rita Lee, Elba Ramalho, Lulu Santos,
Os Paralamas do Sucesso, Blitz and Baro Vermelho.
Sales of national popular music increased by nearly 15 per cent in the year after
Rock in Rio57 and Brazilian rock music also received a major boost from the festival
as the genre finally took centre stage due to the massive media exposure that it
received at the event. However, there was a distinct pecking order of artists at Rock
in Rio: several national acts complained about the inferior sound quality provided
for their performances compared with that afforded to the international stars, and
52 Anon, Sucessos de verdade, Veja, 8/6/77, p. 92.

53 Anon, O blefe das paradas de sucesso, SomTrs, no. 2, February 1979, p. 97.
54 Maurcio Kubrulsky, Indito: Os nmeros de negcio dos discos, SomTrs, no. 3,
April 1979, p. 98.
55 Source, ABPD.
56 Anon, E o sonho (re) comeou, Viso, 28/1/85, pp. 657.
57 Source. ABPD.
also the fact that they were relegated to opening the show for the foreigners. It is
therefore perhaps slightly surprising that it was Brazilian popular music, rather than
the international variety, that benefited to such a degree from Rock in Rio but a
contributing factor may well have been the euphoric mood of optimism then sweeping
the country generated by the return to civilian rule that coincided with the festival.
The impact of Rock in Rio was substantial because it demonstrated to foreign
investors the vast potential for live shows in Brazil, and a series of mega shows by
artists such as Tina Turner and Sting, and the Hollywood Rock festival followed
in 198788. These shows were sponsored to the tune of millions of dollars by the
likes of Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Wrangler, and Souza Cruz (a subsidiary of British
American Tobacco Company), and represented shrewd marketing opportunities, as
a representative of Wrangler pointed out:
For example, in the Maracan [the Rio de Janeiro soccer stadium that hosted many of
these shows] we will have 150,000 potential consumers of jeans, from all age groups,
concentrated in one place.58
Rock in Rio II (1991) and Rock in Rio III (2001) continued the trend of enormous
festivals combining national and international acts, but the 2001 event was marked
by a rebellion by several Brazilian groups who refused to perform because the
Brazilian band O Rappa were excluded from the festival after they took exception to
being asked to open the show for little-known American acts. O Rappas argument
was based on the fact that those foreign artists invited to perform at the event
were responsible for record sales in Brazil of roughly one million copies and were
receiving a fee of $60,000, whereas their Brazilian counterparts were responsible for
sales of two and a half million, yet were only receiving a fee of $10,000.59 As I have
mentioned, the international capitalist extravaganza that was Rock in Rio failed to
lead to a huge influx of international music: on the contrary, it resulted in a boost for
sales of Brazilian popular music, and also kick-started the birth of the Brazilian rock
movement of the 1980s.
Challenges to the Cultural Imperialism Theory
Sales of national popular music within Brazil surged again in 1995, when they
represented 63 per cent of the market, and the percentage rose each successive year
until it reached 76 per cent, a figure that has been maintained until 2002. The official
statistics for 2002 indicate that 76 per cent of sales were of national music (the
second highest percentage in the world after the United States); the first seventeen
of the top twenty best selling CDs of that year were by Brazilian artists; 86 per cent
of music played on the radio was Brazilian; and 85 per cent of pirated CDs included
Brazilian music.60 These figures are perhaps surprising because the Brazilian market
has been increasingly penetrated by international music in recent years through the
influence of the above-mentioned festivals and shows, radio, television (particularly
58 Anon, Decibis milionrios, Veja , 13/1/88, pp. 6069.

59 Anon, Rebelio in Rio, Veja, 8/11/00, p. 162.
60 O Mercado Brasileiro de Msica 2002, pp. 2135.
telenovelas and MTV) and the Internet. They are also in stark contrast to the sales
figures of national music in other countries such as England, France and Germany.61
However, other figures provided by the ABPD demonstrate an even more surprising
underlying trend: Brazilian popular music has consistently outsold international pop
every year since 1972, usually at a ratio approaching two to one.62 These specific
figures appear to roundly refute the cultural invasion thesis, but as they only relate
to sales figures they are unable to address the less tangible issue of the feeling that
Brazilians might have had in the past that their national culture was being engulfed
by external influences through media saturation by foreign music.
So why does Brazilian popular music remain so favoured by the Brazilian public
despite the domination of the market by foreign record companies and high levels
of media presence for foreign pop? The explanation seems to lie in a number of
aspects. First, since 1969, record companies have been given large tax incentives
to record Brazilian artists, although that is insufficient explanation on its own to
explain this phenomenon because similar subsidies exist in countries like France,
for example. Second, Brazil seems to be able to generate new musical genres on a
regular basis, ax-music and pagode have been cited as recent examples of musical
styles that have sprung naturally from popular roots to rapidly gain popularity in the
nation as a whole.63 Third, although sambas popularity has varied over the years
it has never gone out of fashion completely, and due to its capacity to periodically
reinvent itself remains among the most popular styles of Brazilian music with the
public. In addition, a youthful population (in 1994, 50 per cent of the 160 million
population were under 30),64 actively consuming popular music (in 2000, 43 per cent
of all sales were to those in the 2029 age group65); a mild climate which allows for
year-round open-air shows; and an extensive network of large venues all around the
country, are also all factors which contribute towards impressive sales figures for
national music.66 The influence of Brazilian radio may also play a major part in the
success of national music: despite the long periods during which many believed that
Brazilian radio was dominated by foreign music, in the last few years the reverse has
been true. A study by Adriana Baptista of the four most popular FM radio stations
serving greater So Paulo in 2002, revealed that 93.8 per cent of their musical output
was Brazilian popular music.67 This may well be linked to the fact that recent tax
incentives to encourage the recording of national artists has resulted in a situation in
61 In 2002 the respective figures were England (43 per cent), France (59 per cent) and
Germany (40 per cent). Source: O Mercado Brasileiro de Msica 2002, p. 21.
62 These figures were obtained from the ABPD.
63 Anon, Exploso nacional, Veja, 20/3/96, p. 115.
64 Christina Magaldi, Adopting imports: new images and alliances in Brazilian popular
music of the 1990s, Popular Music, vol. 18/3 (1999), 30929, (p. 327).
65 Source, ABPD.
66 Anon, Exploso nacional, p. 116. I have asked many Brazilians to explain the reason
for this; the most common responses to my question were that it was because Brazilians had
a strong affinity for their own music, and that they simply liked it!
67 Adriana Braga de Ameida Baptista, Rdio e Msica Popular Brasileira: Estudo
Crtico das InterRelaes entre o Rdio FM e a Msica Brasileira no incio do sculo XXI,
em So Paulo (unpublished masters thesis, E.C.A, University of So Paulo, 2003), p. 103.
2003 whereby 80 per cent of artists contracted to record companies in Brazil were
Brazilian.68
The final aspect that has contributed to the enduring popularity of national
music has been the strategies of the record industry itself. Record companies in
Brazil have shrewdly marketed a profusion of new styles of music in recent years,
such as samba-rock, samba-reggae, for-rock (forr mixed with rock), mangue-
beat and pop-nejo (pop and sertanejo), alongside traditional styles such as MPB.
Christina Magaldi argues that this unapologetic mixture of local and international
styles represents one of a number of factors that reflect a new attitude towards the
importation of forms of popular music.69 Magaldi considers that the youthful urban
public that consumes popular music actively welcomes the importation of hip-hop,
rap and rock, so much so that, Older generation issues of resistance against Anglo-
American music are, in their own words, ancient history.70 She makes the valid
point that symbols of brasilidade now have to share space with international symbols
of youth and modernity71 and highlights how funk and rap have been appropriated
by Brazilian youth as symbols of empowerment in their relations with the ruling
classes.72 Magaldi contends that Brazilians do not consider rap to be a Brazilian
genre in the same way as samba: it is the very foreignness of rap that is the essence
of its appeal. However, she also makes the important observation that such a factor
does not invalidate the possibility for Brazilians to accept rap, rock and hip-hop as
legitimate forms of cultural expression for themselves.73
Whether one agrees with the fundamental premise of the cultural invasion
argument or not (as I have shown, the statistics relating to record sales suggest that
it is flawed) there is no doubt that many individuals and organizations within Brazil
have perceived their culture to be endangered and marginalized by external influences
over a long period, and that anxiety has been, and occasionally still is, transmitted
through the media on a regular basis. Much concern has been expressed about the
effects of cultural norteamericanizao over the years, and the debate entered the
public arena in a significant manner in 1975, at the Teatro Casa Grande debates that
were discussed in Chapter 1. The effect of this growing public concern was that the
military government felt the necessity to take action to address the issue by promoting
the Projeto Pixinguinha (analysed in the following chapter). Nevertheless, in general
terms, governmental policy towards popular music within Brazil since 1968 has
been characterized by a hands off approach. The limited form of protectionism in
favour of national popular music, the creation of FUNARTE in 1975, and the support
for the Projeto Pixinguinha for example, has been continually undermined by tax
The four stations analysed were Band FM, Sucesso FM, Transcontinental FM and Gazeta
FM.
68 Eliane Azevedo, cited in Baptista, Rdio e Msica Popular , p. 39.
69 Magaldi, Adopting imports, p. 309.
70 Ibid., p. 313.
71 Ibid. See also, Micael Herschmann, O Funk e o Hip-Hop invadem a cena (Rio de
Janeiro, 2000), p. 220.
72 Magaldi, Adopting imports, p. 317.
73 Ibid., p. 326.
concessions to multinational record companies and a disinclination to interfere with
the operations of transnational companies operating within Brazil.74
The argument continues to circulate, within the Association of Researchers in
Brazilian popular music, for example, that Brazilian popular music is still under threat,
and that it might be possible to return MPB to a position of pre-eminence merely by
restricting the influence of imported music in Brazil. It should also be mentioned that
there are several small independent record labels (such as CPC-UMES, and Kuarup)
that maintain a resistance towards the domination of the multinational companies
operating in Brazil by regularly releasing only Brazilian music.75 However, it would
be foolish to propose that there has been complete unanimity about the threat
represented by foreign music in Brazil. There have always been Brazilian fans of
imported rock and pop for example, and a flourishing Brazilian counter-culture grew
up in the early 1970s that took its lead from abroad. Many Brazilians have also
been able to enjoy imported rock music and home-grown samba for example, in
equal measure. What seems clear is that despite the best efforts of the multinational
record companies, saturating the market with foreign music, backed up by FM radio
networks heavily plugging imported records, the high profile of foreign pop and rock
music used in telenovelas, and the arrival of MTV, Brazilian consumers have still
gone out and bought a higher percentage of national music.
I would suggest that the Brazilian experience appears to confirm Garofalos
argument that cultural resistance against the encroachments of a dominant foreign
culture is still possible, and that merely bombarding the media of a dependent
nation with a particular type of popular music does not ensure that consumers
will necessarily buy that music, or that if they do, they may still actively consume
national music.76 There is clearly a distinction to be made between a consumers aural
experience of popular music that is unsolicited, but which is experienced through the
media on a daily basis (and which may well be enjoyed) and the conscious economic
and cultural decision to purchase a CD.
Globalization and the Brazilian Record Industry
As we have seen, the Brazilian music industry does not exist in a vacuum. Due to
its size and potential profitability the Brazilian market has been a target for foreign
74 This is in contrast to action in support of Brazilian cinema. Legislation was passed in

the 1960s and 1970s that demanded that cinemas show Brazilian films on a certain number of
days per year. Taxes were also levied on foreign films. Robert Wesson, The United States and
Brazil: Limits of influence (New York, 1981), pp. 14950.
75 For an excellent recent analysis of independent record production in Brazil see Dias,
Os Donos da Voz, pp. 12555.
76 There may be a comparison to be drawn between the attitudes of the Brazilian public
towards foreign music and imported television programmes. Research carried out between
196292 has shown that Brazilians prefer home-produced television shows to foreign
television, and that has been reflected in the percentage of nationally produced programming.
Joseph D. Straubhaar, Brazil: The Role of the State in World Television, in Media and
Globalization: Why the State Matters, ed. by Nancy Morris and Silvio Waisbord (Lanham,
2001), pp. 13353 (pp. 1459).
investment since the first records were produced in Brazil. Foreign companies
have dominated the Brazilian record industry almost since its inception, and as I
demonstrated earlier in this chapter, that influence intensified, particularly in the
1970s and again in the 1980s, when multinational interests decided to increase their
investment in the Brazilian market. Virtually every type of international popular
music has established itself in Brazil, to a greater or lesser degree, at some stage or
other. These have ranged from jazz, rock, soul and country music, to disco, funk,
punk, reggae, rap, hip-hop, and latterly, drumnbass. Many of these imported
musical styles have been adapted and mixed with existing Brazilian musical genres to
produce domestic variants of tremendous variety and creativity. For instance, several
recent studies have looked at the effects of globalization in Brazil by concentrating
on the importance of ethnicity and the influence of Afro-Diasporic music in Brazil
that has been most evident in the development of Bahian samba reggae and the
funk movements in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia.77 Artists such as Fernanda Abreu and
Carlinhos Brown have also made much play of what they see as their transnational
status, considering themselves to be not only Brazilian, but also citizens of a global
musical community, fusing their national musical traditions with the latest musical
and technological developments from around the world.78
Developments such as these would appear to bear out Shukers argument that
despite the undeniably profound impact of the transnational music industry on local
music scenes worldwide, a world musical homogenization has not taken place:
The process is rather one in which local musicians are immersed in overlapping
and frequently reciprocal contexts of production, with a cross-fertilization of local
and international sounds.79 Straubhaar also emphasizes that much of most peoples
identity is still derived from local factors such as religion, language, ethnicity, and
collective memory, and he is wary of an overemphasis on the impact of globalization,
which may differ widely in different areas of the world.80 There are also other more
critical views of the impact of globalization such as that of Doreen Massey, who
stresses its uneven nature, and the fact that those controlling the process, rather than
merely experiencing it, are still largely those in positions of power in the developed
world, rather than say the urban poor in Latin America.81 Neguss view of the impact
of globalization on popular music is also not as optimistic as that of Shuker:
77 Several articles are collected together in Charles A. Perrone and Christopher Dunn,
eds, Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization (Gainesville, 2001). See for example: Livio
Sansone, The localization of Global Funk in Bahia and in Rio (pp. 13660); Ari Lima,
Black or Brau: Music and Subjectivity in a Global Context (pp. 22032), and Antonio J. V.
dos Santos Godi, Reggae and Samba-Reggae in Bahia: A Case of Long-Distance Belonging
(pp. 20719).
78 Frederick Moehn, Good Blood in the Veins of This Brazilian Rio, or a Cannibalist
Transnationalism, in Perrone and Dunn (eds), Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization,
pp. 25869.
79 Shuker, Understanding Popular Music, p. 72.
80 Straubhaar, Brazil: The Role of the State in World Television, pp. 1356.
81 Cited in Tomlinson, Internationalism, Globalization and Cultural Imperialism,
p. 144.
At a local level, processes of globalisation in popular music are increasingly being
experienced as a tension between progress and restoration; between the eclectic, syncretic
forms of acculturated expression brought about by the meeting of various musical
techniques, technologies and traditions; and a concomitant retreat into nostalgia, with
attempts to preserve the imagined purity of the past by constructing idealised heritage
cultures . . . 82
That kind of tension is evident in Brazil in the conflicting attitudes of those who
wholeheartedly embrace the impact of post-Tropiclia musical hybridity (mangue-
beat and hip-hop for instance), and those who still consider that Brazilian musical
identity is in danger of being stifled by external economic and cultural domination.
It is also reflected in the largely negative view of funk and hip-hop presented by the
Brazilian mass media.83
One consequence of the ongoing conflict between the global and the local has
been the emergence of a more fluid concept of identity, as identified by Stuart Hall,
whereby people are able to feel part of the world and part of their neighbourhood
at the same time.84 In terms of popular music, such a fluidity of identity was
undoubtedly facilitated by two factors: first, the emergence of MTV in 1981 and
its subsequent expansion worldwide (MTV Brasil started broadcasting in 1990);
and second, the spate of globally televised mega concerts or media events in the
mid-1980s, such as Band Aid, Live Aid and We are the World.85 These events,
and those that followed, not only provided new markets for the transnational media
corporations, but also coincided with the massive Brazilian festivals such as Rock
in Rio (1985) and the series of mega shows by artists such as Tina Turner, Sting
and the Hollywood Rock festival, all of which occurred in Brazil during 198788.
As I have indicated previously, the increasing popularity of rap and hip-hop in Brazil
indicates that a fluid conception of identity already exists, and artificially imposed
notions of national musical identity may already be outmoded.
Brazilian Popular Music in the Global Setting
When one considers the position of Brazilian popular music in the world market,
one is struck by the increased interest that it has generated in recent years. There are
of course antecedents for this: the influence of Brazilian composers and performers
who went to Hollywood in the 1940s, the musical interchange between Brazilian
and North American jazz musicians at the time of Bossa Nova, and the huge number
of Brazilian musicians who have followed successful careers abroad, particularly
in the United States, since the 1960s.86 In 2004, Bebel Gilbertos Tanto Tempo CD
82 Negus, Producing Pop, p. 7.

83 For an analysis of this coverage, see Michael Herschmann, O Funk e o Hip-Hop
invadem a cena (Rio de Janeiro, 2000), particularly pp. 87123.
84 Cited in Garofalo, Whose World, What Beat, p. 25.
85 Garofalo, Whose World, What Beat, p. 22.
86 The list of these musicians who have particularly worked in the field of jazz is almost
endless, but would include names such as Joo Donato, Eumir Deodato, Sergio Mendes,
Nan Vasconcellos, Moacyr Santos, Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Luiz Bonfa, Raul de Souza
became the biggest selling Brazilian recording of all time in the international market,
clearly demonstrating that Brazilian popular music has now attained new levels of
recognition and acclaim abroad.87 The global success of the film Cidade de Deus has
also introduced many to more eclectic variations of Brazilian music, such as soul
and funk from the 1970s, and even the music of the father figure of Brazilian rock
music, Raul Seixas.
Part of the appeal of Brazilian music abroad seems to lie in a perception of its
exotic nature. Mrio de Andrade referred to this underlying aspect of the foreign
view of Brazilian music in 1928 when he drew attention to the European trait of
searching in Brazil for an element of spicy otherness.88 In more recent times, for
those tired of European and North American popular music, Brazilian music has
been portrayed as refreshing and uninhibited, and as possessing qualities lacking
in old world music.89 David Byrne has been responsible for much of the recent
revival of interest in Brazilian music in the United States and elsewhere, and he
deserves great credit for bringing several diverse aspects of that music to a global
audience that might never have otherwise been exposed to the likes of Tropiclia,
forr, and the music of Tom Z. This raised profile for Brazilian popular music has
manifested itself in its increasing use in TV advertisements in Britain, and the release
of a plethora of CD compilations of Brazilian music.90 Intriguingly, the intense
interest of European and Japanese record collectors in the most arcane and neglected
areas of Brazilian popular music of the 1960s and 1970s has actually led to a recent
rediscovery of such music in Brazil itself over the last few years, with several labels
now re-releasing long-forgotten treasures from their archives. As Frederick Moehn
rightly points out however, only a small section of Brazilian popular music (almost
invariably MPB) is taken up and consumed by non-specialist foreign audiences, and
ironically this music is a minority interest, at least in terms of sales, in Brazil itself.
Moehn sees in this a reflection of the middle-class tastes of foreign consumers and
the lack of a large working-class Brazilian population outside of Brazil.91
The international marketing and production of music from Brazil has taken on
an increasingly transnational dimension in recent years. A prime example of this is
Maria Bethnias 1994 album Canes que voc fez para mim, which was produced
and Paulinho da Costa. Antonio Carlos Jobim is often quoted as having once said, the
internacional airport is the best destination for a Brazilian artist. Srgio Martins, A classe
operria da msica, Veja, 24/9/03, p. 136.
87 Anon, Cibelle (Brazil), <http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world/awards2004/profile_
cibelle.shtml> [accessed 10 June 2007].
88 Andrade, Ensaio Sbre a Msica Brasileira, p. 15.
89 Of course the same could be said about other forms of Latin, African, and Indian
music.
90 To cite just three examples, Tamba Trios version of Mas que nada was used as the
soundtrack to a repeatedly aired Nike television advert at the time of the 1998 football World
Cup. In Britain in 2004, a version of Wilson Simonals No vem que no tem accompanied a
major advertising campaign by IKEA, and Tejo, Black Alien e Speeds Quem que cagetou?
was used to promote Nissan cars.
91 Moehn, Good Blood in the Veins of This Brazilian Rio, p. 266.
in Rio de Janeiro, London and Los Angeles.92 Mercosul countries have also been
identified as potential markets for Brazilian popular music, with artists such as
Roberto Carlos, Chitozinho and Xoror, Daniela Mercury, and Xuxa recording in
Spanish.93 Carlinhos Browns 1996 CD Alfagamabetizado was released in France
even before being launched in Brazil. The CD was backed by a massive advertising
campaign in France (which is seen as a key market for world music) and this strategy
was part of an effort by his record company to portray Brown as an international
artist, the importance of whose work transcends national boundaries rather than
simply appealing to the Brazilian market.94 Whether such efforts will ultimately
prove successful remains in doubt. Similar attempts have been made with the career
of Milton Nascimento for example, who has often recorded with jazz musicians
in the United States, but who has failed to break through to a wider audience on
any great scale. The recent enormous worldwide sales of Bebel Gilbertos Tanto
Tempo seem to make it inevitable that Brazilian popular music will be marketed with
increased vigour in the global markets in the future. Ironically, Gilbertos music is
still virtually unknown in her own country, and only receives publicity because of
the sales that she has generated abroad, further evidence of the unpredictability of
the impact of globalization on popular music in Brazil.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that the record industry in Brazil has been historically dominated
by multinational corporations, and that those corporations have attempted to flood
the market (one of the worlds largest) at various periods with international popular
music. Fears of the effects of this cultural imperialism, and arguments in favour of
the need to protect and preserve Brazilian popular music have been raised at regular
intervals through the Brazilian media but have been met with little response from
the government which has tended to adopt policies that are unlikely to discourage
foreign investment in Brazil. In terms of popular music at least, it seems that theories
of cultural imperialism are inappropriate to the Brazilian situation. The resistance
of Brazilian consumers to the encroachments of foreign popular music is clearly
demonstrated by the overwhelmingly strong sales of Brazilian popular music that
have been maintained consistently over the last thirty years. There also appears to
be evidence of the existence of a powerful active audience in Brazil, confirmed
by the huge growth of the sales of pirated CDs, the vast majority of which are of
Brazilian music, in recent years. It therefore appears that the economic control of
the Brazilian record industry by foreign interests has not resulted in a concomitant
cultural domination.
The increasing impact of globalization on Brazilian popular music appears
to be in a state of flux, and is taking new, sometimes unexpected directions. This
has been apparent from the recent emergence of the Brazilian drumnbass scene
92 Dias, Os Donos da Voz, pp. 11718.

93 Ibid., p. 120.
94 Ibid., pp. 1678. Browns Carlito Marrom CD (2005), in which several of the songs
are sung in Spanish was also launched in Spain prior to Brazil for similar reasons.
in So Paulo, which has seen the genre imported, given a specific Brazilian twist,
and re-exported to Europe where it has made a major impact. As Brazilian music
makes greater inroads into the world market than ever before, so hip-hop and rap
(themselves hybrid international styles of music) establish themselves to a greater
extent in certain areas of Brazil. There is nothing new in this: there is a long history
of the anthropophagic absorption of popular music in Brazil, some examples of
which include tango, maxixe, jazz, rock and roll (jovem guarda), rock (Tropiclia),
soul and funk (the Black Rio movement of the 1970s), and reggae (samba reggae).
This trend is highly likely to continue in the future, and it is how that foreign music
is digested and interpreted by Brazilian audiences and performers that will continue
to be of interest.
The Brazilian government has historically taken a hands off approach to any
form of regulation of the record industry in Brazil, and has also failed to enforce
legislation in favour of national music through the impositions of quotas for radio
and television and the like. The following chapter will examine one of the very few
occasions when the state decided to intervene on behalf of Brazilian popular music
in an attempt to protect and preserve it.
Chapter 5
The State as Cultural Mediator:

The Poltica Nacional de Cultura,
FUNARTE and the Projeto Pixinguinha
The Brazilian military found itself at a crossroads in the mid 1970s. After several
years of repressive, authoritarian rule that had been particularly severe between 1968
and 1973 its political objectives were now called into question on several fronts. This
chapter will examine the ways in which the administration responded to increasing
calls from various groups and individuals concerning the need to address what many
saw at the time as the ongoing denationalization of Brazilian culture, and more
specifically, Brazilian popular music. This was a key moment, both politically and
culturally, because it represented the first tentative steps by the military to move
away from a strategy of out and out authoritarianism, and towards the possibility
of a rapprochement with civil society. This delicate and by no means irreversible
process was the springboard for a new intervention in cultural matters, reflected
in the governments plan for culture, the Poltica Nacional de Cultura [National
Cultural Policy], which was launched in 1975.
This chapter is divided into three parts, the first of which examines how the
Poltica Nacional de Cultura reflected the governments new approach. In the second
part of the chapter I discuss the importance of the establishment of the National Art
Foundation (FUNARTE), a government body specifically set up in 1975 to take
the lead on the new cultural initiative. The remainder of the chapter analyses the
significance of the Projeto Pixinguinha, an enterprise that constitutes virtually the
only substantial example of intervention by the state in the field of popular music
since the Carnegie Hall bossa nova show of 1962. The Projeto Pixinguinha quickly
grew from a relatively small-scale enterprise into a significant, nationwide initiative.
It was designed with the primary intention of promoting live music shows at
subsidized ticket prices, bringing Brazilian popular music to the lower economic
classes in cities all over Brazil, this at a time when many considered that foreign
music was increasingly dominating the national airwaves. The Projeto Pixinguinha
was designed to counteract that perceived domination by re-focusing attention on
Brazilian popular music, and the architects of the project also used it as a vehicle
to attempt to protect and preserve a specific tradition of Brazilian music that they
considered to be threatened.
The Political Context: Distenso and the Need for Change
The period 197374 is generally seen as a watershed in Brazilian history because

it heralded a change in emphasis by the military regime and marked the start of
the long transition from authoritarianism to the return of democratic government in
1985. The inauguration of Ernesto Geisel as President on 15 March 1974 initially
seemed to signify the continuation of the bureaucratic-authoritarian regime that had
abrogated civil, constitutional and political rights in Brazil since 1964: a regime that
had established a virtual dictatorship of the federal executive over the legislature
and judiciary, largely enforced by the notorious fifth Institutional Act of 1968.
The military maintained control of the major functions of government, with civil
society excluded from any meaningful contribution to politics, although the faade
of democracy had been maintained by the retention of a two-party electoral system.
However, Geisels selection as President was in fact loaded with significance as it
represented the triumph of the more liberal faction within the military that adhered
to the thinking of former President Castelo Branco, the so-called Castelistas. Geisel
had a personal record of opposition to hard-line policies within the military and as a
former president of Petrobrs (the state-controlled oil company) he brought personal
qualities to the post that hinted at an ability to establish links with civil society.1
Geisel and his key political advisor, General Golbery do Couto e Silva,
immediately set out to distance themselves from the ruthless image of the Mdici
administration that had preceded them. Their desire for a more liberal administration
through a controlled process of distenso [dtente] with civil society was a
reflection of a pragmatic desire on the part of many within the military for a staged
return to democratic rule. Although Geisel was not in favour of a return to unfettered
democracy he was convinced that changes in policy were required to move towards
a normalization of Brazilian society. If those changes were to be successful he was
aware that he would require support from within the military establishment, and that
it would also be necessary to construct alliances with representatives of sectors of
society that were traditionally hostile to the regime. Shortly before taking office, and
soon afterwards, the government made overtures to the Church, the legal profession
and the Press, primarily to start a dialogue between the state and civil society, but
also to explain the parameters of the proposed political opening. This represented
the first phase of a lengthy process that Alfred Stepan has referred to as a complex
dialectic between regime concession and societal conquest.2
The fact that democratic institutions had been preserved by the regime, and also
Geisels decision to allow the 1974 congressional elections to go ahead in a relatively
democratic manner, were to be major factors in helping the opposition party, the
Movimento Democrtico Brasileiro (MDB), to use the 1974 federal elections as a
1 A detailed analysis of the Geisel administration can be found in Thomas E. Skidmore,

The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 196485 (Oxford, 1988), and Elio Gaspari, A Ditadura
Derrotada (So Paulo, 2003).
2 Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton,
1988), p. 39. For a succinct account of the rise of civil opposition to the military dictatorship,
see Marcos Napolitano, Cultura e Poder no Brasil Contemporneo (19771984) (Curitiba,
2002).
THE STATE AS CULTURAL MEDIATOR 113
platform to articulate demands for change. The surprising gains for the MDB at the
expense of the official governmental party (ARENA) at these elections was a major
shock for the regime, and also provided evidence of growing popular disillusionment
with military rule. This public discontent was largely due to widespread concern
over the effects of the economic crisis that developed in 197374 after the OPEC
oil price shock in 1973 a development that precipitated the end of the period that
came to be dubbed the Brazilian Economic Miracle. Middle class support for the
military, which had been crucial to the success of the 1964 coup, was suddenly in
question because that sector of society now also found itself the victim of economic
austerity together with the more traditionally economically disadvantaged.
Geisels presidency also coincided with growing public debate about the role
of multinational corporations in Brazil a parliamentary enquiry in 1975 revealed
that almost 50 per cent of Brazilian industry was under foreign control and fears
about potential loss of national sovereignty. As the debate on distenso widened,
the business communitys criticism of the mismanagement of economic policy was
replaced by the potentially politically more dangerous criticism of the regime itself.3
There was also a growing realization both within and outside the regime that the
material benefits of the Economic Miracle had failed to trickle down to the poorest
in society and that issues of social inequality still needed to be addressed. These
interconnected issues; national sovereignty, social inequality, and the need to bridge
the deep divide between state and civil society were all vital factors that had a direct
bearing on the governments cultural policy.
The Poltica Nacional de Cultura
Faced with this rising groundswell of voices calling for change, and anxious to
retain and regain support for their policies, Geisel and his ministers decided to take
action. Together with a four-year economic plan for national development that was
announced in 1975, the military launched a new initiative to promote Brazilian culture
in a strategic move designed to reach out to the disaffected middle class, intellectuals
and the artistic community. This decision was also undoubtedly prompted by the fact
that despite eleven years in power the regime was unable to dominate the cultural
high-ground that was still commanded by those opposed to the military.4 This was a
shrewd tactic, as it involved relatively low financial commitment on the part of the
regime whilst at the same time targeting the artistic community who fulfilled a key
role as opinion formers in Brazilian society.5
The strategy was outlined in an important policy document entitled the Poltica
Nacional de Cultura (PNC), which was produced by the Ministry of Education
3 Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Entrepreneurs and the Transition Process: The Brazilian
Case, in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy, ed. by G. ODonnell,
P. Schmitter and L. Whitehead (Whitehead, 1986), pp. 13753 (p. 144).
4 Gabriel Cohn, A Concepo Oficial da Politca Cultural nos anos 70, in Estado e
Cultura no Brasil, ed. by Srgio Miceli (So Paulo, 1984), pp. 8596 (p. 88).
5 Isaura Botelho, Romance de Formao: Funarte e Poltica Cultural 19761990 (Rio
de Janeiro, 2001), p. 70.
and Culture (MEC) in 1975.6 This document set out an influential new role for the
government in the promotion of national culture, and also established a series of
initiatives to promote the arts in general. Taking as its starting point a definition of
culture in its widest sense, the document repeatedly stressed the high priority now
accorded to cultural matters by the new administration:
It is a priority target of the governmnent to promote the defence and the constant valorisation
of national culture. President Ernesto Geisel has signalled that Brazilian development is
not simply economic; it is above all social, and within that social development there is a
special place for culture.7
The PNC called for a widening of participation in national culture, rejected its
monopolization by a privileged elite, and argued in favour of equal access to culture
for all. Much emphasis was made of the important role to be played by culture in
strengthening and consolidating national identity. One of the key goals identified by
the governments strategy was:
The protection, the safeguarding and the valorisation of the national historic and artistic
heritage, and those traditional elements generally expressed in folklore and the popular arts,
characteristics of our cultural personality, expressing the very feeling of nationality.8
This high importance placed on the need for the preservation and protection of the
national cultural heritage is highlighted elsewhere in the document, where reference
is made to the safeguard of our cultural values, threatened by the massive imposition,
through the new means of communication, of foreign values.9 However, as Renato
Ortiz has observed, the PNC reflected a nostalgic view of culture, firmly rooted in
the importance of celebrating the past rather than dealing with the complexities of
the present.10
The cultural ramifications associated with the effects of Brazils rapid economic
development and increasing urbanization were acknowledged by the reports authors,
who recognized that the recent technological advances in communications in Brazil
had brought with them imported cultural and social values which were at variance
with some aspects of existing Brazilian ethics:
. . . how can we reconcile the preservation of what is characteristically ours with the
incorporation and absorbtion of new cultural elements imposed by development, and at
what point can we even reach agreement about this?11
6 A similar policy document was circulating in 1973 but was withdrawn, seemingly
because it was felt that the moment was not right for such a strategy. Alberto Ribeiro da Silva,
Sinal Fechado, p. 165.
7 Poltica Nacional de Cultura, p. 20.
8 Ibid., p. 24.
9 Ibid., p. 25.
10 Renato Ortiz, Cultura Brasileira e Identidade Nacional (So Paulo, 1985), pp. 978.
Yet as Marcos Napolitano rightly points out, the irony here is that it was the military
regime itself that was responsible for encouraging the massive influx of foreign
investment into Brazil a key factor in the explosive growth of the mass culture
industry in the late 1960s to mid 1970s. The military were also highly instrumental
in facilitating the rise of TV-Globo, an extremely powerful organization which had
strong links with the U.S. Time-Life group, and which represented the epitome of
cultural norteamericanizao.12
The PNC repeatedly emphasized that the government did not wish to directly
intervene in the spontaneity of the artistic process itself and that it viewed its role
more as one of encouragement and sponsorship of all artistic endeavours rather
than one of command and control. Nonetheless, it is important to note that strict
artistic censorship was still firmly in place in 1975, the year in which for example,
Banquete dos Mendigos (Beggars Banquet, an LP by various Brazilian performers
intended to raise funds for UN projects, which featured extracts from the United
Nations Declaration of Human Rights) was abruptly seized by the censor, and Roque
Santeiro (a controversial telenovela) was banned by the authorities before it could
even be aired.13 These political and cultural contradictions reflect the struggle for
influence between various factions within the administration at that time, and also
indicate the delicate balance between forces in favour of a more liberal outlook to
culture and those opposed to any such concessions.
The PNC and Popular Music
The action plan arising out of the PNC incorporated regional support for popular
culture throughout Brazil together with increased assistance for national theatre,
cinema, dance and literature. In terms of popular music, it is clear that the messages
emanating from the Association of researchers in Brazilian popular music (APMPB)
in 1975 and the Teatro Casa Grande debate (both discussed in Chapter 1) in April
of the same year had had a significant bearing on the governments thinking. For
example, one of the PNCs recommendations was that action should be taken to
protect the authorship rights of musicians and composers working in the field of
popular music, an issue that had led to the founding in late 1974 of the Brazilian
Musical Society (Sombrs), an independent organization dedicated specifically to
pressing the government on this issue.14 Other PNC recommendations were for the
preservation of the historical treasures of Brazil, the conservation of the cultural
symbols of our history, and greater support for the conservation of national and
12 Napolitano, Cultura Brasileira, p. 104.

13 During the period of the Geisel administration (197479) the Censorship Service of
the Federal Police Department banned 840 songs. This compares to 47 films, 400 books and
117 plays that were banned during the same time. Ian Bruce, Cinema censorship, in Index
on Censorship: Brazil, ed. by Michael Scammell (London, 1979), pp. 3642 (p. 36).
14 Artists associated with Sombrs included Victor Martins, Gonzaguinha, Aldir Blanc,
Jards Macal, Gutemberg Guarabira, Caetano Veloso, Ivan Lins, Paulinho da Viola, Sueli
Costa, Joyce, Srgio Ricardo, Gilberto Gil and Chico Buarque. For a detailed account of
the struggle for musical authorship rights in Brazil, see Morelli, Arrogantes, Annimos,
Subversivos.
individual archives.15 This echoes the open letter to Ney Braga from the inaugural
meeting of the APMPB, which called for a national body dedicated to the
preservation, research and integrity of the popular cultural heritage.16
Nevertheless, even if the PNC represented an attempt by the government to reach
out to the middle class and the artistic community in a new atmosphere of conciliation
there was still a limit to the extent to which the government would consider taking
direct action to protect the interests of Brazilian popular music. In 1976, Marlos
Nobre was appointed by FUNARTE to set up the National Institute of Music, a body
intended to promote the interests of both Brazilian popular and art music. Nobre was
wholly in favour of raising the profile of traditional forms of regional music such as
maracat, frevo and embolada which had been largely neglected and marginalized
but made it clear that more commercial Brazilian popular music would have to fend
for itself in the marketplace, that is no action would be taken by the government to
restrict the operations of multinational record companies operating within Brazil.17
It can therefore be argued that at this stage the administration was keen to be seen
to be receptive to concerns about the denationalization of Brazilian popular music
but was in fact more concerned about not alienating foreign investors in Brazil.
Perhaps this can be put into context when one considers that in 1975 the government
passed legislation that obliged cinemas to show Brazilian films on at least 112 days
of the year, and yet chose not to implement similar measures in the field of popular
music.
Reaction to the PNC from certain sections of the political left was, somewhat
surprisingly, fairly positive. Despite their fundamental political opposition to the
regime, many on the left welcomed the documents nationalistic, critical view of
the detrimental effects of imported mass culture in Brazil. Certain artists who felt
marginalized by the multinational record companies operating in Brazil, that they
considered to be more concerned with promoting foreign music than homegrown
talent, thought that their careers might benefit from the new space in the market,
which might open up following the reports proposals.18 One of the areas of popular
music that undoubtedly benefited from governmental support in the wake of the
report was choro. Margarida Autran has explained the governments motivation in
this manner:
If in 74/75 the government decided to promote spontaneous forms of culture which, like
choro, were surviving in a marginal way, seeking to integrate then into the market, it
is because they [the government] need a basis of ideological nourishment. It is within
cultural forms that already have a popular basis that this nourishment will be sought. It is
necessary to fill the cultural void, interpreting the fears and hopes of the masses and

16 Paulo Roberto Marins de Souza, A preservao da memria musical em 11 sugestes,
Jornal do Brasil, 8/3/75.
17 Bubbi Leite Garcia, importante que o povo eleve seu gosto, Opinio, 9/7/76,
p. 28. Nobre attended the second Encontro Nacional de Pesquisadores de Msica Popular
Brasileira in 1976.
18 Napolitano, Cultura Brasileira, p. 104.
imposing upon them new standards, in favour of the preservation of Brazilian cultural
identity.19
The journalist and writer, Roberto Moura was also well aware that the states
decision to promote choro, as opposed to other forms of popular music, was not
coincidental because a purely instrumental form of music was unlikely to cause
controversy or trouble the censor.20 From 1975 onwards, the Rio de Janeiro state
government organized a series of live choro shows, and this was backed up by a
vigorous press campaign to publicize the rediscovery of choro. In 1977, the
Brazilian record industry released a series of re-recordings of classic choro to cash
in on the genres new-found popularity. This concerted effort to project choro into
the public consciousness by national and state governments, the media, and record
industry, was undoubtedly successful and resulted in a full-scale choro boom. The
musical nationalists were delighted, as it highlighted the importance of an integral
part of their conception of the traditional Brazilian musical heritage that was
to be defended at all costs from the threat of dilution by foreign influences.21 As
Tamara Livingston-Isenhour and Thomas Garcia have clearly demonstrated, there
was nothing accidental about this re-birth of choro: it was the direct result of an
intervention by a middle-class cultural elite of academics, journalists and critics who
acted as a revivalist community in championing choro as an authentic alternative
to contemporary contaminated culture.22
FUNARTE: From Repression to Co-option?
During the Geisel Aministration (197479), state involvement in culture intensified

as never before. This period was marked by the establishment of the National Council
on Copyright (1975), the National Council for Cinema (1976) and the Campaign for
the defence of Brazilian folklore (1975) amongst others. The creation of FUNARTE
in 1975 was one of the most significant developments in the growth of the state as
a cultural mediator, at least in terms of the impact on popular culture and music.
FUNARTE was to be nationally responsible for three areas that did not already come
under the jurisdiction of the MEC, namely, the plastic arts, folklore, and music.
FUNARTEs remit was to act primarily as a support body, sponsoring artistic
development and projects, and working towards the preservation and promotion of
cultural values characteristic of the povo. FUNARTEs ethos was directly derived
from the PNC, and Roberto Parreira, the organizations first executive director,
19 Margarida Autran, Renascimento e descaracterizao do choro, in Anos 70:

Msica Popular, ed. by Adauto Novaes (Rio de Janeiro, 1979), pp. 6575 (p. 68).
20 Ibid.
21 Ironically, many choro compositions were originally adapted from foreign polkas,
tangos, waltzes and the schottische, which became known in Brazil as xote. Perhaps even
more ironically, North American ragtime was also an influence on choro.
22 Tamara Livingston-Isenhour and Thomas Garcia, Choro: a social history of Brazilian
popular music (Bloomington, 2005), pp. 1312. See also Tamara E. Livingston, Music
revivals: towards a general theory, Ethnomusicology 43/1 (1999): 6685.
was also involved in the drafting of the PNC. He was adamant that the PNC was
concerned above all with combating the de-characterisation of Brazilian culture
and the importance of defending national culture.23
FUNARTEs role with specific reference to popular music was four-fold: first,
to stimulate the production of new artistic output; second, to support the work of
popular music researchers; third, to fund the recording of culturally significant
music, and fourth, to investigate the failure of legislation designed to ensure an
adequate percentage of Brazilian music being aired on radio and television.24 All
these objectives directly reflected the concerns of the APMPB, which had been
pressurizing Ney Braga, the Minister of Education and Culture, to take action in
these areas. Following representations from the APMPB, Braga had commissioned
a survey among composers, researchers and those involved in the record industry
to investigate the so-called de-characterization of Brazilian music by foreign
influences, and the absence of any adequate archives relating to national popular
music.25 The results of the surveys commissioned by Braga confirmed the seriousness
of the problems facing the Brazilian music industry and the report concluded that if
no preventative measures were taken the creative force of Brazilian popular music
might disappear altogether. However, as I have demonstrated, the government was
only prepared to go so far in its support of popular music, and as I will explain shortly,
the decision was made to support the FUNARTE-sponsored Projeto Pixinguinha,
rather than attempt to impose restrictions on imported popular music in Brazil.
The severity of censorship in the artistic field between 1968 and 1973 and the
continuing arbitrary effects of censorship during Geisels period of office made it
difficult for many working in the cultural sphere to know how to respond to the
governments newly discovered interest in culture. Suspicion and disbelief were
rife among intellectuals and artists, who naturally speculated that the prospect
of a more liberal approach to the arts was unlikely while the Ministry for Justice
still held sway over all aspects of censorship.26 It is precisely for that reason that
the Teatro Casa Grande cultural debates in 1975, referred to in Chapter 1, were
so symbolically significant: by permitting such a large gathering of young people
who were potentially hostile to the regime (for the first time since the imposition
of the fifth Institutional Act in 1968) it was made clear that there was substance to
the new governments avowed desire to enter into a dialogue about fresh cultural
and political directions. The fact that the negative impact of censorship on the arts
was itself widely discussed at the Teatro Casa Grande debates was further evidence
of a government that was less inclined to clamp down at the slightest suggestion of
dissent, and one that was more amenable to cultural and political dialogue.
23 Botelho, Romance de Formao, p. 68.

24 Margarida Autran, O Estado e o msico popular: de marginal a instrumento, in Anos
70: Msica Popular, ed. by Adauto Novaes (Rio de Janeiro, 1979), pp. 91100 (p. 95).
25 Ana Maria Bahiana, O ministro e a msica, Opinio, 20/12/74, p. 20.
26 For more on the effects of censorship on popular music during this period see Silva
(1994) and Arajo (2002). Interesting information on the effects of censorship in general in
Brazil can also be found in Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro (ed.) (2001).
Nonetheless, several political commentators within Brazil are still highly
sceptical of the motives behind Geisel and Golberys overtures towards civil society
at this time. Renato Franco for example, makes the point that the policy of hard-line
censorship prior to 1974 had already achieved its objectives, and that by 1975 it
had actually become an anachronism that impeded the governments wider political
aims. The slightly more relaxed attitude towards artistic censorship under Geisel
was also advantageous for the administration in cultural and political terms in two
ways: it gave the impression to the public that things were generally becoming
more democratic, and it also wrong-footed intellectuals and artists, who were now
obliged to move from a position of out-and-out opposition to the regime. The latter
were now faced with a dilemma: either they remained implacably opposed to the
regime, thereby missing the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of any potential new-
found artistic freedom, or they collaborated with the military in the hope that things
really were about to change for the better and found themselves in the invidious
position of possibly being accused of being co-opted by the regime.27 This policy
of the attempted co-option and control of the artistic and intellectual community
by the Geisel administration has been discussed by Flora Sussekind, who sees it as
forming part of a wider strategy on the part of a government who were anxious to
attract the support of those capable of winning over public opinion in favour of the
regimes new policies. She also highlights the comparisons that were drawn at the
time between the paternalistic and interventionist cultural policies of Geisel, and
those of the Vargas regime forty years earlier.28
What is particularly intriguing about the situation in 1975 is that some of the
newly-formed or revamped government organizations responsible for culture, such
as Embrafilme and FUNARTE, began to employ staff, some of whom had been
previously opposed to, and in some cases persecuted by, the military regime.29 The
influx of dynamic young employees, many of them artists and musicians returning
from extensive periods abroad, immediately brought an atmosphere of creative
tension to FUNARTE. Highly unusually for a Brazilian government department,
these employees were extremely irreverent in their attitudes towards the political
administration and did not consider themselves state functionaries in any traditional
sense. Furthermore, they were accorded a large degree of autonomy in the direction
of their projects and were not, at least in the early years, subjected to a high degree
27 Renato Franco, Poltica e Cultura no Brasil: 19691979, (Des)Figuraes.

Perspectivas. (Revista de Cicias Socias,UNESP) 1718 (1994), 5974 (p. 68).
28 Flora Sussekind, Literatura e Vida Literria: Polmicas, dirios & retratos (Rio de
Janeiro, 1985), p. 22. Official state intervention in the cultural field in Brazil started in the
1930s with the creation of the Ministrio de Educao e da Sade under the administration
of Getlio Vargas. During the period 193645, large numbers of renowned intellectuals and
artists worked within that state apparatus helping to promote the official view of national
culture. For an analysis of the co-option of these intellectuals, see Srgio Miceli, Intelectuais
e classe dirigente no Brasil, 19201945 (So Paulo, 1984). See also, Daryle Williams, Culture
wars in Brazil: the first Vargas regime, 19301945 (Durham, 2001) for a stimulating account
of the development of cultural policies under Vargas.
29 Sussekind, Literatura e Vida Literria, p. 23.
of bureaucratic constraint.30 Under Roberto Parreiras direction, FUNARTE was
determined to re-invigorate cultural activity throughout the country, and in his own
words FUNARTE opened space at the municipal level; injected resources locally,
stimulated cultural development in the most varied regions and situations throughout
Brazil (his emphasis).31 This decision to focus on the local was crucial to the initial
decision to support the Projeto Pixinguinha in 1977 and also the continuing support
devoted to the various editions of the project over the following decades.
The Projeto Pixinguinha and the rescue of MPB
Overview
The inspiration behind the Projeto Pixinguinha came from a series of live shows of
popular music held in Rio de Janeiro in 1976. These shows took place in the Teatro
Joo Caetano, and became known as seis e meia [six-thirty] because they were
targeted at people who worked in the centre of the city who were on their way home
from work. Tickets were deliberately priced at low levels to attract ordinary working
people who might not normally be able to afford to attend such events. The idea for
this initiative came from Albino Pinheiro, who invited Hermnio Bello de Carvalho
to take charge of the artistic direction of the shows. Both Pinheiro and Carvalho
were concerned about the large numbers of working people who were faced with
long queues for buses in the rush hour at the end of the day in the Praa Tiradentes,
on which the theatre was situated. Their imaginative idea was to provide accessible,
well-produced, cheap entertainment for those people, for a period of an hour or so
before the regular theatre-going audience arrived at the Teatro Joo Caetano, by
which time traffic congestion would have eased in the area.32
Hermnio Bello de Carvalho had been elected vice-president of Sombrs in 1974
and he was a prominent figure in that organizations struggle for the recognition
of authorship rights for composers and musicians. Following the overwhelming
initial success of Seis e Meia, he presented the idea of a similar project through the
auspices of Sombrs to the Minister for Culture, who passed it to Roberto Parreira at
FUNARTE. Carvalhos distinguished career as a cultural activist in Brazil started in
the mid 1960s, when he produced the famous rosa de ouro [golden rose] shows that
were largely responsible for the rediscovery of the talents of the singer, Clementina
de Jesus and instrumentalist, Jacob do Bandolim amongst others. Carvalho has also
written extensively as a poet, journalist and novelist, and has composed several songs
in collaboration with artists such as Paulinho da Viola, Cartola, and Chico Buarque.
Throughout his career, Carvalho has consistently championed the need for
the protection of the tradition of authentic Brazilian popular music against the
encroachments of foreign popular music and he was a leading figure, along with
30 Botelho, Romance de Formao, pp. 656.

31 Ibid., p. 70.
32 Author interview with Hermnio Bello de Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, 26/9/03. Carvalho
had originally seen a similar series of shows at the Thatre da la Ville whilst on holiday in
Paris in 1973.
Srgio Cabral and Paulinho da Viola, in fostering the choro boom of the 1970s. In
many ways, his role as a defender of these values has taken as its point of departure
the writings of Mrio de Andrade, and he is fond of quoting Mrios phrase: It is
necessary to brazilianise the Brazilians. He is a self-styled anti-colonialist and
is fond of nailing his colours to the mast with comments such as, culture should be
treated as if it was an aspect of national security, and music is also part of ecology.
Our rhythms, dances and habits are integrated into our ecosystem, they are defining
markers of our cultural identity.33 When Carvalho took his proposal to FUNARTE in
early 1977 it was because he was deeply concerned about the increasingly restricted
space for MPB in the national music industry and the domination of the media by
foreign popular music.34 As I demonstrated in Chapter 1, these preoccupations about
declining standards in Brazilian popular music and unfair competition with foreign
music were also shared by organizations such as the APMPB, Sombrs, and various
journalists writing in the Brazilian media at the time.
Roberto Parreira accepted Carvalhos proposal enthusiastically, although the
initial amount of funding provided by FUNARTE was minimal. Nevertheless, the
Projeto Pixinguinha was born and the first show took place in Rio de Janeiro on 5
August 1977. The projects broad objectives went further than merely providing
low-cost musical entertainment for inner-city workers. Adopting the slogan
creating new cultural spaces without encroaching on those that already exist, the
Projeto Pixinguinha sought to open up the work market for Brazilian musicians.35
By utilizing theatres that would normally have been empty at 6.30 p.m. the project
aimed to provide entertainment by the best names in Brazilian popular music
combined with the creation of new audiences and new cultural habits for a public
that is approachable but that is also needy and not normally present at this type of
leisure activity.36
This attempt to reach out to the poor and culturally dispossessed was one of
the most radical notions at the heart of the project: it was conceived as a means
to open cultural windows for a previously excluded mass audience.37 The Projeto
Pixinguinhas typical format was to present two or three artists on the same evening,
one of the artists being well known, but not currently in the media spotlight, and
at least one other performer that was relatively unknown to the public. This was
designed to remind the public of musicians and performers that had fallen out of the
limelight and at the same time introduce them to new names working in the same
field of quality music. The other main objective of the project was to take Brazilian
popular music out of the dominant cultural centres of Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo
and make it accessible to those living all over Brazil. As an early report on the
project published by FUNARTE proudly stated: For the first time some cities will
33 Hermnio Bello de Carvalho, O Samba Minha Nobreza (Rio de Janeiro, n.d.), p. 5.

34 Anon, Msica, ao. Vem a o Projeto Pixinguinha, Jornal da Tarde, 28/6/77.
35 Anon, Projeto Pixinguinha (Rio de Janeiro, n.d.), p. 1.
36 Ibid.
37 Author interview with Hermnio Bello de Carvalho.
have a regular, daily programme of popular music for the public at large, for people
who rarely have the opportunity to watch a musical show in a theatre.38
In 1977 shows were presented in Curitiba, Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte,
and over the following two years the project reached cities such as Manaus, Cuiab
and Belm in the North, and Joo Pessoa, Natal and Salvador in the Northeast. In
1983 the project modified its approach by starting all shows with a performance by
a regional performer, chosen by local representatives, followed by artists brought
from Rio de Janeiro. In 1984 the process was reversed when regional performers
toured Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo. The early years of the Projeto Pixinguinha
were a period when music was truly taken to the masses in accordance with the
guidelines set out in the PNC. Between 1978 and 1979 the project was responsible
for 1468 shows all over the country reaching a total audience of more than one
million people39 and by 1987 the project had visited 46 cities in 22 different states.40
The projects fortunes have fluctuated in the intervening years, largely due to the
effects of financial constraints, and the fact that it has been used as a political football
at various times. Despite being suspended between 1997 and 2004 it remains the
longest-running and most successful project of its type in Brazil.
The Projeto Pixinguinha within the Broader Political Context
To fully understand the importance of the Projeto Pixinguinha and why the
government was so supportive of it, particularly in the late 1970s, it is necessary
to take a wider view of the states cultural orientation at the time. As previously
indicated, in 1974 Geisels administration took the first step towards what was to
become a long drawn-out political process of re-democratization within Brazil.
The new direction in cultural policies, enshrined in the PNC and designed to be
implemented by FUNARTE, was one that was intended to appeal to specific interest
groups within Brazil. As I have mentioned, the disaffected middle class, artists and
intellectuals were the primary target of this policy change, due to their important
role as opinion-shapers. The new emphasis on culture was also designed to present
a more human face to a regime that had hitherto largely been characterized by
repression and brutality. But the PNC also called for a widening of participation in
national culture beyond the confines of the middle class:
A small intelectual elite, both political and economic, can lead the development process.
But that situation cannot continue for long. It is neccessary that everyone benefits from
the resulting achievements. And for this to take place it is neccessary that all, equally,
participate in national culture. From this awareness we come to the conclusion that the
Poltica Nacional de Cultura, as conceived by this Ministry, is not intended just for the
priveliged few, but for all Brazilians.41
38 Anon, Projeto Pixinguinha, p. 1.

39 Autran, O Estado e o msico popular, p. 98.
40 Aramis Millarch, Um projeto que deu certo, O Estado do Paran, 18/5/89. <http://
www.millarch.org/imprimir.asp?id=2824> [accessed 10 June 2007].
41 Poltica Nacional de Cultura, pp. 910.
This aspiration to bring national forms of culture to the broad mass of the population
also contains a distinct element of anti-elitism that no doubt reflects the recognition
at the time that the sympathy of the majority of the artistic and intellectual elites
was still aligned with opponents of the regime.42 Thus, there exists a palpable tension
within the text of the PNC that demonstrates a desire to create a cultural agenda
capable of appealing at one and the same time to the middle class and also to the
masses. That tension also manifested itself within the early years of FUNARTE, due
to the influx of anti-establishment, and anti-regime, middle-class intellectuals who
were charged with organizing and administering the new cultural strategy.
Theories of the co-option and control of these artists and intellectuals by the
regime during this period are strongly refuted by Hermnio Bello de Carvalho,
who argues that he and his colleagues working on the Projeto Pixinguinha in the
late 1970s were not co-opted in any sense by the administration. On the contrary,
Carvalho is adamant that if anything FUNARTE was actually taken over by the
artists and intellectuals working within it, and that they formed a nucleus of cultural
resistance to the regime at the time.43 Such a situation would have been unthinkable
only a few years previously, and some credence is given to Carvalhos claims by the
fact that the Projeto Pixinguinha was never subjected to any form of censorship or
governmental interference.44
The decision of the Brazilian administration to introduce a new cultural strategy in
1975 also reflects a growing preoccupation with governmental approaches to culture
on a global scale at the time. As Roger Wallis and Krister Malm have demonstrated,
the 1970s was a decade in which large numbers of developing nations formulated
cultural policies as part of their quest to define national identity.45 With the advent of
distenso, and the gradual moves to a wider form of political abertura [opening] the
Brazilian military were increasingly keen to improve their profile, not only at home
but also abroad. Participation at UNESCO conferences, such as the one held in Bogot
in 1978, clearly influenced the cultural policies developed within Brazil under the
auspices of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs (SEAC), a government body concerned
with the overall direction of cultural policy that was formed in 1979. UNESCOs line
at this time was to stress the need for developing nations to incorporate the regional
into the national in terms of planning, and also the importance of the cultural aspect of
national development, particularly for the poorest sectors of society.46 SEACs initial
cultural policy was to specifically target its efforts towards those on low incomes and
the regions. As Botelho indicates, the governments thinking was that art could be
put to a more far-reaching purpose: The work in the area of culture would therefore
be the driving force of a wide-ranging policy, at the same time providing a response
42 Gabriel Cohn, A Concepo Oficial da Poltica Cultural, p. 89.

43 Author interview 26/9/03.
44 Author interview 26/9/03. This is also confirmed by Paulo Cesar Soares who has been
involved in the administration of Projeto Pixinguinha since its inception. Author interview
with Soares, 29/6/04.
45 Roger Wallis and Krister Malm, Big Sounds from Small Peoples: The Music Industry
in Small Countries (London, 1984), p. 217.
46 Botelho, Romance de Formao, pp. 8081.
to social problems within the country.47 This observation is particularly relevant
when one considers that 1979 marked the start of a period of accelerating inflation
within Brazil and the rise of massive strikes by organized labour against the regime
all over the country.
Taking into account these general political factors it is clear to see why FUNARTE
provided support to the Projeto Pixinguinha. With its emphasis on the importance of
regional culture, its subsidized ticket prices, its general orientation towards ordinary
working people, and its attempt to link the local and the national, the project could
be seen to fulfil many of the objectives set out by UNESCO and SEAC.
Addressing the Imbalance: the Promotion of Quality Music
The defensive, conservative view of national culture contained in the PNC can also
be detected in the type of popular music that the state decided to support through
the auspices of FUNARTE and the Projeto Pixinguinha. A phrase that is frequently
associated with the project by its creators is the desire to promote msica de boa
qualidade [quality music] which broadly means in practice the championing of
music that falls into the category of MPB. What needs to be stressed is that the
Projeto Pixinguinha was conceived first and foremost as a cultural riposte to the
intensification of distribution and media presence of foreign music within Brazil
during the 1970s that I outlined in the previous chapter, and which culminated in the
disco craze that engulfed Brazil in 197778, symbolized by the massive success of
Dancin Days, the extremely popular telenovela of that period.48
Hermnio Bello de Carvalho already had extensive experience of negotiating
with the government in his role as representative for Sombrs. During that period he
repeatedly recommended that the government take remedial measures to reverse the
decline in fortunes of Brazilian musicians and composers, who were finding it harder
and harder to find work due to the dominance of multinational record companies
in Brazil that on his opinion were more concerned with promoting imported music
that would generate greater profits for those companies. Carvalho contented that the
so-called crisis in Brazilian popular music that the media were so fond of referring
to at this time was not due to a lack of local talent, but that it was rather that any
emerging talent was denied a suitable outlet in which to flourish.49 This was linked
by him to the declining number of venues for live music in Brazil, a factor that was
exacerbated by the rising popularity of discotheques in 1978 which, it was frequently
argued, was killing the market for live music and threatening the livelihood of
professional musicians.50 As I have previously indicated, the government ultimately
shied away from enforcing statutory measures to increase the percentage of Brazilian
47 Botelho, Romance de Formao, p. 81.

48 Author interview with Paulo Cesar Soares, 25/9/03.
49 Anon, Em defesa da msica nacional?, Jornal da Tarde, 16/8/77.
50 This issue was periodically debated in the press. See for example, Fernando Sombra
and Magdalena de Almeida Triste situao a dos msicos. Tocando e cantando quase de
graa, O Estado de So Paulo, 20/1/75, p. 23; and Wagner Carelli, Emprego: nota que 80 mil
msicos desconhecem, O Estado de So Paulo, 17/7/77, p. 26.
music broadcast on radio and television or played in nightclubs, and chose instead
to provide financial support for Carvalhos Projeto Pixinguinha, which it was hoped
would go some way towards providing that type of outlet for live music.
Carvalho was fundamentally concerned about the preservation of the legacy of the
historical roots of Brazilian popular music. His overwhelming interest in continuing
the work started by Mrio de Andrade shaped his vision of what type of musical
tradition should be preserved, and also what type of music should be excluded from
that tradition. In the early years of the Projeto Pixinguinha, a committee of people
working in the general field of music were chosen to select the artists who would
feature in the live shows. The idea of resuscitating the careers of artists who were
now finding it difficult to gain media exposure and helping to launch the career of
artists working within the same general parameters of msica de boa qualidade was
intended to revitalize Brazilian popular music by publicising national music and
reactivating the market with raw material of the highest level, eminently ours (my
emphasis).51 It was also a strategy that was designed to create a symbolic link with
the traditions of the great Brazilian musical stars of the past in the minds of younger
generations, and thereby rescue that tradition from a position of potential cultural
oblivion. The quality of the artists chosen for the project in the late 1970s was of far
greater importance than their potential commercial appeal: artists were deliberately
selected who would find it almost impossible to obtain exposure through the normal
commercial channels.52 To provide some idea of the type of music supported by the
Projeto Pixinguinha, the combinations of artists appearing together in 1977, the first
year of the project, included Nana Caymmi and Ivan Lins; Clementina de Jesus, Joo
Bosco and Conjunto Exporta Samba; Marlia Medalha and Z Keti; Beth Carvalho
and Nelson Cavaquinho; Marlene and Gonzaguinha. In 1978 a FUNARTE document
referred to the diversity of music brought to the public by the project so far:
From Macal and Kid Morengueiras delightful samba to the tuneful voice of Alade Costa;
from the black force of Clementina to the explosiveness of Marlene; from the sorrowful
lament of the Quinteto Violado to the songs of rejection of Marisa Gata Mansa; from the
provocative poetics of Gonzaguinha to the crazy frevo of Moraes Moreira; from the classical
guitar of Turbio Santos to the rustic moda de viola of de Canhoto da Paraba, the Projeto
Pixinguinha represents Brazilian popular music conquering and occupying the space that it
deserves, in the minds and the hearts of an increasingly large number of Brazilians.53
The list of artists that have passed through the project over the years reads like a roll
call of the great and the good of MPB.54 Samba veterans such as Cartola, Monarco,
and Elza Soares, rubbed shoulders with bossa nova icons likes Joo Donato, Carlos
51 Anon, Projeto Pixinguinha, p. 1.

52 Ibid., p. 4.
53 Anon, Obrigado Pixinguinha. Milsima apresentao (Rio de Janeiro, 1978), pp. 78.
54 For a full list of artists between 197797 see FUNARTEs website:<http://www.
funarte.gov.br/canalservico.htm>, accessed 1 May 2007. Note, the first two numerals relates
to the year of the show. All shows presented by Projeto Pixinguinha were recorded, and at the
time of writing FUNARTE was planning to digitalize these archive recordings to make them
available to researchers and the public.
Lyra and Leny Andrade. Artists at the start of their careers such as Simone, Djavan
and Carlinhos Vergueiro were presented to the public alongside seasoned campaigners
such as Tito Madi, Jackson do Pandeiro, Radams Gnatalli and Nelson Sargento.
Performers salaries and travelling costs were paid for by FUNARTE but these were
not excessive, especially in the early years when the project was run on a shoestring. As
the project moved around the country like a musical caravan to increasingly far-flung
destinations, its orientation changed slightly as it was recognized that it was important
to highlight the regional music of the cities that were visited, and in later years the
aspect of circulating popular music within the nation took on more prominence within
the project. This was supplemented by the creation of festivals of regional music known
as Feiras Pixinguinhas [Pixinguinha Fairs] in cities such as Belm and Salvador, where
regional artists were recorded by FUNARTE, and the recordings issued as LPs that
were distributed around Brazil.
Although the Projeto Pixinguinha has promoted a great number of artists over
the years it would also be true to say that those artists have almost entirely been
associated with a conception of Brazilian popular music that does not stray too far
from the conventional. The type of popular music showcased by the project has always
been one that is centred on performers operating principally in the fields of samba,
bossa nova and MPB. Performers from the idioms of Brazilian rock music, reggae,
msica sertaneja, brega, or in recent times funk and rap, have been conspicuous
by their absence. The organizers of the Projeto Pixinguinha would doubtless argue
that more commercial musical genres such as these have countless other means by
which they can promote themselves through the mainstream media but it is clear
that the choice of artists presented by the project has reflected a largely elitist taste
rather than showcasing the more populist music that is regularly consumed by the
vast majority of the population. That the project should have at its core a desire to
resurrect music of the past is perhaps not surprising: it was after all named after
the emblematic composer and musician who symbolized to Hermino Bello de
Carvalho (and others such as Almirante and Lcio Rangel, see Chapter 1) all that
was truly national and uncontaminated in Brazilian popular music. Carvalho has
been one of those responsible for continuing the gradual process of canonization
of Pixinguinha, frequently referring to him as a saint and working ceaselessly to
ensure that his memory is preserved. This idolization of Pixinguinha is reflected in
the words of Ary Vasconcellos, who wrote in 1964:
If you had 15 books to talk about the whole of Brazilian popular music rest assured that
it would not be enough. But if you only had one word, all is not lost; quickly write:
Pixinguinha.55
It would be foolish to attempt to deny the central role played by Pixinguinha in the
development of popular music in Brazil in the twentieth century. However, the point
at issue here is that as Bryan McCann has expertly demonstrated, Pixinguinha, choro,
and the velha guarda revival movement of the 1950s, of which Pixinguinha was the
key figure, have all been used as potent symbols of cultural resistance against the
55 Panorama da Msica Popular Brasileira (So Paulo, 1964), p. 84.

Americanization of Brazilian music for decades.56 The Projeto Pixinguinha is a
continuation of that fight against the dilution of Brazilian popular music, which in
turn forms part of an ongoing wider debate about anxieties surrounding the cultural
invasion in Brazil that dates back to at least the 1930s and which continues even to
this day in some quarters.
The figures relating to the number of people who have attended shows organized
by the Projeto Pixinguinha project over the years are unquestionably impressive.
What is perhaps rather less clear is whether the type of audience originally targeted
by the project has been consistently reached. Official statistics obtained during the
period 197780 showed that the audiences at the events organized by the project
were of all ages and reflected the diversity of Brazilian society, including students,
teachers, office workers and housewives.57 Paulo Cesar Soares, who was responsible
for the administration and artistic direction of the project for many years, also confirms
that the typical audience profile tended to be heterogeneous and representative of all
social classes.58
However, on one infamous occasion in Curitiba in 1985, the projects target
audience of the less-advantaged did not react favourably to the musical spectacle
set before them. The citys local cultural department distributed 2000 tickets for a
show by Elizeth Cardoso (a grande dame of bossa nova) to people living in low-cost
housing projects. Due to an administrative mix-up those who were invited thought
that they would be attending a show by Menudo, Os Tremendos or Gretchen (all of
whom were populist artists performing locally at the same time). When it became
clear that the show did not feature those artists, the audience vented their displeasure
by giving Elizeth Cardoso a ferocious reception, with much booing, and shouts such
as We want Menudo! and Enough of this! We came here to see Os Tremendos!59
A local journalist dismissed the hostility shown towards Elizeth Cardoso and the
approval demonstrated for low-class artists such as Gretchen and Menudo at the
time as being merely a manifestation of bad manners by an uneducated audience.60
Yet this particular audience surely represented exactly the sector of society that the
Projeto Pixinguinha was established to reach, and although it should be stressed
that this was an isolated occurrence, it is nevertheless an interesting example of the
reaction of a culturally deprived audience who refused to be cajoled into liking the
type of music that it had been rather patronizingly decided should appeal to them.
56 Hello Hello Brazil, pp. 16080.

57 J. Kosinski de Cavalcanti, Pixinguinha, um projeto carinhoso, Cultura 36 (1981),
1822, (p. 20).
59 Aramis Millarch, Elizeth Cardoso foi humilhada no Guara, Estado do Paran,
20/8/85. <http://www.millarch.org/imprimir.asp?id=6693> [accessed 10 June 2007].
60 Aramis Millarch, Repercusso nacional das vaias a Elizeth, Estado do Paran,
22/8/85. <http://www.millarch.org/imprimir.asp?id=6694> [accessed 10 June 2007].
The Impact of the Projeto Pixinguinha
The critical reception to the Projeto Pixinguinha in its initial period was unanimously
positive, with some writers quick to praise the projects attempt to turn the tide
against foreign music:
. . . at last someone has started to pay due attention to our music, preserving the most
authentic and honest values and not the aural rubbish that the multinational record
companies impose on us and which the middle and upper classes in their flighty parties
consume in their expensive discotheques.61
Subsequent press coverage has stressed the importance of the project in keeping
alive the careers of musical stars of the past. The project has also enabled artists to
reach out to a different kind of audience who would not normally attend their shows
due to the cost of tickets, or revealed to artists the true extent of the affection that is
felt for them in different regions of Brazil, that they were perhaps unaware of.62
As one of the principal flagships of FUNARTEs cultural policy, the Projeto
Pixinguinha still retains a considerable aura of prestige due to its sheer longevity.
Its long-term significance lies in the fact that it has been virtually the only state-
supported enterprise linked with popular music over the last forty years. In artistic
terms, perhaps the most refreshing aspect of the project has been the way in which it
has consistently juxtaposed performances by older performers with those at the start
of their careers and demonstrated that a market exists among younger audiences for
the music of veterans such as Inezita Barroso and Oswaldinho do Acordeon, to name
but two of many. By raising the profile of such artists, the project has represented an
alternative, but essentially conservative view of MPB that differs from that provided
by mainstream record labels and the mass media. In that sense, it has complemented
the music policy of small independent labels such as Kuarup and CPC-UMES, that
have also fought to provide an alternative to the mainstream, and who have managed
to establish a niche market for their output.
The repercussions of the Projeto Pixinguinha go beyond the strict confines of
the shows produced under its auspices. It has inspired a number of smaller, similar
projects all over Brazil, such as Projeto Moqueca (Vitria), Segundas musicais
(Salvador), Show da tarde (Belo Horizonte), Projeto Lus Assuno (Fortaleza) and
many others since the 1970s.63 It has also provided the opportunity to train a large
number of people in cities all over Brazil in the skills required to produce shows,
such as direction, script-writing, lighting and the like. It has helped to inspire the
refurbishment of theatres in cities such as Macei, Porto Alegre and Braslia and led
61 Aramis Millarch, Joo & Clementina, Estado do Paran, 25/8/77. <http://www.

millarch.org/lernum.asp?id=9806&pesquisa=projeto+pixinguinha> [accessed 10 June 2007].
62 Cavalcanti, Pixinguinha, um projeto carinhoso, pp. 1920.
63 In June 2004, I attended a Seis e Meia type show at the Teatro Joo Caetano in Rio
de Janeiro, which featured the 80-year-old sambista, Nelson Sargento. The cost of entrance
was the equivalent of when the Projeto Pixinguinha started, i.e. little more that the price of a
pack of cigarettes.
to the building of a major theatre specifically to house live music in So Paulo.64 The
early years of the project coincided with a massive resurgence of interest in Brazilian
popular music in Brazil itself, particularly in 1980 (as outlined in the previous
chapter). Although this new focus on national music was largely due to a decision
by record companies to promote Brazilian music, major artists such as Simone and
Djavan who formed part of that boom received their initial exposure to the public by
featuring in shows organized by the project. The Projeto Pixinguinha played some
part in preparing the ground for that boom by re-introducing the public across the
nation to the existence of Brazilian popular music at a time when it was still largely
out of favour with the media. One of the other achievements of the project was
to successfully raise the profile of instrumental music, particularly Brazilian jazz,
which went on to undergo its own mini-boom in the 1980s. The Projeto Pixinguinha
has also impacted on the wider sphere of MPB by keeping the compositions of
older artists in the public consciousness. By providing exposure for these artists, the
project has acted as a source of artistic inspiration for younger, more mainstream
performers who record compositions from the past, and consequently bring them to
a far wider, younger public.65
Conclusion
The Geisel administrations decision to adopt a new approach to culture in 1975

was taken at a crucial moment in the formation of the militarys move to open a
dialogue with civil society. Proposals similar to those contained in the Poltica
Nacional de Cultura had been existence in 1973 but it was only in 1975, with the
new administration hesitantly proposing a strategy of distenso, that the document
was given the green light. Although the PNC reflected an attempt to win the hearts
and minds of a culturally aware public (particularly the middle class) there is an
obvious anomaly in that it was launched at a time of continuing cultural censorship
by the government, thereby demonstrating the politically fluid nature of the period.
What can be detected within the text of the PCN is the undeniable influence of
various pressure groups such as the APMPB, and the impact of the public debates
at the Teatro Casa Grande, both of which had brought home to the administration
public disquiet about what was seen as an ongoing de-nationalization of national
culture and popular music. The establishment of FUNARTE in 1975 opened the
door for greater state support for national culture, particularly in the form of music.
FUNARTEs ethos was directly derived from the conservative view of national
culture contained in the PNC, and Hermnio Bello de Carvalhos proposal that
became the Projeto Pixinguinha, with its concept of the defence of a tradition
of national popular music, fell neatly into the category of cultural initiative that
FUNARTE wished to promote.
Nevertheless, that does not explain why the Projeto Pixinguinha was so
successful. It obviously touched a chord with the public, who flocked to the shows
64 Cavalcanti, Pixinguinha, um projeto carinhoso, pp. 2021.

it promoted. It may be that many of those who attended saw the shows as a cheap
form of entertainment; it may be that many were making the point that they wished
to defend national music by their presence. Quite probably, for many people it was
a combination of both these factors. The Projeto Pixinguinha certainly increased the
aura of importance surrounding MPB by promoting the idea that this type of music
merited being supported, cherished and defended, and as it was a national project it
propagated that notion around the country as a whole.
In certain aspects, the Projeto Pixinguinha acted as a forerunner for Rumos Ita
Cultural Msica (discussed in Chapter 7), the principal similarities being that the
Projeto Pixinguinha set out to create space in the market for Brazilian artists and
was also concerned to emphasize the importance of regional music by creating a
platform for that music to circulate within Brazil. However, the difference between
the two projects lies in the inherently greater musical conservatism of the Projeto
Pixinguinha that seems to make it unlikely that the project will open up to the vast
musical hybridity that exists in Brazil today. Champions of the Projeto Pixinguinha,
such as Paulo Cesar Soares argue that it is still necessary today, precisely because
of the continued lack of media space for the type of music endorsed by the project.
Soares makes the point that paradoxically, at a time when MPB enjoys such a high
profile worldwide, there is still much ignorance in Brazil itself about the history and
tradition of popular music produced nationally.66 Hermnio Bello de Carvalho also
feels that the long-term significance of the project, and its overall legacy, was that it
started to generate a debate about memory, tradition, and popular music in Brazil.67
This nationalistic determination not to allow the musical achievements of the past to
be subsumed by the music of the present is reminiscent of the motives that inspired
Marcus Pereira to record Brazilian regional music in the 1970s, whose work I will
analyse in the following chapter.

67 Author interview with Hermnio Bello de Carvalho.
Chapter 6
Musical Mapping:
Locating and Defending the Regional1*
The belief that Brazilian rural folk music was endangered and on the verge of
extinction inspired several expeditions during the twentieth century that were
designed to record that music for posterity. These expeditions were motivated by
three main factors: the need to utilize rural music as an artistic source of inspiration
for composers of national art music; a desire to educate the Brazilian public about
its music heritage, and a reflection of the concern that this regional musical tradition
might vanish under the onslaught of urbanization, modernization, and the absorption
of cosmopolitan influences. This chapter examines two of the most important of
these projects that attempted to create a musical map of Brazil by investigating
and recording aspects of the diversity and richness of the nations regional popular
music. The first of these was Mrio de Andrades pioneering Misso de Pesquisas
Folclricas (MPF) of 1938, which was complemented by the more extensive later
work of Marcus Pereiras Msica Popular do Brasil (197377). Mrio and Pereiras
projects were guided to a substantial degree by a conception of the need to preserve
and protect the music that they set out to document, and Pereiras work was driven
by the desire to defend the tradition of rural popular music, which he considered to
be unjustly marginalized. I will outline the aims and objectives, working methods,
and impact of both of these extremely important endeavours.
The chapter is divided into three main parts. In the first, I provide an overview
of theories relating to the study of folk music, and the importance of the concept
of authenticity in studies of folk music in Europe and the United States. A brief
discussion of the fundamental role of folklore in Brazil follows. The second part of
the chapter examines Mrios 1938 expedition. The final, major part of the chapter
analyses Pereiras Msica Popular do Brasil in detail. This enormous project, which
resulted in the release of sixteen LPs of regional music, is important for three main
reasons. First, in a climate of uncompromising political and artistic censorship it
attempted to bring to the fore elements of a cultural and political debate that had
polarized Brazil in the early 1960s: a debate that was abruptly terminated by the
military dictatorship that seized power in 1964. Second, Msica Popular do Brasil
demonstrates the beginning of an awareness of a new, more complex relationship
between traditional, largely rural popular culture and the increasingly urbanized
Brazilian society of the mid 1970s. Finally, at a time when popular music in Brazil
1* This chapter is based on a previously published article, Marcus Pereiras Msica

Popular do Brasil, beyond folklore?, Popular Music, Vol. 25 (2), 2006, pp. 30318. By
permission of Cambridge University Press.
was increasingly orientated towards influences emanating from abroad, Marcus
Pereira dramatically bucked the trend and re-introduced the Brazilian public to
aspects of the regional, rural tradition of popular music and culture that would have
a profound influence in Brazilian popular music over the last three decades of the
twentieth century.
Folk Music, Tradition, and Authenticity
As previously discussed in Chapter 1, the idea of the discovery of folk culture

formed an integral part of the writings of Johann Gottfried von Herder in Germany
in the eighteenth century. It was also an inspiration for several movements of musical
nationalism in Europe in the nineteenth century and the work of Cecil Sharp in Britain
in the early years of the twentieth century. However, as Richard Middleton points
out, despite a vast amount of study over the course of more than two centuries there
is still no unanimity over the definition of basic terms such as folklore, folk music
or even folk.1 This is partially due to the fact that folk music and its relationship
to other forms of music have varied greatly during that period. The significance of
the concept of authenticity lies at the heart of the inter-relationship between folk
and popular music. This has often manifested itself in the view that authentic folk
music is produced outside of the economic constraints of the music industry, and
folk music is still often portrayed as an uncorrupted product of an individual or
community that remains true to its roots, maintaining a tradition which resists the
alienated culture adopted by mainstream society. Middleton sees this as impinging
on popular music in two distinct ways:
Authentic folk music is presented as an Other, to which popular music can be adversely
contrasted; or its values are seen as surviving, or recreated, within certain favoured forms
of popular music, usually forms associated with specified groups or subcultures.2
Naturally, one has to exercise caution in applying cultural theories relating to popular
music that often originate in Europe and the United States to the specific case of a
nation such as Brazil. Nevertheless, as I shall demonstrate, Middletons views on the
role of folk music in relation to popular music can help to provide an insight into
the Brazilian experience, particularly with regard to the musical mapping projects
carried out by Mrio de Andrade and Marcus Pereira.
Ideas of what is meant by authenticity have changed over time. In Cecil Sharps
era, the most significant factor determining authenticity was felt to be the text of
a song. However, technological advances in the 1930s made it possible to record
performances in the field, leading to the pioneering work of Alan and John Lomax
who made extensive recording trips all over the United States during the 1930s and
1940s for the Library of Congresss Archive of Folk Song. In the wake of these
developments the emphasis changed to prioritize the aural rather than the textual
element in deciding whether a song was authentic or not. When musicians and
1 Richard Middleton, Studying Popular Music (Buckingham, 1990), p. 127.

2 Ibid., p. 129.
MUSICAL MAPPING: LOCATING AND DEFENDING THE REGIONAL 133
songwriters in the United States in the 1960s started to mix traditional elements of
folk music with pop and rock, and enjoyed considerable commercial success in the
process, this blurred the boundaries yet again and prompted a further debate about
the meaning of authenticity, which in turn resulted in the prioritization of the idea
of the cultural context in which the music was produced, this giving rise to the use
of the term tradition in relation to folk music.3
The role of the person responsible for the recording or collection of the folk
song is central to the concept of authenticity. Even during the early days of the
systematic collection of folk songs at the start of the twentieth century it is clear that
personal prejudices and agendas influenced the decisions of those choosing which
songs should be preserved. For example, Cecil Sharp censored bawdy lyrics that
were not to his liking and he also omitted material that he considered to be unsuitable
because it was not old enough, had been written down, or had been tainted by
commercial influences.4 Likewise, Alan Lomax coached the performers he recorded
to modify their repertoires and styles to approximate them to his personal conception
of authenticity.5 As I will show, this tendency can also be clearly detected in the work
of Mrio de Andrades 1938 expedition.
One of the principal motivations behind the musical mapping projects described
later in this chapter was a sense of disillusionment with the contemporary state of
Brazilian popular music. This idea of a sense of cultural alienation in the present
that is unfavourably contrasted with a rose-tinted view of the past has been cited
by Malcolm Chase and Christopher Shaw as one of the preconditions that enable a
popular mood of nostalgia to develop.6 Chase and Shaw also examine the rise of the
concept of tradition, which they feel may be the most important encounter that
non-historians have with what passes for history [. . .] traditions are represented as
the means by which our own lives are connected with the past.7 However, it is the
ease with which traditions are frequently accepted and their often innate conservatism
that link the concept of tradition with nostalgia. The failings of the present can be
compensated by answers from the past.8 More often than not, tradition is selective,
with the past actively organised to speak to current anxieties and tensions.9 All of
which would seem to correspond to Hobsbawms theories of invented tradition that
I referred to in Chapter 1 and also Tamara Livingstons analysis of the underlying
conservatism that is at the heart of all music revivals.10
3 Neil V. Rosenberg, Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined (Chicago,

1993), pp. 1116.
4 Middleton, Studying Popular Music, p. 130.
5 Rosenberg, Transforming Tradition, p. 14.
6 Malcolm Chase and Christopher Shaw, The dimensions of nostalgia, in The Imagined
Past: History and Nostalgia, ed. by Christopher Shaw and Malcolm Chase (Manchester,
1989), pp. 117 (p. 4).
7 Ibid., pp. 1011.
8 Ibid., p. 11.
9 Ibid., p. 14.
10 Livingston, Music revivals.
Folklore in Brazil
When John Thoms, the founder of the Folklore Society in England in 1878, first
coined the term folklore he merely gave a new catch-all designation to the studies of
peasant culture that had already been underway in Europe for some considerable time.
What began as the study of orally transmitted verse and legends gradually expanded
to include poetry, dance, festivals, costumes and beliefs of rural communities, and
the term folklore was subsequently adopted throughout Europe and elsewhere.
The Brazilian Modernist movement of the 1920s sought to amalgamate elements
of the study of folklore, together with ideas borrowed from the European avant-
garde, to formulate a new vision of national identity. For the Modernists, the role of
folklore was to act as a popular, national element to counterbalance the influence of
cosmopolitan, i.e. European, erudition. By emphasizing the importance of popular
cultural forms the Modernists employed the familiar European argument that only the
folk or povo who had been shielded by geographical isolation from the corruption
and excesses of imported culture were qualified to act as the standard-bearers of true
Brazilian individuality.11 The Modernists also considered that elite, middle-class,
and working-class cultural forms could not be held to be genuinely popular, as they
had been compromised by their proximity to urbanized, cosmopolitan society.12
As in Europe and the United States, those studying folklore in Brazil at the time
were concerned above all else with ideas of authenticity, and Brazilian scholars, like
their foreign counterparts (Cecil Sharp for example), were not averse to distorting
their findings to fit this over-riding objective.13 The search for national identity and
the essence of what it was to be truly Brazilian that had characterized much of the
Modernist movement was taken up by Getlio Vargas in the 1930s and 1940s and
used as an ideological tool to both legitimize and bolster the state. Vargas was well
aware of the power of both erudite and popular culture to influence the population and
his governments specifically targeted cultural activity as an important link between
political and social life. Consequently, from the 1940s the status of the folcloristas
in Brazil began to rise, as they were seen by the government as important intellectual
intermediaries in the ongoing attempt to tie together the idea of povo and nation.
The heyday of the folklore movement in Brazil occurred in the period between the
foundation of the National Commission for Folklore in 1947 and the military coup in
1964. State commissions were established in 1948 to promote and protect traditional
aspects of culture and early tentative efforts were also made to protect traditional
popular music.14 A measure of the continuing importance given to traditional culture
by the state can be demonstrated by the formation of a specific section dedicated to
folklore within FUNARTE in 1975, a body that persists to this day.
11 Maria Clara Wasserman, Abre a Cortina do Passado: A Revista da Msica Popular e o

pensamento folclorista (Rio de Janeiro: 19541956) (unpublished masters thesis, University
of Paran, 2002), pp. 312.
12 Lus Rodolfo Vilhena, Projeto e Misso: O Movimento Folclrico Brasileiro 194764
(Rio de Janeiro,1997), p. 25.
13 Ibid., p. 28.
14 Ibid., p. 186.
dison Carneiro, one of the most celebrated folcloristas of the 1940s and 1950s,
recognized as early as 1955 that external intervention to protect traditional forms
of culture might actually compromise the nature of their authenticity.15 Subsequent
critics of the Brazilian folklore movement have drawn attention to its essentially
authoritarian approach and have also claimed that what was often portrayed by the
folcloristas as a cultural rescue operation was in fact a paternalistic assumption of
the right to speak on behalf of those whom the folcloristas claimed to be helping.16
As in Europe and the United States, Brazilian academics have found it difficult to
agree on a definition of seemingly basic terms such as povo that lie at the heart of
studies of folklore and popular culture. In discussing the inter-related concepts of
folk, nation and tradition, Rita Carvalho raises these pertinent points:
. . . How can we distinguish exactly the kind of povo that is interesting? How can we
differentiate between who is the povo and who is not the povo? Are there sectors of society
that are not povo? To sum up, what is the povo and what is not?17
It is beyond the scope of this present study to attempt to address questions such as
these, but I mention them to illustrate that there are fundamental issues that remain
unresolved concerning folklore and popular culture, both in Brazil and abroad.
One factor that should perhaps be highlighted is that the idea of folklore in Latin
America, as opposed to say Europe, carries with it a heightened political sense,
particularly because the cultures defined as folkloric in Latin America can often be
a vital, living part of contemporary existence, as well as a reference point for past
traditions. Furthermore, it is in Brazil itself that folklore has acted most strongly
as an alternative critical tool to posit alternatives to capitalist mass culture and the
power of the mass media.18
The debate surrounding the importance of what represents the true essence of
national and popular culture in Brazil has historically produced two major contrasting
positions. The first of these is a nostalgic, backward-looking folkloric approach that
celebrates above all the importance of tradition that is bound up in history and
collective memory. The second is a forward-looking, national-developmentalist
ideology introduced by the Institute of Higher Studies (ISEB) in the 1950s (and carried
forward in the thinking of the CPCs in the early 1960s amongst others) that wished
to break with the alienated, externally-imposed political and cultural tradition, and
move towards a new definition of what it was to be Brazilian.19 The establishment of
the Federal Council of Culture in 1966 and the publication of the Poltica Nacional
de Cultura in 1975 demonstrated that the former position had triumphed, for the
15 Vilhena, Projeto e Misso, p. 187.

16 Ibid., p. 29.
17 Rita Laura Segato de Carvalho, Folclore e Cultura Popular-Uma Discusso
Conceitual, Seminrio Folclore e Cultura Popular, Instituto Nacional de Folclore, Rio de
Janeiro (1992), 1321 (p. 15).
18 William Rowe and Vivian Schelling, Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in
Latin America (London, 1991), pp. 45.
19 Renato Ortiz, A Moderna Tradio Brasileira: Cultura Brasileira e Indstria Cultural
(So Paulo, 1994), pp. 16063.
military regimes notion of culture was revealed as patrimonial and traditional, based
on the preservation of the memory of Brazils heritage, and reminiscent in approach
to that of Vargass Estado Novo [New State].20 The fortunes of FUNARTE have
fluctuated greatly since it was established in 1975, and the prevailing governments
level of interest in culture has often determined the profile and effectiveness of the
organization.21 Nonetheless, despite the encroachments of increasing globalization
and massive technological developments in recent times, folklore continues to exert
a significant impact on the lives of millions of Brazilians, particularly those living
in rural areas. I will now discuss the first of the major musical mapping exercises
carried out in Brazil by the Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas in 1938.
Mrio de Andrade and the Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas of 1938
You could say that Brazilian popular music is unknown, even among ourselves We
know some regions. Principally, around Rio de Janeiro because of the maxixe We also
know a little about the music from Bahia and the Northeast. Of the rest: practically
nothing.22 (Mrio de Andrade)
Mrio de Andrade: Culture and Politics
As I outlined in Chapter 1, Mrio de Andrades Ensaio Sbre a Msica Brasileira

(1928) was fundamental in establishing the elements that identified music as
essentially Brazilian. The Ensaio also contained a clarion call for the start of a
systematic investigation into Brazilian musical folklore to provide source material
for composers of art music to utilize in their nationalistic compositions, which was in
keeping with the overall objectives of the Brazilian Modernist movement, of which
Mrio was a key figure. For the Modernists, the quest for a true national identity
would be achieved by rejecting the slavish imitation of imported cultural models
and by replacing them with re-invigorated, quintessentially Brazilian elements. To
achieve this, Brazilians would have to embark on a journey of self-discovery to
reclaim their own identity, something that Mrio would later refer to as the need to
abrasileirar o brasileiro [Brazilianize the Brazilians].
This was an era of cultural experimentation that increasingly came to be
dominated by the influence of the Vargas administrations (193045). The artistic
expression of the nations attitudes, mores and aspirations that came to prominence
under Vargas was enormously indebted to the cultural explosion which flourished
in the years following the watershed of 1922. The sociological writings of Gilberto
20 Renato Ortiz, Cultura Brasileira e Identidade Nacional (So Paulo, 1986), p. 96.
21 It may not be coincidental that FUNARTE fared well during the Geisel regime when
the Presidents daughter was director of the folklore section of the organization. On the other
hand, the Collor administration (199092) sacked large numbers of FUNARTE employees;
an act that was considered by some to be political revenge by Collor against the artistic
community whom he had felt had opposed his election.
22 Mrio de Andrade, Ensaio Sbre a Msica Brasileira (So Paulo, 1962), p. 20.
Originally published in 1928.
Freyre and Srgio Buarque de Holanda; the influence of the Modernist poets; the
rise of Regionalism as a literary trend; the revival of interest in Brazilian folklore,
and the international prominence given to the music of Villa-Lobos are all examples
of the creative forces that prepared the ground for a national culture that was
self-assured and which no longer looked to Europe solely for inspiration.
Mrios prestige enabled him to straddle the seemingly diverse worlds of culture
and politics, and in 1935 he was appointed as the director of So Paulos Department
of Cultural Expansion. He promptly threw himself headlong into a series of projects
designed to facilitate access for ordinary people to artistic centres such as the citys
showpiece Municipal Theatre and the creation of centres for study and research such
as the Public Music Library. These projects were all concerned with the idea of the
solidification and preservation of a concept of national culture, a major concern for
both the Modernists and the ruling elites in Brazil at the time.23
Mrio had already made two trips to the Northeast in 1927 and 1929, during
which he carried out extensive field research that resulted in the collection and
annotation of hundreds of popular songs. There had been previous attempts to gather
together collections of folk song in Brazil, most notably Slvio Romeros Cantos
Populares de Brasil (1883) yet it was Marios contention that Brazilian musical
folklore had not been treated with the seriousness that it merited, and that the
previous studies in the field had been inadequate.24 Emphasizing the significance
of Brazilian traditions was part of Mrios strategy, designed to win the hearts and
minds of Brazilian intellectuals who might otherwise be seduced by the superiority
of foreign culture. It should be remembered that that this was an era when large
numbers of the Brazilian elite were enraptured by European opera and classical
music, and they considered Brazilian popular and folk music to be reminiscent of the
nations shameful, backward, colonial past, exemplified by obscene dances such
as the samba and maxixe.25 Mrios approach was also designed to persuade the
Brazilian government of the significance of protecting national culture. Stressing the
importance of the national over the regional was critical because regional differences
could act as a barrier to the creation of the idea of a truly national povo.26 Thus a
contradiction existed because the regional differences that gave Brazilian culture its
complexity and richness were at the same time elements that could potentially lead
to the break-up of the nation.27
Mrios research trips to the Northeast in the 1920s formed part of a wider
project in which he intended to publish the largest collection of Brazilian folk music
23 Flavia Camargo Toni, A Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas do Departamento de Cultura

(So Paulo, n.d.), p. 20.
24 Andrade, Ensaio Sbre a Msica Brasileira, p. 70.
25 Arnaldo Daraya Contier, O Ensaio sobre a Msica Brasileira: Estudo dos Matizes
Ideolgicos do Vocabulrio Social e TcnicoEsttico (Mrio de Andrade, 1928), Revista
Msica, Universidade de So Paulo, E.C.A. Departamento de Msica, vol. 6, (1995), 75121
(pp. 789).
26 Elizabeth Travassos, Os Mandarins Milagrosos: Arte e Etnografia em Mrio de
Andrade e Bla Bartok ( Rio de Janeiro, 1997), pp. 1445.
27 Regional separatism has long been a feature of Brazils political life and was particularly
evident in the 1920s, culminating in the revolt of 1930 that brought Getlio Vargas to power.
and dance produced by a single researcher.28 He was particularly drawn to the North
and Northeast of Brazil because these were areas that he considered to contain the
richest concentration of traditional popular music, particularly in rural areas, that he
felt had remained uncorrupted by the transmission of foreign influence through the
increasingly powerful media of radio and cinema. Mrio was not the first to scour
Brazil searching for folk melodies and compositions Villa Lobos had undertaken a
similar mission in the very early twentieth century, and there had been other various
folklorists who had been involved in collecting expeditions but he was the first
to attempt to capture these compositions for posterity with the benefit of recording
equipment.
Although he was not opposed to all Brazilian urban popular music, Mrio was
particularly concerned about the potentially destabilizing influence of foreign popular
music such as North American foxtrot, French chanson and Argentinian tango, all
of which were becoming ever more popular in Brazilian urban centres. He felt that
such international influences diluted the authenticity of Brazilian music and might
lead to it disappearing altogether.29
We need young researchers who will go to the houses of the povo to seriously and
comprehensively collect that which the povo protects and which it quickly forgets,
disorientated by the effects of invasive progress.30
This was a period when profound changes were taking place in the arts in Brazil due
to the rise of the culture industry, and commercialism was seen by some as a threat
to the artisan tradition. This posed a dilemma for Mrio regarding the issue of what
could be considered popular in artistic terms. If the majority of the population
demonstrated a genuine liking for commercially mass-produced popular music,
then did that make it popular by definition? His solution was to draw a distinction
between authentic artistic creation that emanated from the rural povo and the
crude or vulgar, urban popularesca.31 Therefore, in attempting to highlight the
authentic nature of the rural music that he championed he placed it in a culturally
superior position to the debased urban music that he perceived to be its deadly
rival. Consequently, his view of folk music at the time corresponds to Middletons
previously cited idea of folk music as an authentic other, to which other forms of
popular music can be adversely contrasted.
28 lvaro Carlini, Cante L Que Gravam C: Mrio de Andrade e a misso de pesquisas

folcloricas de 1938 (unpublished masters thesis, F.L.C.H, University of So Paulo, 1994),
p. 22. The collection was to be entitled Na Pancada do Ganz, but was not completed in Mrios
lifetime and was posthumously published in a piecemeal fashion. For further discussion of
these trips and their impact on Mrios thinking, see Vivian Schelling, A Presena do Povo
na Cultura Brasileira: ensaio sobre o pensamento de Mrio de Andrade e Paulo Freire
(Campinas, 1991).
29 Contier, O Ensaio sobre a Msica Brasileira, pp. 10910.
30 Mrio de Andrade, A Situao Etnogrfica do Brasil, in Jornal Sntese, October
1936, quoted in Carlini, Cante L Que Gravam C, p. 24.
31 Travassos, Os Mandarins Milagrosos, pp. 1617.
Mrios position at the Department of Culture enabled him to continue his
folkloric studies and he organized a further trip to the North and Northeast scheduled
to commence in February 1938. This trip was primarily intended to collect folkloric
material for the Public Music Library that had started to make recordings of popular
music in rural areas of Minas Gerais and the state of So Paulo in 1937. The trip
planned for 1938 was intended to provide non-musical material that would be used
for ethnographical study, and also popular music that would serve as a source of
inspiration for composers who were seeking to develop a form of national art music
based on Brazilian folk melodies.32 The urgency of the mission was made clear by
the head of the Department of Culture, Paulo Duarte, who claimed that the majority
of Brazilian rural songs and melodies were on the verge of extinction and that their
preservation was of the utmost importance for both science and art.33
The team picked by Mrio to carry out the Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas
(MPF) comprised Lus Saia, Martin Braunweiser, Benedicto Pacheco, and Antnio
Ladeira.34 Their task was to record, photograph, film and annotate aspects of folklore,
using the latest available technology and utilizing research techniques recommended
by the ethnologist Dina Lvi-Strauss. Funding for the trip was arranged by the
city council of So Paulo, and Mrio himself suggested its itinerary, which was
designed to coincide with various regional festivities such as bumba-meu-boi. The
techniques for carrying out research in the field recommended by Mrio to his team
of folcloristas are illuminating as they reveal a sociological aspect to the expedition.
The team was advised to obtain not only the title and genre of a song, but also details
of its singer, including name, date of birth, sex, colour, age, level of education, place
of birth and social position.35 This was not a voyage into the complete unknown,
as the team received precise instructions from Mrio to seek out songs and dances
such as bumba-meu-boi and congadas that he had already partially researched
on his previous trips.36 Consequently, the expedition left So Paulo with a pre-
conceived agenda devised by Mrio to collect musical material that conformed to his
pre-existing notions of what was important and authentic.
The MPF left So Paulo in February 1938, but the political fallout from the
establishment of the Estado Novo by Vargas in November 1937 meant that Mrio
was unable to accompany the expedition. During the following months the MPF
visited the states of Pernambuco, Paraba, Maranho and Par, but in June 1938
they were advised that a political crisis in So Paulo necessitated their immediate
return. They finally arrived in So Paulo in July of that same year. The amount of
material collected by the MPF was vast: 20 notebooks of songs, 168 78rpm records
containing 1500 songs, 1066 photographs, 9 black and white 16mm films, and 775
32 Carlini, Cante L Que Gravam C, pp. 367.

33 Carlini, Cachimbo e Marac: O Catimb da Misso (1938), (So Paulo, 1993),
p. 25.
34 The fullest accounts of the 1938 mission are to be found in Flavia Camargo Toni, A
Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas do Departamento de Cultura, and Carlini, Cante L Que
Gravam C.
35 Toni, A Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas, p. 27.
36 Carlini, Cante L Que Gravam C, pp. 8890.
objects. It would take over twenty years for Mrios collaborator, Oneyda Alvarenga
to curate this material at the Public Music Library.37 The overall aim of the trip had
been to study all aspects of folklore with particular emphasis on popular music,
dance and costume. The types of traditional music recorded for posterity by the
MPF were those used by ordinary people to accompany work, play and prayer, and
included, emboladas, cocos, rojes, martelos, desafios, cantigas de roda, repentes,
sambas, valsas, solos de viola, cantigas, galopes, lundus, oitavas and many more. In
addition, valuable material was documented concerning religious ceremonies such
as xangs, babaus and catimbs, and popular dramatic dances such as prais, boi-
bumbas, reis de congo and danas praieiras.38
I have already mentioned that the MPF was not a complete leap into the dark
because Mrio had planned its route. The researchers were also in close contact with
regional experts on folklore, such as Lus da Cmara Cascudo in Rio Grande do
Norte, Ademar Vidal in Paraba, and Ascenso Ferreira in Pernambuco, who were all
close friends of Mrio. The members of the MPF were advised of the most suitable
local practitioners of folklore to visit, much of what they saw was not spontaneously
performed, and the team often had to pay for a performance to be arranged. Value
judgements in keeping with Mrios own opinions were also made for example,
Martin Braunweiser revealed that when the team arrived in the city of Recife just
before Carnival, they considered the music that they found there to be popularesca,
and only filmed it, rather than recording it.
In some ways it is surprising that the expedition was such a success. The MPF
had to overcome daunting logistical obstacles, not least the difficulty involved
in travelling into the interior of the states visited (even an established route from
Paraba to Maranho took sixteen days by lorry at the time). The team was often
working in primitive conditions without the aid of electricity, and the whole trip was
also overshadowed by political events. Mrios absence had deprived the MPF of its
figure of authority and none of the members of the team had previously been to the
regions visited.39 One of the most serious setbacks for the MPF was the politically
motivated sacking of Mrio from the Department of Culture in May 1938, which
meant that he was never able to study the material collected by the project that he
had been largely responsible for. Although the Public Music Library received a vast
37 Toni, A Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas, p. 44. This material is available for study at
the Coleo Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas, Centro Cultural de So Paulo. A CD containing
twenty songs collected by the MPF is commercially available (Misso de Pesquisas
Folcricas, The Discoteca Collection, RCD 10403, 1997). A six CD set of songs collected
by the MPF was also released by SESC So Paulo in 2006 (Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas
CDSS005/06). A fascinating re-working of several of the compositions collected by Mrio
during his travels to the North and Northeast (including some collected by the MPF of 1938)
can be found on the Turista Aprendiz CD by the group A Barca (CPC-UMES, CP519, 2000).
38 Jos Saia Neto, Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas, Centro Cultural de So Paulo
website, <http://sampa3.prodam.sp.gov.br/ccsp/missao/contand2.htm> [accessed 19 August
2003].
39 Carlini, Cante L Que Gravam C, p. 449.
amount of material for its archives, due to a lack of funding and political will the
MPFs findings remained largely unknown until decades later.40
Lus Saia had claimed in an interview to the press at the start of the expedition
that the team wished to . . . show Brazil to the Brazilians41 but that was not achieved
because of changing political circumstances that overwhelmed Brazil and rendered
Mrios sociological insights out of favour in the authoritarian climate of the Estado
Novo. Popular music within Brazil was entering a new more celebratory phase at this
time (Ary Barrosos ultra-patriotic Aquarela do Brasil was recorded in 1939) and a
smoother, sanitized form of samba was sponsored and exported to the world by the
Vargas regime. The vision of Brasil that the MPFs findings would have revealed to a
contemporary audience would have been one more in keeping with the social-realist
novels of the Northeastern writers of the era, exemplified by the harsh conditions
described in Graciliano Ramoss Vida Secas [Barren Lives] that was published in
1938. We can only surmise how the music recorded by the MPF would have sounded
to a listener at the time. Yet despite the increasing sophistication of Brazilian popular
music this was still an era when 70 per cent of Brazilians lived in the countryside
and consequently elements of the music that the MPF encountered would have been
familiar to the vast bulk of the population.
Writing in 1932, Mrio revealed that during his trips to the North and Northeast
he had encountered widespread resentment within those regions towards So Paulo,
a city that was perceived to be arrogant and out-of touch with the rest of the country.42
Six years later, in correspondence relating to the aims of the MPF he revealed that
it was an attempt to provide material that would re-acquaint the cosmopolitan
metropolis with its own cultural roots. In his efforts to construct a form of cultural
bridge between the metropolis and the regions Mrio sought to alert urban audiences
to the richness of the rural musical traditions that still existed within Brazil, and
also to his belief that such traditions were on the verge of annihilation due to the
growing encroachments of the music industry and the impact of foreign popular
music. The MPF formed part of his wider nationalist cultural plan that sought to
valorize all aspects of Brazilian culture. At the same time it captured for posterity
a pre-development, pre-tourist Brazil where the countrys multi-cultural and multi-
ethnic heritage were in a dynamic relationship that continues to evolve to this day.43
The true legacy of the MPF would only be realized nearly four decades later, in its
influence on the work of Marcus Pereira that I will discuss shortly.
40 An incomplete series of books and records based on the on the work of MPF (1938)
was published by the Prefeitura of So Paulo between 1948 and 1955. The archive then fell
into neglect and was only rediscovered in the 1980s by researchers such as Flvia Camargo
Toni and lvaro Carlini who have been largely responsible for its re-classification and
preservation. Carlos Sandroni, Notas sobre Mrio de Andrade e a Misso de Pesquisas
Folclricas de 1938, Revista do Patrimnio Histrico e Artstico Nacional, no. 28 (1999),
6073 (p. 62).
41 Cited in Toni, A Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas, p. 34.
42 Mrio de Andrade, Preface to Na Pancada do Ganz, in Arte em Revista, ano 2, no.3
(1980), 558 (pp. 567).
43 Morton Marks, liner notes to Misso de Pesquisas Folcricas, The Discoteca
Collection, RCD 10403, 1997.
Folk Music v Popular Music: From Mrio de Andrade to Marcus Pereira
Although he founded the Brazilian Society of Folklore in 1936, Mrio did not
consider himself as a folclorista as such because he felt that he lacked the scientific
discipline that the profession demanded. Mrio was far more interested in providing
the raw material from his research expeditions to enable Brazilian composers to
create national art music. Although he considered that Brazilian popular music was
the most totally national creation of the Brazilian people up to that point, Mrios
conception of popular music was firmly centred on folk music, rather than urban
music, which he considered to be vulgar or popularesca. While the material collected
by the MPF of 1938 languished in the archives for decades the idea of musical
mapping that had inspired the expedition was not wholly forgotten.
In the early 1940s, the Brazilian composer and professor of music, Luiz Heitor
Corra de Azevedo, carried out a series of field recordings in the states of Gois
(1942), Cear (1943), Minas Gerais (1944), and Rio Grande do Sul (1945) that formed
part of a collaboration between the National Institute of Music in Rio de Janeiro
and the Library of Congress in the United States. The ongoing Good Neighbour
Policy developed between Rio de Janeiro and Washington during the Second World
War inspired this initiative, and although Azevedo used research methods developed
by Alan Lomax in the United States, it is equally clear that he saw his work as a
direct continuation of the pioneering work of Mrio de Andrade.44 Azevedo was
concerned to explore what he saw as a major division in Brazilian folk and popular
music, the distinction between caboclo [rural] and black music, but his work in
the field revealed that such distinctions were largely academic as both genres were
considerably intermixed. Even so, his decision to focus on regional genres and what
he considered to be the other, largely rural Brazil, as opposed to urban samba then
at the height of popularity, was a significant initiative that unfortunately received
little public recognition at the time.45
Debates on the relative merits of folk and popular music increased in the 1940s
and 1950s, and Clara Wasserman has demonstrated that the Revista da Msica
Popular (195456), although short-lived, was an important vehicle for expressing
views on popular music by both folcloristas and also writers who championed
urban popular music, particularly samba.46 This debate intersected on a national and
international level in 1954 at the International Congress of Folklore that was held in
So Paulo. The Congress debated the distinctions between folk and popular music,
and its findings emphasized the oral tradition and collective nature of a composition
as being some of the most important hallmarks of folk music. However, there was
44 Email correspondence with Dr Samuel Mello Arajo, 25/11/03. Dr Arajo has been
undertaking research on the fieldwork of Luiz Heitor Corra de Azevedo at the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro. A commercial recording of some of the music collected by
Azevedo is available on the CD, L.H. Corra de Azevedo: Music of Cear and Minas Gerais,
RCD, 10404, 1997.
45 Morton Marks, liner notes to L.H. Corra de Azevedo: Music of Cear and Minas
Gerais, RCD 10404, 1997. Azevedo also founded the Centre of Folklore Research at the
National School of Music in Rio de Janeiro.
46 Wasserman, Abre a Cortina do Passado.
a lack of general agreement over the issue in Brazil after the Congress, and the
debate continued, particularly regarding the role of samba which, although generally
recognized as the traditional symbol of national cultural identity since the 1930s,
was quintessentially urban music, at least in its Carioca guise, and therefore did not
fit the folclorista paradigm of pure and authentic popular music.47 This issue was
re-ignited in 1962 at the first National Congress of Samba, organized by dison
Carneiro on behalf of the Campaign for the defence of Brazilian Folklore. This event
was organized in the face of concern over the harmful impact of foreign cultural
influences on Brazilian popular music at the time, i.e. the impact of bossa nova, and
demonstrated that the folcloristas considered that national music was under threat.
The conclusions of the Congress were encapsulated in the so-called carta do samba
[samba letter] written by Carneiro, which argued in favour of the importance of the
preservation of the traditional characteristics of samba (particularly the importance
of percussion) and urged composers not to mix pure samba with foreign rhythms.48
Echoes of this argument would be raised in the subsequent battle that raged between
supporters of Cano de Protesto and Jovem Guarda in the mid to late 1960s;
although by that stage the debate had taken on additional political connotations.
The folclorista movement in Brazil was motivated by a desire to bring together
intellectuals and researchers from all over the country with the specific idea of
constructing an image of a unified nation.49 Initially supported by the state, that
commitment waned after the coup in 1964, even though the military government
returned to the issue in 1975 with the foundation of FUNARTE. Dramatic changes in
the field of Brazilian popular music during that period, particularly post-Tropiclia,
left those who were concerned about the preservation of Brazils rural musical heritage
isolated and largely unheard. Those concerns were kept alive by a small group of
individuals, collectors and researchers such as Marcus Pereira, rather than the state.
In the musical mapping of Brazil carried out by Pereira we can see the continuation
of the idea of the need for the valorization of rural music first expounded by Mrio
de Andrade, and the desire to somehow bring the nation together and define itself
through its musical heritage.
Marcus Pereiras Msica Popular do Brasil (197377): Beyond Folklore?
Marcus Pereira (193081) was determined to build on the foundations laid down
by Mrio in the 1930s. Born in So Paulo, he trained as a lawyer and subsequently
worked as a journalist and writer. Pereira ran his own advertising agency from 1963
and four years later he began to give his clients a record featuring the music of little-
known Brazilian artists, produced at his own expense, as an annual Christmas present.
Pereira was also co-owner of a So Paulo nightclub at this time that specialized
in presenting traditional Brazilian popular music; a style that the clubs owners
considered to be increasingly marginalized by the mass media. A visit to Recifes
carnival in 1963 left Pereira with a love of the local frevo music and a passion for
47 Wasserman, Abre a Cortina do Passado, p. 40.

48 Ibid., pp. 478.
49 Ibid., p. 33.
the music of the Northeast in general. His long-held ambition to bring this music to
a wider audience was realized in 1972 when he commissioned a team of researchers,
including Hermilo Borba Filho and members of the group Quinteto Violado, to roam
the Northeast recording aspects of popular music and culture.
Msica Popular do Nordeste [Popular Music of the Northeast] 1973
The expedition of 1972 produced a large amount of material that was edited down
to fill four LPs, 1500 copies of which were distributed to Pereiras clients at the end
of the year. The critical approval given to these records and the feverish interest
generated by the general public, largely on a word-of-mouth basis, persuaded Pereira
to leave his successful business and found his own record label in early 1974. Pereira
subsequently released the records on a commercial basis to critical acclaim in the
press and healthy sales ensued.50 The series of four albums consisted of examples
of various types of frevo, trio eltrico, violeiros, cirandas, bumba-meu-boi, samba
de roda, coco, bambel, emboladas and banda de pfanos. The records contained
lengthy sleevenotes by various writers, including Pereira himself, which provided
mini-essays on the historical development of the music contained within. In that
sense they fulfilled a similar educational role to that provided by Alan Lomaxs
records in the United States and the MPB series produced in the early 1970s by the
Abril publishing group that I referred to in Chapter 2. The music itself is an eclectic
mixture of rural folk styles, including large chunks of improvised poetry, urban frevo
and stylized re-creations of folkloric music such as bumba-meu-boi recorded by the
Quinteto Violado. Despite his love for the purest, traditional forms of Northeastern
music Pereira was aware that he needed to win over the general public if these records
were to achieve any form of commercial success and consequently he lightened the
often uncompromising nature of much of the music by including more accessible
re-workings of traditional themes provided by the Quinteto Violado who had just
started to enjoy considerable commercial success in their own right. The sleevenotes
to these records, and others in the series, frequently refer to Mrio de Andrades
writings on music and the series as a whole is dedicated to the Brazilian people and
Mrios memory.
Msica Popular do Centro-Oeste/Sudeste [Popular Music of the Centre-West/

Southeast] 1974
Following the success of Msica Popular do Nordeste, Marcus Pereira was able to
continue his exploration of regional music, and a further four-record set was released
in 1974 that included modinhas, modas, canes, cururu, catira, sambas, congadas,
jongo, moambique, religious songs, folias, calango, ciranda, coreto, modas de viola,
toadas, fandangos, dana de Santa Cruz, and dana de So Gonalo. The symbolic
link with Mrio de Andrade was once again evident through the participation of
50 Msica popular do Nordeste was one of the biggest sellers of the year and sold in
excess of 40,000 copies. Osvil Lopes,Afinal algum est preocupado em preservar nossa arte
popular, Folha da Tarde, 6/7/74.
Oneyda Alvarenga as consultant to the collection and other consultant/researchers
such as Martinho da Vila were responsible for the selection of examples of various
musical genres, thereby acting in the same way that Mrios regional advisors such as
Lus da Cmara Cascudo had done in 1938. Yet again, Pereira mixed field recordings
of potentially difficult music with updated versions of regional compositions sung
by well-known, commercially successful artists such as Nara Leo, Ivone Lara and
Clementina de Jesus.
Msica Popular do Sul [Popular Music of the South] 1975
This four-LP set was perhaps the most varied to date, and included music by
composers and performers from Rio Grande do Sul, milongas, religious songs,
msica missioneira, msica de inspirao indgena, cantos de trabalho, folclore de
Santa Catarina, ditos, pajadas, declamaes, fandangos, chotes, rancheira, bugio
and vanero. These albums vividly demonstrated the extraordinarily rich fusion of
indigenous, Jesuit, African, Spanish and Portuguese influences that characterize
the music of the south of Brazil, and they also exposed how music is integrally
linked to a vast tradition of dramatic dance, religious ceremonies, popular drama
and folguedos [festivities] in the region. Pereiras increasingly high profile within
the music industry enabled him to persuade singer Elis Regina, then at the height
of her popularity, to contribute to the series alongside other unknown artists such
as 100-year-old singer Miquelinha Antonia de Oliveira and relative novices such as
the young group Os Tapes, who specialized in recreating music of the indigenous
people of the area. The sleevenotes to this collection also revealed that it was the
music critic and writer Srgio Cabral who had coined the phrase musical map with
reference to Pereiras ongoing project.
Msica Popular do Norte [Popular Music of the North] 1977
The four albums which made up the final instalment of this project included music
by composers and performers from the north of Brazil, compositions by Waldemar
Henrique, bois do Maranho, zabumba, matraca, pindar, boi do Amazonas, boi do
Par, tambores, rhythms and dances from Maranho, modinhas from Par, religious
festivals, carimbs, retumbo, lund, chula Marajoara, polca, mazurka, valsa de
ponto de leno, music by the Kamayur Indians, marambir, desfeiteira, batuque do
Par, dana dos imperiais, dana do cacetinho, dana da caninha verde, ciranda
and pssaros. By this stage, Pereiras recordings had adopted a more documentary
style and the albums include a couple of short interviews with singers, and almost
ambient recordings of religious processions. Although this collection once again
revealed a stunning diversity of music and popular culture, Pereira conceded that
his efforts were, by necessity, limited: It was only possible to document that which
appeared to us to be fundamental, and then only in a fragmentary way.51
Marcus Pereiras Msica Popular do Brasil series was a gigantic undertaking,
the first of its kind in Latin America and carried out largely at his own cost, which
51 Sleevenotes to Msica Popular do Norte.

left him with enormous debts.52 Although the series featured over ninety different
types of music it was not intended to be an intellectual or musicological study that
would only provide interest for a limited number of academics. Pereiras wife,
Carolina Andrade, who was heavily involved in the project, made that clear when
she informed the press that she and her husband did not consider their approach to
be folkloric or anthropological, rather that they had provided an enormous musical
report, in which the reporter filters their impressions through their feelings.53 Not
surprisingly, Pereiras research followed lines of personal interest favoured by
him and his team, and as his objective was to document, inform and entertain he
decided against producing purely folkloric records.54 As I will explain shortly, his
methods of acquiring material provoked much controversy, and harsh criticism in
some quarters.
Like Mrio, Pereira was undoubtedly a musical nationalist who saw the various
forms of regional music and culture that he catalogued as being endangered and, in
some cases, on the verge of extinction. In his various roles as a journalist, publicist
and promoter of Brazilian culture in general, he was always extremely concerned
with the defence of national interests and the effects of cultural and economic
dependency in Brazil.55 He considered that traditional forms of popular music in
Brazil were marginalized and neglected at the expense of imported cultural material
promoted by the multinational record companies that dominated the Brazilian music
industry at the time. The choice of well-known artists such as Elis Regina and Nara
Leo to feature in Msica Popular do Brasil was not merely to boost sales; these
were also performers sympathetic to Pereiras left-nationalist views who agreed that
Brazilian popular music was under threat and that it was necessary to take a stand to
defend Brazils musical heritage.56
Although Msica Popular do Brasil sold relatively well, and there obviously
existed a commercial market for such music, Pereira was convinced that further
commercial success was prevented by the lack of access to the all-powerful
promotional power of television, largely controlled by TV-Globo, that was only
interested in promoting its own telenovela soundtracks and imported North American
culture. In his opinion, if this trend was allowed to continue unchecked it would
result in the disappearance of Brazilian music from the marketplace, representing
the complete destruction of our national personality, leaving us robots without a
face or a soul.57 Carolina Andrade also lamented what she considered to be the
contamination of the cultural traditions of the North of Brazil, the real Brazil
52 Pereira received a large loan from a government agency once the series was under way
but was dogged by financial problems until his death in 1981. Vitu do Carmo, Nem msico,
nem musiclogo. Apenas um viabilizador das coisas, Msica, no. 11, 1977.
53 Margarida Autran, O samba a desgraa nacional. Fazer msica regional nosso
caminho certo, Correio do Povo, 6/3/77.
54 Anon, Do morro ao livro, a msica regional, em levantamento, O Globo, 2/7/74.
55 Marcus Pereira, Lembranas de Amanh (So Paulo, 1980), p. 4.
56 Author interview with Marcus Vincius (artistic director for Discos Marcus Pereira
197681) So Paulo, 29/8/03.
57 Pereira, Lembranas de Amanh, p. 12. See also Malu Maranhos interview with
Marcus Pereira, A msica dos Brasis, Folha de So Paulo, Folhetim, 28/10/79, p. 4.
in her view, by the corrupting influence of television, which had led to a state of
affairs where one particular form of bumba-meu-boi (one of Brazils oldest forms of
folklore) in Maranho went under the title of Planet of the Apes.58 The similarities
with Mrio de Andrades concerns about foreign domination of Brazilian popular
music are striking, and Pereira was clear about where he saw his work in relation to
that of his predecessor:
Mrio was the first to carry out in-depth research into our folklore using scientific methods.
When he died he left a huge legacy that was incomplete. It was with his contribution in
mind that we carried out our work. 59
Political Considerations
Like Mrio before him, Marcus Pereira felt that his work was severely hampered
because of political interference. Although he was never a politician himself, Pereira
was a close friend of Miguel Arraes, and acted as the So Paulo representative of
Arraes left-wing administration in Pernambuco in the early 1960s.60 Arraes was the
first socialist to be elected governor of the state of Pernambuco in 1962 and he was
brought to power through the support of both urban and rural workers whose mass
mobilization was orchestrated by a broad alliance of communists, socialists and trade
unions that built on the long-standing tradition of radical politics in Pernambuco,
symbolized by the foundation of the Peasant League in 1956. During a period of
national political polarization in which the Goulart government increasingly flirted
with socialist ideas, the Arraes administration was committed to avowedly left-
wing policies such as moves towards greater social inclusion of the poor masses,
agrarian reform, and the radical literacy programmes of Paulo Freire. Consequently,
the Arraes administration was seen as a flagship for the political left as a whole
throughout Brazil. This political radicalization was coupled with a cultural campaign
in Pernambuco known as the Popular Culture Movement (MCP) that was founded
in Recife in 1961, which brought together left-wing artists from all spheres in an
attempt to use culture as a tool for political consciousness-raising. One of the most
celebrated examples of this was the establishment of Centres of Popular Culture
(CPC) in Recife, and subsequently in other areas of Brazil, that sought to fuse forms
of popular culture, including folklore, with an overtly political agenda.
Because of his links with Miguel Arraes and his unapologetically political
outlook, Pereira found it extremely difficult to obtain distribution deals with record
companies for the Msica Popular do Brasil series and was effectively shunned
58 Tnia Carvalho, Est completa o mapa musical do Brasil, ltima Hora, 6/1/77.
59 Anon, Do morro ao livro, a msica regional, em levantamento, O Globo, 2/7/74.
There is a further link between the MPF of 1938 and Marcus Pereiras musical mapping.
Pereira often referred to the inspiration he derived from Paulo Duarte (head of the Department
of Culture in So Paulo in 1938 and one of those responsible for the MPF) to whom he was
related by birth. Author interview with Marcus Vincius, Rio de Janeiro, 2/11/01.
60 Anon, A morte de Marcus Pereira, um empresrio dedicado msica brasileira,
Jornal da Tarde, 21/2/81.
by those in power, who did not take kindly to his criticisms of the Globo media
organization and the establishment.61 There was an underlying political content to
Msica Popular do Brasil that reflected Pereiras views on the social situation within
Brazil at the time. Before recording Msica Popular do Nordeste he re-read Euclides
da Cunhas classic account of the 189397 Canudos War, Os Sertes [Rebellion
in the Backlands], which includes a damning critique of the consequences of the
marginalization of Brazils rural poor, and he also watched several little-known
documentaries by Toms Farkas about the contemporary social, cultural and
economic conditions in the Northeast of Brazil.62 This was a period when the military
dictatorship was at its most repressive, a period also characterized by the regimes
drive towards the concept of a Grand Brazil symbolized by high-profile nation-
building projects, such as the construction of the Transamaznica Highway. At this
moment traditional music was not only considered outdated by the Brazilian media
but was also deemed to be potentially politically subversive by the military because
of its historical links with the povo.63
Pereiras cultural perspective was undoubtedly shaped by his own political
convictions, and these were profoundly influenced by the experiments in popular
culture and participation carried out in Pernambuco in the early 1960s.64 Three of
the founder members of the MCP in Recife (Hermilo Borba Filho, Ariano Suassuna
and Aluizio Falco) were close collaborators with Pereira on the Msica Popular
do Nordeste series, and all three contributed to the sleevenotes of those particular
records. I would argue that Msica Popular do Brasil can be viewed as an attempt
by Pereira to continue the discussion about the marginalized role of the povo in
Brazilian society that was central to the social and political mobilization of the
early 1960s, and which was abruptly curtailed by the 1964 coup. By returning to the
music of the Northeast, and that of Pernambuco in particular, Pereira and his fellow
orphans of the revolution that never arrived65 were making the, by necessity, veiled
political point that those issues and discussions had not been forgotten by many
Brazilians and that despite the prevailing climate of political and artistic censorship,
alternative voices were still audible. Even the record sleeves to Msica Popular do
Nordeste all bore the same austere image of a Northeastern boiadeiro [herdsman]
riding through a patch of thorny caatinga [scrubland], highly reminiscent in style of
Nelson Pereira dos Santos Cinema Novo masterpiece, Vidas Secas (1963), which
had starkly portrayed the condition of Brazils marginalized rural poor.
61 Author interview with Marcus Vincius, Rio de Janeiro, 2/11/01. Unfortunately, Marcus
Pereira committed suicide in 1981, just before the start of the process of re-democratization
in Brazil. By 1982 many of his friends occupied positions of political power in So Paulo and
Marcus Vincius considers that those friends may well have been able to provide support for
his initiatives if he had lived.
62 Jos Carlos Rego, Nordeste no canto de suas gentes, Correio da Manh, 27/12/72.
63 Author interview with Marcus Vincius, So Paulo, 29/8/03.
64 Pereiras close friend and colleague Marcus Vincius has attempted to carry on aspects
of Pereiras work through his record label, which is significantly entitled CPC-UMES (Centro
Popular de Cultura da Unio Municipal dos Estudantes Secundaristas de So Paulo).
65 The phrase is borrowed from Jos Teles, Do Frevo ao Manguebeat (So Paulo, 2000),
p. 78.
The notion of folklore was still highly contentious at this time, with many
on the left preferring to use the term popular culture because of the conservative
connotations historically associated with the idea of folklore. Pereira referred to his
collection as popular music rather than folklore and through his focus on the
music of Brazils regional poor he attempted to draw attention to the plight of the
nations marginalized masses. In their own small way, Pereiras records offered a
sublimated form of cultural resistance to the prevailing order, not only for him but
also perhaps for many of those who bought them, who were still largely denied
other legal forms of articulating a public display of political defiance to the military
regime at that time.
Pereira was concerned to provide a voice through his records for the other
Brazil, those sectors of society largely excluded from the official, triumphalist
versions of Brazilian history of the era. Msica Popular do Brasil deliberately set
out to challenge the cultural hegemony of Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo and reversed
the customary metropolitan-centred cultural bias by bringing the normally culturally
marginalized populace to the fore.66 These records were intended, above all, to
remind the public of the vast excluded Brazilian hinterland that possessed its own
living cultural traditions. As such, Pereira was asserting that notions of the popular
and the national must, by definition, include the whole of Brazilian society rather
than merely representing the more refined tastes of the metropolitan elites.
Pereiras overriding concern was that Brazils regional musical heritage should be
charted and made available to the public. At a time when many were again concerned
that international influences were increasingly penetrating Brazilian popular music
he considered it essential to preserve and protect those artists associated with
folklore and tradition, many of whom found it impossible to obtain a recording
contract, or were elderly.67 Pereiras role was to enable the public to re-evaluate
the contribution of these artists, who had been largely omitted from the widely-
held conception of what constituted Brazilian popular music, and to simultaneously
introduce new artists working within the tradition of msica de boa qualidade.
He also made a direct attack on the all-powerful position of samba within Brazilian
popular music, the influence of which he considered to be unhealthily exclusive, by
opening up alternative musical avenues for exploration.68 The opinion that is often
expressed in Brazil that it is a country without a memory inspired him to document
numerous aspects of Brazilian folk culture that not only included popular music, but
also oral poetry, dance, and religious ceremonies in the Msica Popular do Brasil
66 The Cano de Protesto movement of the mid 1960s was a similar attempt to combine
politics with regional aspects of popular music that was cut short by the imposition of the fifth
Institutional Act in 1968. For a detailed analysis of Cano de Protesto see Treece (1997) and
Napolitano (2001).
67 Between 1974 and Pereiras death in 1981 his record label released more than one
hundred albums, including the first LPs by veteran sambistas Cartola and Donga. The release
of Brasil, Flauta, Cavaquinho e Violo in 1974 has been credited with being one of the factors
responsible for the new wave of interest in choro in the mid 1970s. Angelo Iacocca, Um
desafio para todos ns: preservar a obra de Marcus Pereira, Msica, no. 50, 1981, p. 47.
68 Luis Carlos Azevedo, Um homem e uma histria musical, ltima Hora, 3/2//74,
p. 13.
series. Pereira was aware that many aspects of Brazilian popular culture had already
disappeared because they had not been registered due to the absence of adequate
technology and lack of funding, and Msica Popular do Brasil was a direct attempt
to redress that failure using the latest developments in sound recording technology.
Pereira tapped into an underlying curiosity about national and cultural identity that is
particularly evident in Brazil, and the rest of Latin America, and his efforts were an
attempt to allow Brazilians to re-discover Brazil in much the same way that Mrio
de Andrade had attempted thirty years previously.69
Critical Reception
Perhaps because of his oppositional stance, the fact that he was not a member of
the establishment, and his determination to fight his corner despite overwhelming
odds, Marcus Pereira was seen by many in the press as pursuing a quixotic mission
to open the ears of those living in the dominant south of the country to the wonders
of Brazilian regional music.70 The press reception for Msica Popular do Brasil was
overwhelmingly positive, ecstatic even, and all sixteen of the records in the series
featured in the annual best of polls conducted by the critics of the major Brazilian
newspapers. The review of Msica Popular do Nordeste in the Estado de So Paulo
was typical:
I think that this is the first time in the history of the Brazilian recordings that an album has
appeared that is so well realised, so well recorded, and that has such importance for the
popular music and folklore of our country.71
Slvio Lancellotti summed up this unanimity of critical opinion in the following

manner, Nobody should search for possible faults and omissions in such a pioneering
and wide-ranging work. They would run the risk of risk of committing a cultural
indignity.72
Msica Popular do Brasil seems to have come as a breath of fresh air to music
critics, many of whom considered that Brazilian popular music was going through
yet another of its periodic crises of quality in the early to mid 1970s. Pereiras
desire to valorize the musical traditions of Brazil echoed many of their own concerns
about what they saw as the ongoing dilution of Brazils musical heritage and the
increasing domination of the airwaves and sales charts by imported pop, rock, and
disco that I discussed in the previous chapter. Nevertheless, the regular criteria
employed by music critics in the press were inadequate to review Msica Popular do
69 Author interview with Marcus Vincius, So Paulo, 29/8/03.

70 See for example, Roberto Moura, Marcus Pereira: A morte do Mitava na luta contra
os macobebas do disco, Pasquim, 12/3/81, p. 20. Pereira also had plans (unfortunately never
realized) to carry out an exercise similar to Msica Popular do Brasil for the whole of Latin
America. Marcus Pereira, Msica est chegando a vez do povo. 1. A Histria de O Jogral
(So Paulo, 1976), p. 61.
71 Carlos Vergueiro, review of Msica Popular do Nordeste , O Estado de So Paulo,
14/1/73.
72 Slvio Lancellotti, O mapa do Brasil j est completo, Isto, 4/5/77, p. 44.
Brasil; these were not after all normal popular music records as they had far more
in keeping with folklore recordings. Consequently, many reviews failed to provide
any in-depth analysis of the music itself and often merely re-hashed large sections
of the sleevenotes to the records. Pereira found himself in the curious position of
being universally lauded in the press but unable to adequately distribute his records
to the public because of opposition from within the record industry. In addition, he
was denied the radio and television exposure that was crucial to further commercial
success.
Marcus Pereiras Msica Popular do Brasil demonstrated the existence of
traditional, national, cultural forms that many in the media and the general public
perceived to be more aesthetically pleasing than contemporary popular culture
saturated as they considered it to be with foreign influences and his work was a
key factor in resuscitating that cultural heritage. However, rather than merely being
an exercise in nostalgia, Msica Popular do Brasil (in the attention paid to the
music of Os Tapes for example) attempted to demonstrate new paths for Brazilian
popular music to follow: paths that would rely on a firm grounding in the traditions
of the past. By 1977 it was apparent that a rising tide of interest in all matters folk
had overtaken Brazil, prompting Veja magazine to devote a four-page article to the
phenomenon. Pereiras recordings were hailed as the symbol of this movement,
which was characterized by large attendances at folk festivals, increasing numbers
of seminars on the issue, and state governments increasingly publicizing the folklore
to be found in their regions. The article concluded that it seemed that the zeitgeist
appeared to reflect a desire to turn away from technological progress and mass-
produced culture in favour of less sophisticated alternatives.73
This wave of interest in all cultural manifestations of folklore had also been
assisted by the growth of internal tourism within Brazil during the 1970s and the
foundation of FUNARTE by the government in 1975, which included a section
specifically dedicated to the promotion and preservation of folklore. The influence of
Msica Popular do Brasil can be detected in the comments of the head of FUNARTEs
newly created National Institute of Music, who declared in 1976 that his objective
was to combat the denationalisation of Brazilian culture by valorizing rural forms
of music such as maracat and frevo.74 Pereiras success in helping to generate such
interest in regional culture should also be considered in the light of the fact that
between 1970 and 1980 Brazils urban population increased from 55 per cent to 67
per cent of the total population,75 a percentage of urban against rural that was almost
the reverse of the picture when Mrio de Andrade carried out the MPF in 1938. This
rapid rate of state-planned urbanization and industrialization, accompanied by the
economic crisis that followed the Economic Miracle of 196872, seems to have
provoked a desire in some Brazilians to return to a slightly nostalgic view of the rural
past, and may along with a generalised hippy-derived back to the roots attitude
73 Anon, Folclore: festa e agonia, Veja, 9/2/77, pp. 4650.

74 Bubbi Leite Garcia, importante que o povo eleve seu gosto, Opinio, 9/7/76,
p. 27.
75 Bertha K. Becker and Claudio A.G. Egler, Brazil: a new regional power in the world
economy (Cambridge, 1992), p. 126.
prevalent among some sectors of Brazilian youth at the time be one of the reasons
why Pereiras records found such a sympathetic urban audience when they were
released.76 Large-scale internal migration from the countryside to urban areas may
have also made it easier for city dwellers to encounter examples of rural folk music
in the major Brazilian cities by the end of the 1970s.
In one of the most thoughtful analyses of Msica Popular do Brasil, written in
1975, Jos Miguel Wisnik touched on some of the dilemmas raised by the series
of records. Bastions of endangered rural popular culture situated on the margins
of industrialized society that were discovered by Pereiras team of researchers
had two options: either to disappear, or to be transformed into picturesque, exotic
folklore by urban society. Those cultural forms that survived would often only
do so by adopting aspects of the very same modern culture that threatened their
existence. Wisnik pointed out that much popular rural music was associated with a
pre-industrial age in which the music itself was intrinsically linked to agricultural
and religious ceremonies; once that connection was removed the music lost much, if
not all, of its relevance.77
One of the criticisms that can be levelled at Msica Popular do Brasil is that it
failed to provide an adequate explanation of the social context and uses of the music
that it documented. Despite the copious sleevenotes to the records, the listener is
generally not advised how these examples are representative of their genre: we dont
know why these particular tracks were selected. Second, and more important, we
very rarely gain an insight into the opinions of the people who made this music, and
we are consequently excluded from any true sense of the role that this music plays in
the lives of its creators and performers. It is difficult to ascertain why these particular
traditions have survived rather than others, and to what extent the religious aspects
of the ceremonies that are recorded are crucial to their continuation.
Issues of Authenticity and Controversy
Msica Popular do Brasil reflected a rather ambiguous view of authenticity

through the music that it documented due to the fact that it trod a fine line between
popular music (music aimed at a commercial mass market, the tracks featuring Elis
Regina, Martinho da Vila and Nara Leo for example) and raw, field recordings
of folk music such as the several recordings of music that accompanied religious
processions in the series. As I have previously stated, Pereiras records were first and
foremost aimed at a commercial rather than an academic market and he was aware
of the risk of alienating potential record buyers by including too much difficult
76 I do not wish to suggest that this reasoning formed part of Pereiras original plan for
the project but that it may well have been an unintentionally potent factor in determining
sales for Msica Popular do Brasil. The Brazilian music critic and writer Ana Maria Bahiana
remembers being astounded at the sheer variety of the music contained in the Msica Popular
do Brasil records at the time of release and recalls that for her and her circle of friends it was
a great source of pride that this was above all Brazilian music. Author interview, 23/9/03.
77 Jos Miguel Wisnik, Escapando da Morte, Movimento, 15/9/75, p. 20.
material. But he was also aware that it was how the material was presented that was
of utmost importance, as he made clear in a press interview:
For example, the voice of an old singer that might appear as incoherent and inaudible
to many listeners, gains a new interest if it is placed next to an interpretation (of the same
song) by Elis Regina.78
It seems as if Pereira was attempting to present Brazilian folk music as a musical

other, to refer back to Middletons use of the term, to contrast favourably with
contemporary contaminated popular music but that he simultaneously wished to
indicate that authentic folk values still existed within popular music in the work of
sambistas such as Clementina de Jesus and Martinho da Vila. Msica Popular do
Brasil juxtaposed traditional rural performers with their modern, urban counterparts,
such as Elis Regina, and within that juxtaposition perhaps it is possible to glimpse
a growing understanding that the rural, popular tradition does not necessarily exist
completely outside the experience of modernity and the sphere of mass culture, but
rather that it co-exists within that modernity, influencing it in a two-way process.
These ideas of a more complex relationship between modernity and tradition
have been elaborated at length in Garca Canclinis (1995) influential study, in which
he argues that so-called traditional, pre-commercial culture in Latin America is
not simply negated by the experience of modernity but that it frequently becomes
incorporated or welded to modern capitalist mass-produced culture in often
complex and subtle ways.79 Although Pereiras musical map mainly focuses on
marginalized forms of rural music, at the same time it dedicates a whole record to
urban frevo, including a hybrid performance of frevo by a Bahian trio elctrico.
Pereiras recordings are non-doctrinaire: they are not afraid to include repentistas
[responding improvisers] who refer to the Beatles in their lyrics, and they give
particular prominence to Os Tapes, a community-based group from Rio Grande do
Sul, dedicated to finding new ways to articulate the Guarani musical traditions of
their area without resorting to mere imitation. Pereira seems to be making the point
that these are living, breathing forms of music and culture that form an integral part
of peoples everyday life, continually in dialogue with the surrounding environment,
rather than a world apart.80
A high-profile debate about authenticity developed in connection with Pereiras
use of the group Quinteto Violado in Msica Popular do Nordeste, the sleevenotes
to which claimed, rather ironically as it turned out, that Quinteto Violados sound
is not their own. It is a sound that comes directly from the people the greatest
78 Marcus Pereira, quoted in Wisnik, Escapando da Morte.

79 Nestor Garca Canclini, Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving
Modernity (Minneapolis, 1995). See also Rowe and Schelling (1991).
80 Marcus Vincius recounts that he had several conversations with Pereira about the
issue of authenticity in Msica popular do Brasil, and that he eventually persuaded Pereira
that it was essential that the records featured more eclectic styles of music than merely the
folkloric. Author interview with Marcus Vincius, Rio de Janeiro, 2/11/01.
Brazilian composer of all time.81 These sleevenotes also referred to Quinteto
Violados re-workings of traditional music such as bumba-meu-boi as being a
necessary means by which the musical message could reach an urban audience,
and concluded that the groups work should not be construed as an adulteration
but rather a work of preservation.82 Quinteto Violado were exploring a type of
re-working of popular culture similar to that which had already been developed by
Ariano Suassunas Movimento Armorial of the early 1970s. Suassunas movement
was conceived as a standard bearer against the process of de-characterization and
vulgarization of Brazilian culture83 and attempted to draw on aspects of popular
Northeastern culture, including music, to create the foundations of a truly national,
erudite culture, rather than merely churning out a poor imitation of foreign culture.84
Marcus Pereira and Suassuna shared a similar desire to promote national rather than
imported culture, and Suassuna wrote some of the sleevenotes to Msica Popular
do Nordeste. However, the Movimento Armorial was not without its critics, some
of whom pointed out that although it claimed to be based on popular roots, it was
essentially a middle-class movement aimed squarely at a middle-class audience.85
The same kinds of allegations of elitism were levelled at Quinteto Violado
in a series of articles published in 1976 in the left-wing magazines Opinio and
Movimento. These articles argued that the group had appropriated various pieces
of folk music, in their role as researchers for Marcus Pereira, from impoverished
popular composers and either passed them off as their own or failed to credit the true
authors of the pieces.86 The general tone of these articles was that Quinteto Violados
music was a pale imitation of the real thing, served up for an elite, university-
educated Rio/So Paulo audience, as far removed from the povo as it was possible
to get. Pereira himself became embroiled in a continuation of this press debate the
following year when Isto magazine published an article that accused him of being
part of a general trend of researchers who were merely concerned with exploiting
popular Northeastern artists by appropriating their art and failing to recompense
them adequately.87 In his defence, Pereira pointed out that he had done all that he
81 Aluizio Falco Quinteto Violado: Novo caminho para a MPB, sleevenotes to Msica
popular do Nordeste, vol. 4, Discos Marcus Pereira, 1973.
82 Ibid.
83 Ariano Suassuna, Movimento foi uma bandeira, Continente Multicultural, ano. 11,
no. 14, February 2002, p. 19.
84 Mark Dineen, Listening to the peoples voice: erudite and popular literature in North
East Brazil (London, 1996), p. 185.
85 See for example, Ronaldo Correia de Brito, Um produto da classe mdia in Continente
Multicultural, ano. 11, no. 14, February 2002, p. 17.
86 Marcos Cirano, Ricardo de Almeida, Antnio Magalhes, Paulo Cunha and Nelson
Torreo Jnior, Arte sem copyright, Opinio, 18/6/76, pp. 267. Geraldo Sobreira and Maria
Rita Kehl, Os maquiladores da pobreza, Movimento, 4/10/76, p. 18. Hber Fonseca, O som
do Nordeste em arranjos bem comportados, Movimento, 18/10/76, p. 18. Cirano et al. also
criticized Fagner and Alceu Valena for passing off the work of little-known Northeastern
poets and composers as their own.
87 Moacir Japiassu and Ronildo Maia Leite, O Nordeste denuncia quem exporta a sua
arte, Isto, 17/8/77, pp. 435.
could to pay those who had participated in Msica Popular do Nordeste and that it
was grossly unfair to hold him personally responsible for the economic conditions
in the Northeast that led poor musicians and composers to sell their art to those from
outside.88
One senses that Pereira was particularly piqued that he, of all people, should
be accused of cultural and economic exploitation when he had accumulated a
vast personal debt in releasing Msica Popular do Brasil, his records were denied
radio and television exposure by the media, and above all, the fact that he was an
independent record producer, one of the very few fighting for the valorisation of
authentically Brazilian music at a time when foreign music has absolute domination
of the market.89 It is ironic that Pereiras protectionism was construed by some
as exploitation but the general press debate on this issue raised several important,
and largely unanswered, issues such as: the role of rural, popular culture in urban,
middle-class society; the reasons why repentistas and the like were still popular in
rural areas despite the all-powerful influence of radio and television; whether this
culture loses its essential cultural significance when it is taken out of its natural
context; and the consequences for rural areas when their local culture is marketed as
folklore for tourists.90
When discussing Msica Popular do Brasil it is essential to bear in mind the
background of deep social division that exists in Brazil. There is an obvious paradox,
for example, in the fact that, although Pereiras records overwhelmingly featured
music originating from the rural poor, they were targeted at a middle-class audience.
Not surprisingly, the urban, middle-class purchaser of Msica Popular do Brasil
would have enjoyed a completely different experience listening to the recordings
compared to those for whom the music formed an integral part of their daily lives.
One thing is certain: Marcus Pereira changed the way that the Brazilian public
viewed regional music. Msica Popular do Brasil was the first case in which
much of the sheer diversity and richness of regional music within Brazil had been
documented, and more importantly, brought to the public at large. Even a seasoned
music critic such as Srgio Cabral was moved to write: So Brazil had all this and
wasnt aware of it?91 Hailed by many at the time as a major contribution to Brazilian
culture, Pereiras achievement was all the more impressive because it was conducted
88 Marcus Pereira,Eu, explorador da arte, Isto, 31/8/77, pp. 5052.

89 Marcus Pereira, Nosso papel valorizar a msica brasileira, Isto, 26/10/77, p. 78.
90 Maria Rita Kehl recounts an amusing anecdote that illustrates the potential for cultural
misunderstanding in this respect. To mark the premiere of Tnia Quaresmas film Nordeste,
Cordel, Repente, Cano in So Paulo in 1976, various Northeastern repentistas and popular
singers who featured in the film were invited to perform at a theatre in So Paulo. The
audience were overwhelmingly middle-class (predominantly students and journalists) and the
time allotted for each act was only a few minutes. When the performers over-ran this limited
time they refused to leave the stage and continued singing while the next act followed them,
resulting in a number of acts performing at the same time. The audience started whistling and
booing this perceived lack of etiquette, which was the result of a desire to enforce limits on
the improvising skills of the performers. Maria Rita Kehl, O povo pela metade, Movimento,
5/7/76, p. 17.
91 Srgio Cabral, A msica que vem do Sul, Opinio, 19/9/75, p. 21.
by a private individual, at his own expense, rather than by the state.92 By 1976 even
some of those who feared that Msica Popular do Brasil might represent a dilution
of the essence of regional culture were convinced of the historical significance of
the recordings and the important factor that they had been made available to the
public.93
Msica Popular do Brasil was more than a musical map of Brazil: it radically
changed the Brazilian record-buying publics attitudes towards its own regional
music particularly that of the South, which had traditionally been considered a
poor relation of music emanating from the Northeast. The collection went beyond
the customary treatment of folklore in two ways. First, its interpretation of rural
music transcended the traditional approach to this genre through its re-workings of
such music. The juxtaposition on the same record of MPB artists and performers of
traditional folk music invited the general listener to make fresh connections between
folklore and popular music. Second, the socio-political subtext to the material,
although relatively subtle, was designed to reactivate the debate about the position
of rural folk music in relation to the field of Brazilian popular culture as a whole.
Msica Popular do Brasil was not the first time that MPB and traditional regional
music had been brought together; for example, compositions such as Arrasto and
Disparada (that were heavily influenced by Northeastern music) had been extremely
successful in the mid 1960s due to their appearance in televised song festivals.
The use of regional elements in popular music also surfaced in the music of artists
from Bahia (Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa) and Minas Gerais (Milton
Nascimento, L Borges). Nevertheless, Msica Popular do Brasil gave a major boost
to the awareness of regional diversity and encouraged many artists working in the
field of popular music to experiment with regional styles in their own compositions.
It also helped to remove some of the stigma previously attached to regional culture
at a time when cultural forms such as maracatu were on the verge of extinction. It
was a key factor in the inspiration of movements such as manguebeat in Pernambuco
in the 1990s and the proliferation of genre-transcending groups that exist in Brazil
to this day. Pereiras Msica Popular do Brasil also provided the template for Abril
Entretenimentos huge Msica do Brasil project (coordinated by Hermano Vianna
and Beto Villares) of the late 1990s (discussed in the following chapter) that, albeit
from a different perspective, musically mapped those areas of the country Pereira
had been unable to document due to financial constraints. If Mrio de Andrade had
laid the foundations for the cultural bridge between the regions and the metropolis,
then Marcus Pereira went ahead and built the bridge a musical bridge that was
designed to enable Brazilians to discover the forgotten part of the country, that
doesnt appear on television and that you never hear on the radio.94
92 FUNARTE and the Campaign for the defence of Brazilian folklore were jointly
responsible for the release of several 45 rpm recordings of regional folk music such as congada
in mid 1970s. The series went under the title of Documentrio Sonoro do Folclore Brasileiro
but received little publicity.
93 Danusia Barbara, A Presena do Sul, Jornal do Brasil, 20/9/75.
94 Maurcio Kubrusly, A Herana de um Brasileiro, SomTrs, no. 28, 1981, p. 98.
Conclusion
Both Mrio de Andrades Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas of 1938 and Marcus

Pereiras Msica Popular do Brasil were projects that were intended to help defend
the tradition of regional popular music in Brazil. Both were guided by the idea of
folk music as an authentic other to be compared and contrasted favourably with
contemporary popular music, which both men considered to be contaminated by
alien foreign influences. However, Mrios over-riding concern was how to utilize
that music as the foundation of a new tradition of national art music. When the MPF
discovered popularesca music in Recife, it largely ignored it because it did not
conform to Mrios idea of the Northeast of Brazil as a reservoir of uncorrupted
musical purity. Although Marcus Pereira was equally concerned about the threat
posed to regional music, his approach regarding authenticity was less rigid and
reflects a realization that compromises were necessary in order to bring that music to
the record-buying public for the first time.
Perhaps Pereira was not fully aware of the potential dilemma facing those who
seek to protect and preserve the past by bringing it into the orbit of the present.
There is no painless way of achieving such an objective that does not carry with it a
degree of intervention and manipulation on the part of the protector, even if they
are well intentioned. The true essence of what it was that attracted the protector
in the first place is irrevocably transformed, for better or worse, by the process of
protection and preservation. Those who attempt the task of preservation run the risk
of not only alienating those whose music and culture they set out to protect, but can
also attract the wrath of those who accuse them of corrupting hitherto pure and
authentic musical forms for their own commercial gain (as Pereira found to his
cost). Nevertheless, Pereiras work had profound implications for Brazilian popular
music and was a major source of inspiration for two substantial surveys of regional
popular music that were carried out at the end of the twentieth century, which I will
analyse in the following chapter.
Chapter 7
Reconsidering Musical Tradition:

Msica do Brasil and Rumos Ita
Cultural Msica
The vision of the musical mapping of the nation did not die with Marcus Pereira.
Nearly twenty-five years later, a further two massive ventures, Msica do Brasil
(coordinated by Hermano Vianna and Beto Villares) and Rumos Ita Cultural
Msica, set out to provide progress reports on the state of health of regional popular
music in Brazil. However, whilst these latest projects might have found their initial
inspiration in Mrio de Andrade and Marcus Pereiras path-breaking work their
interpretations of the significance of musical authenticity and the central importance
of musical tradition differ from those of their predecessors. Both these most recent
endeavours point to more open, flexible ways of thinking about the interrelationship
between popular music and the nation, and in different ways they both go beyond the
confines traditionally associated with the concept of MPB.
This chapter is divided into two main parts. The first part starts with an outline of
Hermano Viannas profound influence on Msica do Brasil (2000) and then analyses
the projects aims and working methods. This is followed by an examination of
the central issue of national identity that Msica do Brasil attempted to raise and
a discussion of the projects attitudes towards authenticity and the specific role of
those concerned about safeguarding the future of regional popular music. This first
part of the chapter ends with an assessment of the critical reception to Msica do
Brasil. The second part of the chapter discusses Rumos Ita Cultural Msica (2000
2001) and starts by analysing this projects aims and objectives, which is followed
by a description of its methodology. The chapter ends by considering the critical
reception of the project, which raised significant questions about its basic premise.
The preservationist needs to act like a clown: Hermano Vianna and

Msica do Brasil (2000)
By the late 1990s the musical and social environment in Brazil had changed
dramatically from the 1970s when Marcus Pereira set out on his musical voyage
around the country. The return to civilian rule in 1985 was followed by long spells of
crippling inflation and financial instability but was also accompanied by continuing
technological and industrial development. Concerns about the detrimental impact of
foreign popular music in Brazil were now far less common, at least in the media, due
in part to an increasing awareness that Brazilian popular music was strong enough
to survive the periodic waves of contamination from abroad, and also due to the
growing influence of the Internet and MTV in Brazil.
It was in these changed circumstances that the Abril publishing group considered
ways to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Brazil in 2000.
The anthropologist and writer, Hermano Vianna was already renowned in the world
of Brazilian popular music studies due to his pioneering study of the Rio funk scene
and his polemical enquiry into the modern history of samba.1 Vianna had also already
carved out a successful career for himself in broadcasting, working on the extremely
popular television programmes Programa Legal and Brasil Legal, which enabled
him to travel extensively throughout Brazil during the 1990s, an opportunity that
allowed him to make his own personal recordings of the regional music that had
increasingly come to fascinate him. A chance meeting with the son of the director of
Abril enabled Vianna to present his plans for a major project to record that regional
music and he was subsequently contracted by Abril to undertake this scheme, jointly
with Beto Villares, which was intended to form a fundamental part of their 500
years since discovery celebrations.2
Vianna had a long-held ambition to musically map Brazil and he was well
aware of the projects I analysed in the previous chapter, all of which remained
incomplete for a number of reasons, most notably the lack of adequate funding.
He was acutely conscious of the emblematic role played by popular music in the
definition of Brazilian national identity and the crucial function that it plays in the
construction of the image that Brazil presents to itself and the outside world. In
a similar way to Marcus Pereira, Vianna considered that the traditional view of
samba as the quintessential style of Brazilian music needed to be challenged by
foregrounding the multiplicity of genres of regional music to be found in Brazil
that are still largely unknown by the general public. With the enormous financial
resources of Abril behind him Vianna would finally be in a position to fulfil the
legacy of Mrio de Andrade and Marcus Pereira and create an all-encompassing
musical map of the nation.
The Project
Viannas basic premise was to set out to cover those areas of regional music that had
not been previously documented (such as the music of the northern state of Amap
for example) or that were difficult to access, and at the same time to provide some
continuity with Mrios and Pereiras projects by providing an update on some of
the music recorded by the latter during the 1930s and 1970s. Viannas travels around
Brazil for what became known as the Msica do Brasil project started in Amap
in May 1998 and finished in Cuiab in February 1999. During the course of the
expedition he and his large team of photographers, filmmakers and sound recording
engineers travelled a total of 80,000 kilometres all over the country, recording more
than 100 musical groups based in more than 80 locations. The project was originally
1 O Mundo Funk Carioca (Rio de Janeiro, 1988), O Mistrio do Samba (Rio de Janeiro,
1995).
2 Author interview with Hermano Vianna, Rio de Janeiro, 26/9/00.
RECONSIDERING MUSICAL TRADITION 161
simply intended to record various styles of popular music but it swiftly gathered a
momentum of its own and eventually produced a total of 160 hours of film footage;
a series of videos that were subsequently broadcast on MTV Brasil; four CDs; a
separate book of photographs (both of which went under the title Msica do Brasil)
and an Internet website.
Vianna was faced with the dilemma of deciding whether to record a little of
everything that the expedition encountered in a more superficial manner, or to
concentrate in depth on fewer areas. He chose the former option, principally
because he was well aware that this was a very rare opportunity to carry out such
a financially well-supported undertaking.3 Vianna decided to focus his attention on
the innumerable religious and secular festas, folguedos, folias and autos [all popular
forms of festivities] that occur at various times of the year all over Brazil because
part of the central thesis of Msica do Brasil is that these represent an essential
part of the Brazilian psyche the desire to brincar [to play, or to amuse oneself].4
His decisions about exactly which festas to study were shaped by his own previous
research; the writings of folcloristas such as Lus da Cmara Cascudo, who had
assisted the MPF in 1938, local knowledge from musicians or academics, and the
advice of friends with intimate knowledge of an area, such as the Pernambucano
musician and composer Sib.
During the ten months that they travelled throughout Brazil Vianna and his team
did not encounter any major difficulties in the course of their fieldwork. However,
the sheer scale of the operation and the complex logistics involved in the project
ensured that it was not always possible to carry out the three major functions of
photography, filming, and sound recording at the same time. Further complications
frequently ensued when some musicians were either too drunk to perform, or were
incapacitated due to hangovers! The musical performances that did take place were
captured for posterity in glorious sixteen-channel digital quality. Nevertheless,
Vianna and his team were acutely conscious that even the seemingly neutral act
of recording is not without significance, for apparently trivial factors such as the
positioning of microphones, and even the type of microphones used, form part of a
series of decisions that have artistic implications for the final recording. They were
also aware that what they finally produced were, in fact, re-creations of the music
that they heard in situ. For example, decisions were made to increase or reduce the
prominence of instruments or voices in the final mix of the CDs, and several of
the 108 pieces of music contained on the Msica do Brasil CDs were abbreviated;
a necessity because some performances lasted for hours. Consequently, the music
heard on the CDs is an approximation of the live music that Vianna and his team
heard in the field. As regards the type of music that was recorded, it was the principal
objective of the project to ensure that the music that would finally be presented to the
3 The final cost of the Msica do Brasil project was in the region of U.S. $2 million.
Vianna had unsuccessfully tried to obtain financial support from the Brazilian government.
Author interview with Hermano Vianna.
4 Hermano Vianna, Msica do Brasil (So Paulo, 2000). Note: there are no page
numbers to this book.
public would be as varied as possible, rather than concentrating on a limited handful
of genres.5
Msica do Brasil was a vast multi-media project that expanded as it developed.
In its multi-faceted character it was closer in spirit to the MPF of 1938 than Marcus
Pereiras efforts, which were solely aural in nature. The obvious major difference
between the MPF and Msica do Brasil is that the fruits of Viannas project were
made available to certain sectors of the public, i.e. those who were able to access
it either through the CDs, in book form, through the videos that were shown on
MTV Brasil (and later on general access television networks) and via the Internet.
Regarding the music itself, Vianna decided to organize the material in a four-CD set
in a thematic manner, rather than geographically, as a tribute to Mrio de Andrade,
who had organized his collection of cocos in that fashion, and also to draw the
listeners attention to the projects wider, more ambitious themes, namely, the very
nature of Brazilian identity.
The first CD is entitled Msica dos Homens, das Mulheres e das Umbigadas
[Music of men, women and bellies] and includes compositions that are vaguely
connected to questions of identity such as: Who are we? What is our race? Is our
country our language? What can this language do and what does it want to do?
Which is superior: sex, love or friendship?6 The music contained in the second CD,
Msica dos Mares e das Terras [Music of seas and lands] is intended to raise issues
such as: Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Where did
our instruments and musical styles come from?7 The theme of the third CD, Msica
dos Santos [Music of the saints] is self-explanatory and covers several aspects of the
wide range of religiously-inspired music in Brazil, such as that dedicated to saints
Benedito and Gonalo, and the Afro-Brazilian forms of candombl and tambor de
mina. The final CD in the series, Msica das Coisas, dos Bichos e dos Vegetais
[Music of things, animals and vegetables] is extremely eclectic and features songs
that celebrate aspects of the natural world as diverse as Amazonian birds, millstones,
and houses in the process of construction.
The thematic method by which this music is presented reflects one of the central
tenets of Msica do Brasil: it is designed to be polemical and it is deliberately
intended to provoke the listener into hearing these sounds in a fresh manner, rather
than merely as dusty folkloric relics. The stunning clarity of the recordings, tidied up
to a certain extent in the studio, certainly helps in this respect, revealing a musical
subtlety that even the participating musicians have almost certainly never heard.8
The variety of music covered by these CDs is immense, and includes regional
styles such as; samba de parelha, siriri, coco, cururu, tambor de taboca, maracatu,
congada, cantiga, samba-de-roda, batuque, fandango, ciranda, catumbi, caxambu,
maambique, marabaixo, cavalo-marinho, folia de reis, boi-de-reis, boi-de-mamo
and many others. Perhaps the only obvious omission from a collection that claims to
5 Hermano Vianna and Beto Villares, liner notes to Msica do Brasil CD, Abril Music,
2000.
6 Vianna and Beto Villares (2000).
7 Ibid.
8 Author interview with Hermano Vianna.
be the largest survey of Brazilian music ever attempted is the scant attention devoted
to indigenous music. However, this was a deliberate omission on the part of the
projects organizers, who considered that they did not have the necessary expertise
to deal with that particular category of music.9 The liner notes to the CDs are concise
but informative, placing the music in its cultural and historical context and often
providing thumbnail portraits and photographs of the participating performers,
thereby perhaps providing the listener with a greater sense of identification with
the music and performers than that offered by Marcus Pereiras Msica Popular
do Brasil. Vianna and Villares clearly state that the information presented in
these notes regarding the origins and histories of these forms of music is not to be
treated as definitive in any sense as this particular subject is rife with controversy,
ambiguity, and differences of opinion, even among the performers and songwriters
themselves.10
The Issue of National Identity
One of Hermano Viannas main arguments regarding the cultural significance of

the music so assiduously catalogued and presented by the Msica do Brasil project
is that it is not only a data bank of what is produced in the country but it is also an
attempt to try and understand Brazil itself.11 That view was probably prompted by
the fact that Msica do Brasil was intended to tie in with the commemoration of the
anniversary of the creation of modern Brazil, yet it is also clear that travelling the
length and the breadth of the country brought Vianna directly into contact with both
positive and negative aspects of the cultural and racial diversity of a Brazilian nation
on the cusp of a new millennium. Vianna writes movingly of his discussions with
young black people about the racism that they experience living in the predominantly
white state of Santa Catarina, and also of the dilemma he faced when an indigenous
woman, who was aware that Vianna was an anthropologist, asked him the following
question:
I think that you can help me. What am I? I think that you can tell me. Yesterday I was
watching television with my children. Some Indians appeared on the television and my
children asked me: Mum, what are we? Are we Indians? I didnt know how to respond [...]
I am a Taraiana Indian [...] But I married a person of mixed race [caboclo] from Bahia.
What does that make my child?12
Vianna struggled to formulate a reply:
Her question is unanswerable. In truth there are various answers, none of which is exactly
adequate [...] Its not good enough to pretend that the problem does not exist, inventing
9 Vianna and Villares (2000). Of the 108 tracks, only four feature music by indigenous
groups.
10 Vianna and Villares (2000).
11 Hermano Vianna, quoted in Mrcia Vieira and Karla Monteiro, Usina de Idias, Veja
Rio, 29/3/00, p. 10.
12 Vianna, Msica do Brasil (So Paulo, 2000).
artificial identities which dont convince anyone now. The best thing is to transform the
problem into a positive advantage: after all, getting used to not having a defined identity
can be a creative relief.13
Viannas desire to demonstrate that seemingly confused racial identities can

create positive cultural outcomes is confirmed by several musical examples selected
for Msica do Brasil. For example, the Grupo de Dana de So Gonalo da Mussuca,
from the state of Sergipe, sing of an imaginary Africa but admit that they have no
idea of the meaning of the lyrics to some of their songs, which are all that remains
of a language spoken by their ancestors. Likewise, the Xucuru-Kariri Indians from
the Northeastern state of Alagoas, are in the process of re-inventing their indigenous
cultural heritage and now avoid singing in Portuguese in public, preferring to use
their native language. Vianna considers that Brazilian culture and national identity is
profoundly influenced by this pattern of constant flux and instability:
The national is not something that is fixed and unchangeable. It is changing all the time,
it is a collective enterprise that is constantly renewing itself. Isolated national culture does
not exist, not in a a way that can be thought of as a homogenous whole. [...] Marky Mark [a
Brazilian drum n bass DJ/artist] or DJ Marlboro [a Brazilian baile funk DJ] are creating
the national as much as a master of congada or a sambador of maracatu rural. It is not
neccessary to put a tamborim [percussion instrument associated with samba] in drum n
bass to make it Brazilian. Who has the right to define what is Brazilian and what isnt?
There are many contrasting and conflicting definitions of Brazilianess [brasilidade] and
I am not interested in finding a lowest common denominator for all of them: I prefer to
encourage diversity.14
Viannas defence of diversity (with its distinct echoes of Caetano Velosos

1968 comments in the Revista Civilizao Brasileira that I referred to in Chapter
1) welcomes the absorption of imported styles of popular music such as rap and
drumnbass into very heart of Brazilian music and is far removed from the more
defensive and protectionist attitudes of Mrio de Andrade and Marcus Pereira. Yet
Vianna quite correctly argues that Brazilian popular music has always reflected this
fluidity:
Maxixe would not have existed if polca had not been imported from some corner of the
Austro-Hungarian empire. And quite probably there wouldnt have been samba if maxixe
hadnt existed. Thats how it will be from now on: music wants to be free and therefore
refuses to be isolated by national boundaries.15
Brazilians seem to have an endless capacity to absorb musical influences from every
corner of the globe, but they also have the creative ability to adapt those styles
to their own tastes, often transforming them into something uniquely Brazilian. As

14 Hermano Vianna, quoted in Jotab Medeiros, Hermano Vianna v a cultura
em movimento O Estado de So Paulo, 29/5/01 <http:www.estado.estadao.com.br/
editoras/2001/05/29/cad549.html> [accessed 29 May 2001].
Vianna points out, these musical styles are not devoured in a standardized fashion
across the nation as a whole; some genres (reggae in Maranho, Gangster rap in So
Paulo, house music in Belm for example) are restricted to certain areas or cities.
Cultural Intervention: the Researcher as Palhao
The second major strand of Viannas thesis presented in Msica do Brasil relates
to his concept of an espao da brincadeira [space for play] in Brazilian life, that I
briefly referred to earlier in this section. In his view, this takes the form of an extensive
inter-linked rede [network] of which each festivity forms an integral part and in
which everything circulates: snatches of melodies; rhymes; musical instruments;
details of clothing; scenes from theatrical performances.16 Within this network:
The player [o brincante] does not act as a passive spectator from a secular tradition over
which they have no control and can only preserve. Their role is more like that of a DJ,
or any other cybernetic musical producer who makes their own collages out of a specific
repertoire [...]17
Vianna considers that the whole concept of popular culture in Brazil needs to be
radically re-thought. Whereas the traditional view of folklore has been one of
isolated, cultural phenomena, distanced from the contamination of the cultural
industry, in fact, what he found through the work of Msica do Brasil was that many
forms of traditional popular culture were alive and well, precisely because of the
corrupting intervention of the media and technology. This demonstrates for Vianna
that the boundaries between different forms of culture are not as rigid as previously
thought: it is altogether a more complex arrangement, with considerable scope for
flux and interchange.18
Vianna supports his theory by pointing to evidence of the ever-growing cross-
pollination of cultural influences in traditional festivities such as the folias de reis
in the state of Rio de Janeiro that have increasingly featured imagery and musical
influences from the Rio funk movement and heavy-metal music (principally through
the characters known as palhaos [clowns] that feature in the festivities) in recent
years. The folias de reis were actually reinvigorated by these new influences as
greater numbers of young people wanted to participate in them, precisely because of
the links that had grown up with the funk bailes and the youth culture iconography
(including marijuana and Nike) that had entered the folias.19 Equally importantly, the
funk movement has in turn been influenced musically, principally in vocal stylings,
by the folias de reis.20 To imagine that these regional cultural forms exist in total

17 Ibid. There are potentially interesting parallels to be drawn between Viannas concept
of brincadeira and the more generalized ludic mentality which exists in Brazilian culture and
which can be located in such diverse examples as the writings of Roberto da Matta, Mrio de
Andrades Macunama, and the popular ethos of malandragem [roguery, trickery].
18 Christiane Costa, Cultura popular ou folkmdia?, Jornal do Brasil, 23/9/00.
19 Hermano Vianna, A Circulao da Brincadeira, Folha de So Paulo, 14/2/99.
isolation is nave, as Vianna makes clear when he refers to a conversation he had with
a member of a boi-de-reis group in Cuit, a small town in the state of Rio Grande
do Norte: I asked if he had heard of the bumbdromo in Parintins [an increasingly
popular form of Amazonian carnival], he looked at the dozens of TV aerials in Cuit
and replied: I watch it every year on the Amazon satellite channel.21
It is in his discussion of the significance of this cultural exchange that Viannas
views become most controversial:
The error of many well-intentioned preservationists is to think that to save a folguedo from
the threat of disappearing it is necessary to isolate it from the rest of the world, keeping by
force its veracity or authenticity. The opposite approach might be more advantageous:
it is neccessary to guarantee circulation, facilitate contacts between the brincadeiras and
the rest of the world. In other words: the preservationist needs to act as a palhao.22
Vianna sees this role of the palhao, which he links to the Afro-Brazilian deity Exu
and the classical deity Hermes, as a crucial component in the complex network
of brincadeira, with the palhao responsible, amongst other things, for the role
of communicating with the public and the outside world. Vianna suggests that it
is imperative that he and other researchers in this field actively participate in the
communication process that binds the brincadeira network together, rather than
standing at arms length and merely studying the proceedings. To this end, Vianna
made a point of ensuring that those musicians and performers participating in Msica
do Brasil were not only able to have access to recordings of their own performances
from the mobile studio that accompanied the team, but were also able to see and hear
recordings of other performers already taped by Vianna and his team throughout
other areas of Brazil.23 Msica do Brasil can therefore be considered to be a musical
map designed not only for observers on the outside, but also for those on the
inside of the brincadeira.
Viannas emphasis on the importance of the role of the palhao as the
communicating link between brincadeira and the world at large raises the issue of
the precise nature of his personal role in this process. Within the Msica do Brasil
project and in his earlier television work Vianna also adopted the role of palhao,
or cultural mediator, responsible for transmitting his message through the media.
Viannas conception of his own role echoes the importance that he attaches to
Gilberto Freyres intervention in the development of the nationalization of samba in
the 1920s.24 In other words, it could be argued that Vianna is now fulfilling a similar
mediating role to that of Freyre and other intellectuals in the 1920s in his attempts to
21 Vianna and Villares, liner notes to Msica do Brasil CD. At least one of the groups
featured on the Msica do Brasil CD (Comunidade dos Arturos, Contagem, Minas Gerais)
have their own Internet website.
23 Author interview with Hermano Vianna. Vianna already had experience of a highly
participatory role in his study of the Rio funk scene. By helping DJ Marlboro to programme
an electric drum machine and thereby developing a new rhythm, he was indirectly responsible
for changing the musical direction of Brazilian funk. Vianna, O Mundo Funk Carioca, p. 9.
24 O Mistrio do Samba.
bring the music of the povo to the attention of a wider audience. There are also some
obvious comparisons to be drawn between the positions of both Vianna and Freyre,
in the way that they both valorize and celebrate cultural diversity and mixture in
their definition of popular culture.
Msica do Brasil and Authenticity
Vianna clearly has little time for what he considers to be outmoded debates revolving
around the issue of authenticity and the mythical search for purity in popular
music:
The important thing is not to have preconceptions, not to try to impose on the povo the
correct manner (as music was played in a mythical past) that the povo should play.25
Nevertheless, he considers that such paternalistic thinking still exerts a strong

influence in Brazil and it was precisely for this reason that one of the central
purposes of Msica do Brasil was to directly challenge the myth of authenticity
in popular music.26 It is in relation to this particular issue that he feels that Msica
do Brasil differs substantially from earlier musical mapping projects, particularly
that of Marcus Pereira, which Vianna judges to have been largely driven by a keenly
felt sense of regret that genuine Brazilian popular music was dying out due to the
influence of the foreign-controlled record companies that dominated the Brazilian
music industry at the time. Vianna feels that his experience was diametrically opposed
to that of Pereira: the music he encountered was not on the verge of extinction, and
was not in need of external assistance to survive.27 He believes that Msica do Brasil
should not be viewed as a type of rescue mission because the music that he and his
team came into contact with is in a state of rude health and is infinitely capable of
adaptation:
This music is alive and life always involves transformation, confusion, complexity, change.
[...] this music is not isolated in a world out of the media eye. This music dialogues with
other music that pass through all the medias, through all the communication networks,
absorbing elements but also exporting ideas, rthymic cells, melodies.28
In Viannas opinion, it is almost impossible to disentangle musical strands so as

to determine which are more original or authentic:
25 Vianna and Villares (2000).

27 Ibid.
28 Vianna and Villares (2000). An illustration of the difference in attitudes between
Pereira and Vianna on this issue is provided by the sleevenotes to Pereiras Msica Popular
do Norte (vol. 4). In describing the music of Tribos (racially-mixed groups that performed
music often of indigenous inspiration at festivals in Manaus) Pereira makes the following
observation: The influence of music from other regions, through radio and television
or by internal migration, like the Northeasterners, has produced curious alterations in the
presentations of tribos who, often enter or leave the stage singing and dancing frevo, marcha-
rancho and samba enredo (my emphasis).
Did the lundum emerge in Angola? Did it go to Portugal? Did it come to Brasil? Or was
it all the other way around? The probability is that the order of the facts does not alter the
musical outcome. It is more than likely that the lundum was developed in the three places,
that were in close contact, at the same time.29
He cites the example of the Grupo Razes do Samba de So Brs, in Bahia (a rural
group playing traditional samba-de-roda), one of whose number plays electric guitar
instead of the traditional viola, and Vianna makes the valid point that such music
would have almost certainly been filtered out of previous musical mappings on
the grounds that it lacked authenticity. However, the guitarist in question was
influential in the development of trio elctrico in Bahia in the 1970s, and rather than
seeing this as a betrayal of tradition Vianna considers it as positive affirmation of
the endless fertile interaction between traditional and popular music in Brazil, and
confirmation of the ongoing construction of a new tradition in the making.30
Critical Reception and Aftermath
Msica do Brasil was a massive, innovative, multi-media operation that

comprehensively examined aspects of Brazilian popular culture and music on a
scale and in a fashion that had never been attempted before. How then, is it possible
to evaluate its success? Although Vianna was a major source of inspiration behind
Msica do Brasil (along with Beto Villares) and also its public face, in the wider
scenario he was only a small cog in the rather larger wheel of Abril Entretenimento,
the body responsible for funding the project. Despite the fact that he was only
personally responsible for certain aspects of the enterprise he was highly conscious of
important factors such as the need to reimburse those musicians and singers involved
in order to avoid the sort of accusations that had been levelled at Marcus Pereira.31
In Viannas opinion, the reaction of those musicians and singers to their inclusion in
Msica do Brasil was overwhelmingly positive: not only did it represent recognition
for them by the national media, but the resultant publicity also often enabled them to
obtain increased leverage with their local councils to fund their own local projects.
Perhaps rather surprisingly, Vianna was not concerned with the specific issue of the
target audience that the project was aimed at in the first place, but he does consider
that Abril did not really know how to effectively market the enormous volume of
material that the project gathered.32
Vianna was nominated for an Emmy award in the category of arts documentary
for Msica do Brasil in the United States and he was also nominated for the
prestigious Prmio Multicultural 2001 Estado Cultura, in Brazil. Despite these
nominations, and the fact that the project received a large amount of positive press
29 Vianna and Villares, liner notes to Msica do Brasil CD.

31 Ibid. Vianna stated that all those who participated in the project were paid, but that it
was often very difficult to decide exactly who to pay, as over 1000 performers in total were
involved. He also advised me that all participating groups received a copy of the Msica do
Brasil CD.
coverage in many of the major Brazilian newspapers and magazines, Vianna has
expressed a sense of disappointment at the lack of a truly analytical examination
of Msica do Brasil.33 One of the reasons for that may be the sheer, monumental
nature of the project; it is a daunting task for any reviewer, inevitably constricted by
space limitations, to even attempt to do justice to more than a few of the 108 tracks
featured on the CDs. Furthermore, how to know which tracks to choose to discuss
when normal value judgements relating to musical taste are perhaps out of place in
these circumstances? As with Marcus Pereiras Msica Popular do Brasil, musical
critics were generally at a loss as to how to find an appropriate method to discuss and
analyse music that does not fall within the normal parameters of commercial popular
music and which the general public are more than likely inclined to find difficult at
first hearing. Although the vast majority of the press coverage of Msica do Brasil
was positive, frequently focusing on the richness and diversity of the music that
Vianna had unearthed, it also failed to address some of the more polemical issues
relating to national identity and musical authenticity that the project had hoped to
raise. It may be that the current state of Brazilian journalism in general, and the
Brazilian music press in particular, does not provide an appropriate forum for an
adequate discussion of an effort of the scale and complexity of Msica do Brasil.
Having said that, perhaps one of projects most striking successes was the way in
which it briefly caught the attention of the MTV generation in Brazil, when fifteen
half-hour programmes featuring film footage and music from Msica do Brasil
were aired on the channel in 2000.34 Although these programmes were deliberately
populist in their approach they attempted to demonstrate both the diversity of
regional forms of popular music and at the same time the links that exist between such
music and more commercial genres such as funk, rap and pop. To broaden the appeal
of the programmes, they featured cameos by such stars as Fernanda Abreu, Caetano
Veloso and Carlinhos Brown, alongside long sections of more traditional music.
Vianna was extremely surprised by the large numbers of e-mails sent to the Msica
do Brasil website from mainly adolescent viewers of the MTV programmes, many
of whom considered that the shows represented for them a moment of discovery.35
The series also generated some controversy in the media through the claim in one of
the programmes that Brazilian funk should be considered a national rhythm.36
Although Vianna himself was personally extremely pleased with the outcome
of the project in terms of the quality and quantity of material recorded, he was
disappointed that Msica do Brasil did not reach a wider public. Part of that problem
was almost certainly the relatively high cost of the Msica do Brasil CDs and
book and also the fact that only limited numbers of these were ever distributed.37
33 Author interview with Hermano Vianna. Vianna considers that the major newspapers
with nationwide distribution (O Globo, Folha de So Paulo, Estado de So Paulo and Jornal do
Brasil) were annoyed when they were denied exclusive coverage of the project, and consequently
gave a more superficial critical response to Msica do Brasil than perhaps was merited.
34 The programmes were actually aired three times, twice on MTV.
36 Anon, Os 500 sons do Brasil, Jornal do Brasil, 15/3/00.
37 2000 books and 3000 CDs were produced, hundreds of which were distributed to
schools and libraries. However, when I visited the Centro Cultural de So Paulo in late 2003,
Vianna always intended that Msica do Brasil would be a long-term project, in
which all the data obtained, including 40,000 photographs and 153 hours of unseen
footage, would be available to the public and researchers, either through the Internet
website or in other archives such as FUNARTEs Folklore Museum in Rio de
Janeiro. Unfortunately, since the demise of Abril Entretenimento in 2003 that seems
increasingly unlikely and at the time of writing the Msica do Brasil website was
no longer available online. Regrettably, it seems likely at present that Msica do
Brasil may be an extremely important body of work that remains virtually unknown
in Brazil and abroad and that it is also unavailable for analysis by other researchers.
Establishing Alternatives to the Grande Mdia: Rumos Ita Cultural Msica

20002001
Msica do Brasil was not the only musical mapping project underway in 2000. Ita
Cultural, the cultural section of the major Brazilian bank Ita, had been involved
in a major artistic project known as Rumos [directions] for several years. This
programme had already encompassed cinema, dance, literature, and the visual arts,
and in 1997 Rumos Ita Cultural Msica was established with the primary objective
of identifying new works, languages and tendencies in Brazilian music. As part of
that programme it was decided to investigate the current state of musical production
throughout the whole of Brazil in 2000. The nation was divided into ten geographical
regions and a team of thirty curators (musicians, journalists and producers) was
appointed to oversee the project under the supervision of three national curators, one
of whom was Hermano Vianna. Musicians and performers were invited to submit
their compositions from each geographical area, and a total of 1712 were received,
of which 78 were chosen by the curators for inclusion in a series of ten CDs, one
for each area, produced by Ita Cultural and jointly distributed throughout Brazil
by ten independent record producers representing each area. A series of concerts
showcasing some of the selected artists was also held at Ita Culturals headquarters
in So Paulo.
Aims and Objectives
The overall goal of Rumos Ita Cultural Msicas musical mapping exercise
(which I shall refer to for convenience as RICM) was significantly different from
Viannas project and the efforts outlined in the previous chapter. Instead of purely
documenting existing music and bringing that to an audience, the central purpose
I was surprised to learn that the Centre did not possess a copy of Msica do Brasil in either
book or CD format. Although Msica do Brasil was not initially aimed at a mass market, it
was subsequently planned to produce a series of magazines with accompanying CDs and/or
videos (similar to the MPB series produced by Abril in the 1970s) to go on sale at news stands,
thereby greatly widening the projects general audience. Unfortunately these plans have not
yet come to fruition, and are now unlikely to following the demise of Abril Entretenimento in
2003. Author interview with Hermano Vianna.
of RICM was to create a permanent and dynamic project with highly ambitious
aims:
The objective of the mapping is to democratise information in respect of the production of

Brazilian music and thereby intensify the relationship and the flow of information between
musicians, producers, record companies, music schools, institutions, journalists, means of
communication, live music venues, festivals and record shops. The idea is therefore to
organise an extensive national music circuit for music.38
RICM was designed to attract entries from professional musicians responsible

for creative works that present a basis or research linked to traditional Brazilian
music, identified by rhythmns (frevo, jongo, batuque, maracatu etc.), manifestations
(congada, boi-bumb, amongst others) or popular music (choro, samba, forr etc.).39
I will return to the significance of this definition of tradition later in this chapter.
The project was not a competition or a festival, therefore there were no prizes for the
successful musicians and performers whose entries were selected. Nevertheless, it
was anticipated that the 78 artists chosen for final selection would benefit from the
national exposure for their work that would follow its inclusion in the CDs and also
the kudos that they would gain by representing the music of their region to a national
audience.
Benjamin Taubkin was the consultant responsible for RICM, and he was well
aware that its aims were extremely ambitious; nonetheless, he considered that RICM
was capable of providing at the very least a snapshot view of the contemporary state
of music in Brazil. He was not concerned about documenting traditional Brazilian
music itself as this had been recently covered by Hermano Viannas Msica do Brasil
but he was more interested in locating music with its roots based in tradition. Like
Vianna, Taubkin was well aware of the previous attempts to musically map Brazil
and he believes that the motivation behind these periodic quests, including RICM, is
a nationalistic, rather than xenophobic, love for all aspects of Brazilian culture and a
desire to celebrate its richness and diversity.40
The main objective of RICM was to document music produced in areas other
than the more celebrated musical centres such as the states of Rio de Janeiro, So
Paulo, Minas Gerais, Bahia and Pernambuco, and to redress the fact that little was
known of the music being created in the rest of the country. RICM also reflected a
conscious decision by its organizers to try to break away from the musical focus that
is habitually centred on Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo by working co-operatively
with a network of contacts in all areas of Brazil and to act as an artistic stimulus for
isolated musicians scattered all over the country,
38 Anon, Mapeamento Msica <www.itaucultural.org.br/aplicexternas/mapeamento/

musica.asp> [accessed 3 December 2000].
39 Ibid.
40 Author interview with Benjamim Taubkin, So Paulo, 27/8/03. Taubkin had been
planning a musical map of the whole of Latin America for more than ten years, and his
original proposal to Ita Cultural was for a re-creation of the journey taken by Mrios Misso
de Pesquisas Folclricas of 1938 to compare how Brazilian regional music had changed in
the intervening period.
The project was deliberately designed to concentrate not only on composers and
performers but also to encompass an analysis of the more unglamorous but essential
processes by which music is produced, distributed, and advertised throughout the
country. Thus, RICM was not only interested in what type of music was being
produced outside of the well-established, mainstream, Rio-So Paulo circuit, but
perhaps more significantly it was also concerned about how to start to bring that
marginalized music from the geographical and cultural periphery to the centre. This
is potentially the most radical aspect of RICMs mission: although Brazilian popular
music as a whole, and MPB in particular, has been periodically influenced by
regional music since the late 1960s, MPB (and Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo) have
traditionally been the dominant factors in the national projection of what matters
musically. However, increasing regional musical self-confidence and identity,
symbolized by the wave of rock bands that came out of Braslia in the 1980s and the
manguebeat movement in Pernambuco in the early 1990s for example, represented
challenges to the hegemony of MPB and also suggested that the regions no longer
necessarily look to the centre for approval. The ever-growing assuredness of the
urban funk and rap movements also now raises questions about where the centre and
the periphery of Brazilian popular music are actually situated.
RICMs second main objective was to take the first steps towards the creation of
a nationwide musical network, one that is intended to be parallel to that monopolized
by the grande mdia [mass media].41 This intention to highlight the quality of musical
production outside the conventional media spotlight and the orbit of the major record
labels was a fundamental driving force behind the project, and was summed up by
Lui Coimbra, one of the curators, who stressed the need to develop a means of
distribution that was more concerned with cultural content rather than mere financial
returns.42 This ethos echoes the views expressed by many participants at the National
Meeting of Researchers in Brazilian popular music (2001) and reflects a fundamental
antipathy towards what are seen by many (Marcus Vincius and Roberto Moura to
name but two) as the machinations of the cultural industry and its banal output. It is
an outlook that also invites comparisons with Projeto Pixinguinhas underlying goal
over the last thirty years to create a parallel market for the promotion of Brazilian
popular music of quality and also the work of independent record labels such as
Kuarup and CPC-UMES who are dedicated to presenting a type of music that finds
it hard to secure a place in the more commercially orientated market for popular
music in general.
Methodology
The regional curators chosen to administer RICM were all experts in the music of
their particular geographical areas. The project was open to all styles of music, not just
popular, and the curators were inevitably influenced by their own personal interests
in selecting the artists chosen to represent their area. There was no hidden agenda
41 Author interview with Benjamim Taubkin.

42 Quoted in Julio Moura, Agora, os novos talentos respondem, <www.cliquemusic.
com.br/br/Acontecendo/Acontecendo.asp?Nu_Materia=2881> [accessed 10 June 2007].
to discover new artists, but the music of those who were chosen was intended to
reflect three prime factors; originality, quality, and a strong regional flavour.43 A
major consideration for the curators was that the artists had to be unknown outside
their own geographical area, even if they were relatively well known and successful
in their own region. Songs had to be sung in Portuguese or indigenous languages,
and the insistence on music with its roots in tradition meant that a unadulterated
rock composition, even if sung in Portuguese, could not be selected whereas a
composition that possessed some element of tradition, however slight, might be.44
This rather cautious desire to cling on to the notion of tradition in defining the
purpose of the project illustrates that RICMs strategy and approach were essentially
conventional in character and meant that the project was less inclined to provide a
radical challenge to established ideas of what constitutes the musical tradition in
Brazil. The projects definition of what was represented by quality in a composition
was inevitably subjective and contentious, and a second level of filtering was built
into RICM, whereby all 33 regional and national curators met together in So
Paulo in October 2000 to jointly agree the selection of the final 78 artists. Those
responsible for the organization of RICM, and the majority of the curators, were
extremely impressed by the musical talent of the final selection, something that
pleasantly surprised Benjamin Taubkin, who had not really expected such a high
level of competence from entrants before the start of the project.45
The number of applications for RICM varied from area to area, possibly due
to differing levels of success with publicity for the project. As one might expect, a
majority of those who applied to RICM were from urban areas; however, despite
the use of local press, local radio, meetings and the Internet to advertise the project
it was not always the case that the target audience was reached. Edson Natale was
jointly responsible for the coordination of RICM and he was also curator for the state
of So Paulo. In his opinion, it was ironic that RICM was able to carry out a musical
survey of regions as remote from So Paulo as the northern state of Par, but his own
team, despite their best intentions, failed to map the musical output of the hip-hop
movement on the periphery of the city of So Paulo. Natale attributed this failure
to three factors; either the language used to encourage people to participate in the
project and to advertise it in general was inappropriate; or the hip-hop community
felt that the project was not for them, or the information sent to representatives of
the community was unfortunately not passed on to those who might have benefited
from it.46
The variety of music eventually presented in the ten-CD collection, Cartograa
da Msica Brasileira, was vast, and extensively reflected elements of local and trans-
regional musical fusions. To cite just a few examples, it included ps-rock-carioca
(Suely Mesquita), novo samba-pop-mineiro (Vander Lee), samba-punk-curitibano
43 Roberto Corra,Gois, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul e Distrito Federal e

Tocantins, <www.itaucultural.org.br/rumos_musica/roberto.htm> [accessed 3 December
2001].
45 Ibid.
46 Author interview with Edson Natale, So Paulo, 28/8/03.
(Maxixe Machine), nova-viola-nordestina (Pedro Osmar) alongside experimental
electro pop from Piaui (DJ Dolores) and more traditional genres such as choro,
samba, and maracatu.47 Of the material presented in the CDs, 5 per cent was classical
music, 45 per cent instrumental, and 50 per cent was vocal.
Critical Reception and Aftermath
RICM represented a significant departure from previous musical mappings in that

the music that it presented was produced almost wholly inside the entertainment
industry rather than being marginalized in a folkloric ghetto. For that reason, the
standards used to evaluate its success by the media were slightly different from those
applied to the work of Marcus Pereira and Hermano Vianna because critics were
more comfortable analysing and reviewing music that conformed to conventional
notions of popular music. Although the overall tone of the analysis of RICM in
the media was generally positive, one particular review/article by Marco Frenette in
the cultural magazine Bravo! was extremely critical of the project, concluding that
it had failed to achieve its fundamental objectives. Frenette claimed that despite the
laudable aims of the project and the undeniable quality of the music of those selected,
RICMs effectiveness had been compromised because the final musical portrait
of Brazil reflected the musical tastes of the curators rather than the contemporary
reality of music in Brazil. Frenette cited the absence of rap and electronic music in
the CD representing the So Paulo area as evidence that RICM had failed to reveal
the enormous significance of the urban music produced in the city. Furthermore,
he pointed out that the existence of important centres of hip-hop in cities such as
Recife and Rio de Janeiro had been ignored, and that it was ludicrous that the only
electronic music that was featured in the CDs produced by RICM came from the
Northeast rather than So Paulo, the acknowledged centre of production of such
music in Brazil. Frenette concluded that such choices were indicative of elitist
attitudes that precluded an accurate reflection of new Brazilian music, and which on
the contrary emphasized a conservative, idealized vision on the part of the projects
organizers.48
This extremely critical article provoked a spirited response in the same magazine
from Benjamin Taubkin, who argued that Frenette had missed the main point of
RICM, i.e. that the project was primarily designed to focus only on compositions
linked with traditional Brazilian music, either in terms of rhythm (frevo or jongo for
example), popular manifestations (such as congada or bumba-meu-boi), or popular
music (such as forr or samba for example). Taubkin also claimed that despite the
best efforts of RICMs organizers, no rap or hip-hop compositions had been submitted
and he conceded that future versions of RICM (it is planned to be bi-annual) needed
to address that failure.49 Taubkins defence of RICM seems to complicate matters
further: because he does not define all the types of music that are linked with the
47 Hermano Vianna, Nacional, <www.itaucultural.org.br/rumos_musica/hermano.

htm> [accessed 10 June 2007].
48 Marco Frenette, Conjunto em descompasso, Bravo! No. 42, March 2001, p. 98.
49 Benjamim Taubkin, Rumos Musicais, Bravo! No. 43, April 2001, p. 11.
Brazilian tradition it is unclear quite where RICMs parameters lie, and one is
left to draw ones own conclusions. As I stated earlier, Taubkin informed me that
a straightforward composition in the rock music idiom would have been ineligible
for submission even if sung in Portuguese, yet a tradition of Brazilian rock music
exists since the late 1950s. If a pure rap or hip-hop composition, sung in Portuguese
but with no other link to tradition, had been submitted it seems extremely unlikely
that it would have qualified under RICMs selection criteria as stated above.
It appears to me that the underlying ethos of RICM is fundamentally at odds
with certain styles of music, such as funk and rap, which are not considered by
some of the projects organizers to form part of the Brazilian tradition. This is
somewhat surprising; as is the case with Brazilian rock music, there now exists a
well established and highly influential tradition of Brazilian rap for example, which
dates from the early 1990s. This raises the more wide-ranging question of how long
a period of time is required for a tradition to become established in terms of popular
music, and opinions about this issue will inevitably be coloured by personal musical
prejudices.
The personal statements provided by the curators on the Ita Cultural website
make it clear that for many of them RICM was a means to publicize what they
consider to be the boa msica [good music] that falls outside the confines of the
corrupted orbit of the grande mdia, which in Brazil is often shorthand for the
overwhelming power of the Globo media empire.50 Many of those curators are
hostile to what they see as the type of culturally worthless, popular bundmusic,51
for example, that is disseminated by the mass media, and consequently they seem
unlikely to embrace with open arms music (such as rap and funk) that already has
an alternative commercial space in the media within which to promote itself. As I
have highlighted at various stages in this study, the whole notion of what constitutes
boa msica in Brazil is inevitably subjective and is likely to reflect assumptions
about social status, class and levels of education. There are clear parallels to be
drawn between the attitudes of some of RICMs curators and those of Mrio de
Andrade, exemplified by Mrios dismissive views of what he saw as commercial
msica popularesca or submsica that I referred to in Chapter 1. There are also
parallels to be drawn between the attitudes of some of RICMs curators and the
opinions expressed at regular intervals over the last thirty years by members of the
Association of Researchers in Brazilian popular music, and also by large numbers
of the delegates at the National Meeting of Researchers in Brazilian popular music
in 2001. These attitudes often seem to reflect a protectionist mentality shaped by
what appears to be their self-appointed role as custodians of musical integrity and
values.
Coincidentally, the much-maligned TV-Globo Festival da Msica Brasileira
that I referred to in Chapter 3 was running concurrently with RICM in 2000 and
50 See for example, Lui Coimbra, Rio de Janeiro e Esprito Santo <http://www.
itaucultural.org.br/rumos_musica/lui.htm> [accessed 10 June 2007] and Arthur de Faria, Rio
Grande do Sul,<http://www.itaucultural.org.br/rumos_musica/arthur.htm> [accessed 10 June
2007].
51 Brazilian dance music often accompanied by sexually suggestive dance routines.
Benjamim Taubkin was a member of the festival jury. His low opinion of the
TV-Globo festival ultimately reinforced his belief in the value of RICM because it
became clear to him that an initiative such as RICM will never originate from within
the established media, which he considers to be more preoccupied with commercial
considerations than aesthetic concerns.52 In fact, for Taubkin and several of the
curators, RICM represented a type of anti-Globo competition because in their
opinion, the richness and diversity of music unearthed by their project belied the
commonly expressed opinion in the media at the time that Brazilian popular music
was once again immersed in a period of crisis, demonstrated by the poor standard
of music revealed at Globos festival.
The immediate impact of RICM was hampered by the limited attention that it
received in the media.53 The initial release of 1000 CD collections was distributed
to radio networks, schools, libraries, researchers and the specialist press. However,
further plans to distribute the CDs were undermined by the complex distribution
arrangement that had been agreed with independent regional record labels, which
unfortunately never bore fruit.54 A series of seminars was held to discuss issues
arising from the project, but further plans to publicize the project on nationwide
radio and through the Internet fell foul of issues relating to copyright. The alternative
musical network planned by RICM has not yet been established, although one of the
projects major goals to democratize information about music in Brazil has been
accomplished, at least partially. A large amount of information relating to the location
of independent music venues in Brazil, and how that music is brought to the public,
through local press, radio, television and music stores, was circulated throughout
the whole country by a team of four people from Ita Cultural over a period of
six months. Edson Natale is well aware that the overall success of this particular
objective will only be achieved when this information circulates independently of
Ita Cultural, a hypothetical state of affairs at present.55
Nevertheless, despite these setbacks, and the fact that he is of the opinion that
RICM could, and perhaps should have occupied a greater role in Brazilian culture,
Benjamin Taubkin is convinced that the RICM of 2000 was above all a positive
initiative that attempted to create the beginning of a dialogue about alternative
aspects of popular music that fall outside of the mainstream. For Taubkin, the
crucial difference between RICM and previous musical mapping exercises is that
those responsible for recording the music have not simply melted away, their task
presumed to be completed. RICM is intended to be a long-term commitment to the
development of a national awareness of the quality and diversity of music produced
in contemporary Brazil that does not fit into the restrictive pigeonholes created by
the media. The perennial problem in Brazil, and elsewhere, is that all too frequently
there is a lack of continuity in the planning of major cultural policies, which are

53 Benjamin Taubkin sent a synopsis of RICM to 100 national journalists but failed to
receive a single reply. Author interview with Benjamim Taubkin.
54 At the time of writing it was impossible to buy the Cartograa da Msica Brasileira
CDs, even from Ita Cultural, and there are no plans to re-release it.
55 Author interview with Edson Natale.
often at the mercy of short-term policy changes. Long-term projects such as RICM
are particularly vulnerable to this uncertainty despite the backing of a financial giant
such as Ita.56 Whether it is possible to continue to build on the groundwork laid
down by the first RICM remains in the balance and only time will tell whether such
an ambitious project can survive the harsh reality of economic life in Brazil.
Conclusion
Msica do Brasil and RICM were two contrasting, but also in some respects
complementary, undertakings. The view of musical tradition proposed by Msica
do Brasil was deliberately fluid and ambiguous, refusing to state with certainty the
origins of regional styles of music whose history is frequently shrouded in doubt and
conjecture. Msica do Brasil also consciously chose not to agonize over hair-splitting
issues of musical authenticity and argued instead for the celebration of a national and
popular music capable of embracing Brazilian drumnbass and congada at both
ends of its eclectic spectrum. Msica do Brasils commitment to celebrate musical
diversity was also linked to an awareness of the ethnic and cultural complexity
within Brazil that permits multiple expressions of brasilidade.
Hermano Viannas theory of the importance of brincadeira in national culture
was a central feature of Msica do Brasil, and he urges those concerned about the
preservation of regional forms of culture, including popular music, to act as a direct
link between that culture and mainstream society rather than attempt to construct a
protective shield around it. Vianna concludes that forms of regional popular music
and culture are far more resilient than may have been previously thought and that
they are robust enough to withstand the threats of technological progress and
globalization.
RICMs fundamental objectives, to create an alternative circuit for regional
popular music and to break down barriers between the local level and the dominant
centre, are extremely ambitious. In some ways, the desire to democratize information
about music in Brazil for example, they are similar in intent to Viannas desire to
create a network of brincadeira. By highlighting the importance of the regional
musical periphery RICM is challenging assumptions about the relative importance
of centre and periphery, and the project is an attempt to educate the public in the
same way that Mrio de Andrade wished to Brazilianize the Brazilians.
Although it might seem that arguments about authenticity in popular music
in Brazil have been rendered almost obsolete for many such as Vianna, for some
at least there remains an ongoing anxiety about what constitutes msica de boa
qualidade. This is demonstrated by the central ethos of Ita Culturals RICM, and
is also reflected in the attitudes of many of its curators. The subjective nature of
the musical choices made by those responsible for musical mapping in Brazil has
been a consistent feature: from Mrios decision to travel to the Northeast in search
of uncontaminated popular music, and the decision of the Misso de Pesquisas
56 Author interview with Benjamim Taubkin. The second edition of RICM went ahead
in 20042005.
Folclricas not to film popularesca carnival music in Recife, to the criticism levelled
at Ita Cultural for failing to musically map the huge rap and hip-hop movement in
its own backyard. The potential pitfalls of attempting to preserve and protect, or
merely to document regional music have also been a constant. Marcus Pereira fell
foul of sections of the press, eager to expose his exploitative methods, and the
media exposure generated by their inclusion in Hermano Viannas Msica do Brasil
has prompted the Arturo community in rural Minas Gerais to organize a secular form
of their musical/religious processions specifically for tourist consumption.57
These four major attempts to musically map the nation have all been driven by a
burning desire to educate the Brazilian public about the extraordinary richness and
diversity of their popular music, past and present. They have also all been projects
with intrinsic aspirations to bring the nation closer together in a cultural sense
through popular music.58 Musical mapping can generally be seen as indicative of
a desire to reflect the neglected musical and cultural output of the furthest corners
of the nation, perhaps as a subliminal means of keeping those far-flung boundaries
within the nation itself. This desire for national integration is an important factor in
a country the size of a continent, where even as recently as 2001 the RICM curator
for the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul could claim that he felt more of a musical
affinity with Uruguay or even Europe than the rest of Brazil because of the effects of
geographical and cultural isolation.59
Analysing both the projects examined in this chapter, and also those discussed
in the previous chapter, raises the question of whether they can be considered to be
significant, and if so, for whom? If we evaluate their importance solely on the basis
of their impact on the general public, then it is clear that Marcus Pereiras Msica
Popular do Brasil achieved the greatest success because his records reached a
substantial section of the record-buying public, in comparison to the work of Mrios
Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas, which has only been available to non-academics
in recent years. Hermano Viannas Msica do Brasil and Ita Culturals RICM have
unfortunately failed to make a significant mark on the public consciousness for the
reasons previously outlined. Nevertheless, even those projects that have been less
successful in this respect have acted as timely reminders of the continuing existence
and importance of regional popular music, and they have highlighted the significant
cultural role that this music plays in the lives of millions outside the major Brazilian
cities. Equally importantly, all of these projects have attempted to present an
alternative view of what constitutes Brazilian popular music by challenging orthodox
attitudes and prejudices.
57 Music and ritual: rhythmic ritual in Brazilian congado, seminar paper presented by
Glaura Lucas, Kings College, University of London, 24/1/04.
58 There have other smaller efforts to document the specific regional music of one area,
such as bahiasingulareplural produced by the state government of Bahia in 2001.
59 Arthur de Faria, Rio Grande do Sul,<http://www.itaucultural.org.br/rumos_musica/
arthur.htm> [accessed 10 June 2007].
Conclusion
Musical Hegemony and

the MPB Alliance
By the start of the twenty-first century Brazilian popular music, and indeed Brazilian
culture in general, had become the object of unprecedented levels of media attention
in Britain and elsewhere in the world. This was exemplified by the commercial
success of Bebel Gilbertos Tanto Tempo CD, which in 2004 became the biggest
selling Brazilian release of all time in the international market. Tanto Tempos
subtle reworking of the bossa nova tradition is also a reminder of an earlier era,
the heady period in the early 1960s when Brazilian music briefly ruled the world
and international audiences became intoxicated with the new sound (bossa nova)
emanating from that country. Yet Tanto Tempos re-working of a well-established
musical genre reflects only part of the complexity and vibrancy of Brazilian popular
music that both Brazilians and an increasingly larger international audience have
been enjoying over the last ten years or so. That period has been characterized by
a growing awareness of the existence of the extensive, largely untapped world of
Brazilian music that lies outside the familiar, narrow confines of bossa nova and
MPB. Genres such as contemporary Brazilian drumnbass, and soul and funk from
the 1970s have all received unprecedented exposure, and have been utilized to liven
up the dancefloors of chic clubs worldwide, and also to spice up the soundtrack to
Fernando Meirelless highly successful 2002 film, Cidade de Deus [City of God].
This shifting profile the generalized perception and acceptance that the field of
Brazilian music is a diverse and fragmented one extending far beyond the confines
of MPB itself has served as the aural backdrop to this study, which has addressed
two central issues. The first of these is how and why it was that MPB came to attain
the cultural dominance that it did within Brazil, given that its appeal and market
profile were largely middle-class in character and that it has only very rarely enjoyed
high levels of sales. The second issue to be addressed was why a certain tradition of
popular music within Brazil, of which MPB is the symbolic core, has been defended
so vigorously over such a long period. Throughout the course of this book I have
identified the various socio-economic, ideological and political factors that were
responsible for propelling MPB to its position of cultural and musical pre-eminence.
Particular emphasis was placed on the several interlocking roles of actors such
as the press, the record industry, television networks, researchers and the state, in
cementing the notion of MPB as a symbol of the totality, rather than merely a sub-
division, of Brazilian popular music over several decades. I have demonstrated how
the connection between MPB and television developed into an almost incestuous
relationship, of equal benefit to both parties, through the trajectory of the post-1972
televised song festivals, and how that relationship was nurtured and sustained through
the ubiquitous and pivotal use of popular music in telenovelas. A central issue I have
highlighted has been that the influence of MPB as a musical style has persisted for
so long because it was the soundtrack to some of the key developments in Brazilian
politics and cultural life, and also because it has been consistently marketed as a
stable beacon of quality in a sea of musical ephemera.
The fact that MPB shot to prominence in the mid 1960s and consolidated its
position through the early 1970s is no accident: Brazilian society was dramatically
and rapidly transformed, both economically and socially, during that era due to the
impact of urbanization and industrialization: fundamental changes that also came
about under the shadow of an authoritarian military regime. A massive expansion
in the national market for cultural goods occurred after the 1964 coup, and in terms
of popular music this was reflected in the sales of record players, which increased
by 813 per cent between 1967 and 1980, and in the sales of LPs, which rose from
25 million in 1972 to 66 million in 1979.1 Unfortunately there are very limited
statistics available relating to which particular genres of music were sold during the
1960s and early 1970s, but it seems safe to conclude that these were the economic
factors that released increased consumer spending power especially middle-class
spending power and which, accompanied by incessant media attention for the
movement between the mid 1960s and mid 1970s, gave MPB a significant boost
during a critical period. The middle class was a vital ally of the military regime
and was also the main beneficiary of the Economic Miracle between 1968 and
1972. It was the middle class which was the primary consumer of MPB during this
crucial phase and consequently it became their music. The massive investment in
MPB during this period is inextricably linked to the shifting relationship between
the Brazilian middle class, the state, the market, the social scene and the cultural-
ideological developments of the time. In other words, the first question addressed by
this study is not paradoxical after all; the middle-class identity of MPB is the key to
its hegemonic status.
The Declining Fortunes of MPB
The dominance of MPB has unravelled over an extended period that can be dated
from the early to mid 1980s. Periodic press reports chronicling the creative drought
afflicting MPB became more and more apparent in the 1980s and 1990s, articulating
a frustration that the movement had lost its way and that the MPB repertoire had
become even more cautious and predictable than during the period of the most intense
government censorship. During this time, many MPB artists took the safe option
of regularly re-recording tributes to classic songwriters such as Tom Jobim, Ary
Barroso, Chico Buarque, Roberto Carlos et al. to ensure that the public continued to
buy their CDs.2 This developed into a full-blown trend of endless recycling of songs
1 Renato Ortiz, Popular Culture, Modernity and Nation, in Through the Kaleidoscope:
The Experience of Modernity in Latin America, ed. by Vivian Schelling (London, 2000),
pp. 127147 (p. 135).
2 Anon, O golpe do ba, Veja, 10/11/99, p. 217. See also, Okky de Souza,Trilha
perigosa, Veja, 7/10/81, p. 123.
CONCLUSION 181
by renowned artists from the past, ushering in what one journalist referred to as the
song-book era.3 The reasons cited for this trend were two-fold: first, there was a
dearth of new song-writing talent to match that of the good old days twenty years
previously (a familiar claim that had been made at regular intervals over the previous
twenty years); and second, the tactic seemed to guarantee large sales, something
not to be considered lightly in an era of generally falling record sales. As MPB
increasingly gave the appearance of turning into a musical museum it lost touch
with a younger audience and also alienated potential songwriters who, unable to
persuade MPB performers, or their record companies, to cover their compositions,
were more likely to try their luck in other fields such as pagode, msica romntica
or msica sertaneja.4
Despite its ailing condition, MPB still exerts a degree of cultural influence in
the Brazilian media, although even these last vestiges of its prestige have come
under increasing attack over the last few years. Hermano Vianna was involved in
an acrimonious press debate on the issue in 1999, after he launched a fierce assault
on the arrogance of those writers and critics who continue to marginalize styles of
popular music such as pagode and ax-music that are considered to be less prestigious
than MPB:
There are artists who, no matter how many records they sell or how loved they are by
the majority of the Brazilian population, do not exist in the opinion of the editors of the
Enciclopdia da Msica Brasileira. [...] The megastars of ax or pagode are targets for
all sorts of insults by critics and the like. This crazy intolerance has taken on the tone of
a moral crusade on behalf of boa msica (which, by definition, is that which the critic
likes, based on criteria that are never seriously discussed).5
In his ground-breaking study Eu No Sou Cachorro, No: Msica Popular Cafona e

Ditadura Militar, Paulo Cesar de Arajo deconstructed the hierarchically dominant
position conferred upon MPB, demonstrating the systematic manner in which it has
been cosseted by critics and the record industry in comparison to more popularesca
styles of music such as msica cafona or brega.6 MPB also received a critical
broadside from an article published in 2003 by the journalist Lus Antnio Giron, who
forcefully argued that contemporary Brazilian popular music (now, in his opinion a
combination of rock, pop and electronic music) has virtually lost any connection
to the established idea of MPB. Giron believes that the old musical hierarchy has
now been dismantled, and that in contemporary Brazilian popular music anything
goes, with ax-music, msica sertaneja, pop, pagode and forr all competing on an
essentially equal footing, although he does concede that the legacy of MPB can still
be detected in the existence of a musical standard of quality. Giron concludes his
piece with what reads like an epitaph for MPB:
3 Julio Cesar de Barros, De costas para o novo, Veja, 27/3/96, p. 114.

4 Ibid., p. 115.
5 Hermano Vianna, Condenao silenciosa, Folha de So Paulo, 25/4/99.
6 Arajo, Eu No Sou Cachorro, No (Rio de Janeiro, 2002).
The time to celebrate the generation of geniuses has now passed; it is now time to reserve
entries for them in encyclopedias and bury for ever the mother-acronym [MPB] so that
new Brazilian musicians can achieve their destinies without the shackles of the past.7
Whether Girons predictions will materialize still remains in doubt, but in the
drastically changing world of popular music worldwide, with its ever decreasing
time-spans of loyalty to musical styles and performers, it seems extremely unlikely
that any future generation of Brazilian musicians and performers will be venerated
to the degree, and with the consistency, that the biggest names of MPB, such as
Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque, have been since the 1960s.
The Defence of Musical Tradition
Turning now to the other main question posed by this study, I have argued throughout
this book that a clearly defined tendency has existed over a period of decades among
various groups and individuals in Brazil who have felt the necessity to defend
popular music from the threat of alien foreign influences. That trend was first
identified in the writings of Mrio de Andrade and is particularly apparent in the
activities of the Association of Researchers in Brazilian popular music (APMPB),
FUNARTEs Projeto Pixinguinha, and the work of Marcus Pereira, all of which
have left their own particular mark on Brazilian popular music. The persistence of
these attitudes over such a long period, and the perennial debate on the issue of
cultural invasion within popular music in Brazil, are inextricably bound up with
political, social and intellectual arguments that cross the social divide, encompassing
the state, intellectuals, the media and the public. These concerns about foreign
cultural penetration can be viewed in the context of the argument, as analysed by
Roberto Schwarz, that Brazilian culture has been characterized by an imitative
tendency ever since Independence, and that this has often resulted in an uncritical
adoption of imported cultural forms, normally from the United States or Europe.
Those Brazilians who have resented such cultural imitation have frequently based
their own search for authentic national cultural roots on the notion that it might be
possible to locate such a culture if only the anti-national effects of the mass media
and commercial interests could be removed.8 Schwarzs sceptical questioning of this
fallacy is particularly pertinent if applied to the case of the Brazilian record industry.
Concerns about the dilution of national popular music by commercialization and
foreign influences have resurfaced on a regular basis because, in the opinion of those
who oppose foreign cultural domination, it is the Brazilian record industry (which
has been, and still remains, foreign-controlled) that has been responsible for the
subversion of Brazilian popular music from within Brazil itself.
Various initiatives intended to protect and preserve Brazilian popular music have
been fuelled by an undercurrent of musical, and occasionally political, nationalism.
These endeavours, whether they be Almirantes broadcasts; the writings of
7 Lus Antnio Giron, A MPB acabou, Bravo!, July 2003, p. 61.

8 Roberto Schwarz, Brazilian Culture: Nationalism by Elimination, in Misplaced
Ideas: essays on Brazilian culture, ed. by John Gledson (London, 1992), pp. 118 (p. 3).
CONCLUSION 183
Vasconcellos, Rangel and Tinhoro; the musical mapping of Marcus Pereira, the
work of the APMPB and the Projeto Pixinguinha, have often taken on an added
dimension of cultural resistance, incorporating a desire to refute the axiom that Brazil
is a country without a memory. It is largely because Brazilian popular music has
had such a strong association with the concept of national identity that the tradition
has been defended with such passion.9 The dream of cultural unification has been of
critical importance in the construction of Brazilian nationhood due to the countrys
geographical vastness and ethnic and social diversity. In the complex nationalist and
populist discourse that developed during the twentieth century, popular music played
a key role, being employed at different times as a powerful symbol of brasilidade
and social unification (in the 1930s) and an emblem of the possibility of social
transformation (in the 1960s).
The role of intellectuals poets, musicians, historians, anthropologists, folklorists
and the like has been identified as of paramount importance in the development of
nationalist ideologies worldwide because the latter have been historically considered
to be adept at articulating concerns that are potentially shared by the population at
large through the construction of appropriate images, myths and symbols.10 In the
conceptualization of musical tradition in Brazil, Mrio de Andrades writings fulfilled
that intellectual role and his overall influence on attitudes towards popular music in
Brazil has been enduring and considerable. Mrios thinking has been the ideological
touchstone for many of the projects discussed in this book that were fundamentally
preoccupied with the defence of that tradition. Almirante, Vasconcellos, Tinhoro,
and some of the researchers, critics and academics attached to the APMPB can
also be considered to fulfil this role of providing an intellectual foundation for the
justification and validation of a particular musical tradition.
As the twentieth century entered its final decades, adherents of musical
nationalism in Brazil increasingly saw the ground cut away from beneath them as
popular music diversified further and further away from any notion of absolutist
purity. This escalating musical heterogeneity and fusion of disparate national and
international styles seems to confirm Bryan McCanns assertion that Mrio was
ultimately incorrect in his assessment of the potential damage to popular music
in Brazil from alien influences; it was those very influences that were eventually
responsible for the creation of a vibrant, self-assured musical tradition in Brazil that
Mrio had yearned for.11 Evidence of that complex, hybrid tradition can be seen
in such disparate developments as Beto Villares and Hermano Viannas Msica do
Brasil project, the music of Carlinhos Brown and the blocos-afro in Bahia, and the
manguebeat movement that arose in Pernambuco in the early 1990s.
9 Such defensiveness has not been confined to Brazil or Latin America. The BBC in
Britain were particularly concerned about the potentially subversive cultural affects of North
American popular music in Britain in the 1950s and laid down strict limits on how much of
such material should be broadcast. Dick Hebdige, Hiding in the Light: on images and things
(London, 1988), pp. 545.
10 Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (London, 1991), p. 93.
11 McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil, pp. 1617.
Despite the fears regularly expressed during the 1970s, by Marcus Pereira
among others, that Brazilian popular music was endangered by foreign music and
notwithstanding high sales for imported music at the time, sales of Brazilian music
actually outsold foreign records by a ratio of two to one, and furthermore, have done
so for a period of at least twenty years. So did Brazilian popular music actually need
to be defended with such forcefulness after all? Sales are of course not the only
criterion by which levels of cultural penetration can be measured, but it surely seems
that the case for the defence of national music was somewhat overplayed, doubtlessly
because the issue was linked for some to other wider ideological and political
agendas of the period such as the debate pre and post-Economic Miracle, on both
the political left and right, about issues such as Brazils economic development, the
nations future development and dependency theory.
Yet Brazil has repeatedly found itself at the intersection of transatlantic musical
movements and the country has been directly involved in the global musical field for
some considerable time. Brazil has also experienced extreme nationalist sentiments at
various historical moments but has also consistently been the subject of pronounced
international influences in the political, cultural and economic spheres. An almost
constant tension between the two competing and contradictory forces can be
identified: the fundamental character of Brazilian popular culture is simultaneously
national and international.
Disco cultura the slogan that was stamped across the sleeves of hundreds
of thousands of Brazilian records in the 1970s is symptomatic of the ambiguity
at the central core of the arguments about foreign dominance of national music.
The phrase was in one sense evocative of the artistic sentiments of several of the
stars of MPB of that period who were convinced that their music had a social and
cultural significance that went beyond the mere commercial.12 This was reflected in
the degree of attention to detail that was lavished on the packaging of LPs by MPB
artists (cover photography, liner notes, lyric sheets) in the 1970s, which demonstrated
that the albums were designed to be considered cultural artefacts rather than merely
records. MPB was also targeted at the same social elites that have historically
looked to North America and Europe for cultural models, and like bossa nova before
it, it was marketed in the 1970s, by Andr Midani and others, as a sophisticated
cultural product to match those imported from abroad.
The phrase disco cultura also suggests that the military governments of the
1970s believed that popular music was worthy of support and that it merited being
placed on a similar footing to other more elevated cultural forms traditionally
associated with governmental financial assistance. Yet in reality it was the very
administrations associated with this ethos that introduced generous tax concessions
for multinational record companies operating in Brazil, and which, for fear of
jeopardizing foreign investment, steadfastly refused to challenge the commercial
stranglehold exerted by those companies. It was also the same administrations that
only decided to support cultural projects such as the Projeto Pixinguinha when they
felt that there was political capital to be made from the opportunity. Therefore a
contradiction exists between the rather grandiose claims suggested by the slogan
12 Arajo, Eu No Sou Cachorro, No, p. 188.

CONCLUSION 185
disco cultura and the perfunctory manner in which the state merely paid lip
service to defending national popular music.
The recurrent desire to musically map the nation seems to reflect an underlying
desire to engage with the central question of what it is to be Brazilian. Writer and critic
Ana Maria Bahiana considers that contemporary concerns and ongoing debate about
nationality in Brazil reflect the fact that the country is the only Portuguese-speaking
nation in Latin America and that many Brazilians do not consider themselves to be
Latin Americans in the widest sense of the term. Furthermore, Brazil has a very
complex relationship with the United States (one that might be termed love-hate)
and was almost a French, Dutch, and Spanish colony at various periods in history.
In Bahianas opinion, due to these cultural and historical reasons, Brazilians appear
to periodically need to reinforce their sense of identity, and popular music, along
with sport, is one of the few opportunities where it is possible for Brazil to attempt
to define itself on the national and international stage.13 The financial sponsorship of
the Msica do Brasil and RICM projects by commercial giants such as Abril and Ita
is a demonstration of the continuing belief held by the organizers of those projects
that popular music has something significant to say about Brazilian identity, and, as
I demonstrated in Chapter 7, Msica do Brasil was inspired by a desire to explore
aspects of national identity rather than merely document different styles of regional
music. However, it should also be stressed that the various efforts to musically map
Brazil since 1938 have all been targeted at a predominantly elite audience and they
have all made a brief ripple on the cultural scene before vanishing, largely without
trace. This raises the question of whether issues such as the need to preserve musical
tradition are of any real relevance to the majority of the population, or are they
merely the concerns of limited numbers of academics and intellectuals?
In this regard it might be relevant to consider the general motives of those who
were so vociferous about the threat to Brazilian popular music. On what terms do
some individuals and associations assume the moral right to claim that they are acting
in the defence of the national? On behalf of whose cultural heritage and memory are
they acting, and in whose interest is it to take up the cudgels of cultural resistance?
Obviously the motivations of the individuals and organizations examined in this
book have varied greatly but they have one thing in common; none of them exist(ed)
in a cultural or social vacuum. Individuals such as Marcus Vincius and Hermnio
Bello de Carvalho and organizations such as the APMPB can be considered to form
part of what is sometimes referred to as a musical class in Brazil that often adopts
a self-imposed mission to guard the nations musical heritage and to keep it alive.
Knowing that the state has historically shied away from any major efforts to promote
and preserve the memory of popular music in Brazil, with the obvious exception of
the Projeto Pixinguinha, this musical class takes up this duty precisely because
it is aware that it is extremely unlikely that any official body will intervene in this
area. One could also argue that what is actually being defended in addition to, or
even perhaps rather than musical tradition is the position of the musical class
itself. These individuals and associations often take on the role of unpaid cultural
guardians, and gatekeepers in some instances, but at the same time in the course of
13 Author interview with Ana Maria Bahiana.

their work they also acquire personal recognition, something that brings with it an
element of status in the Brazilian artistic and academic fields.14
The particular sensitivity, for some at least, concerning the perceived threat to
popular music in Brazil is slightly puzzling because it does not appear that this
sensitivity extends to other cultural forms such as literature or cinema, for example.
This emotional attachment to popular music is evident in the regular attendance by
Brazilians at live music shows, both in Brazil and abroad, and the central function
that such music still plays in the lives of millions through television, radio, religious
ceremonies and rituals, and folkloric traditions. Perhaps it was this underlying
national sentiment that Marcus Pereira and Hermano Vianna tapped into during their
musical treks around Brazil. Yet it surely paradoxical that in a nation which appears
to value popular music so highly there are no departments dedicated to popular music
studies in Brazilian universities (the few Brazilian academics working in the field are
usually based in History, Literature or Politics departments), and there are virtually
no Brazilian academic journals specialising in popular music studies.
I have argued that MPB represents the concerted effort of a specific class within
Brazilian society to define and express itself. That MPB was profoundly bound up
with the history of the Brazilian middle class from the mid 1960s onwards is evident
from its consumer profile, its political and ideological importance (during the period
of the military dictatorship), and the various persistent interventions in support of
MPB by actors such as the musical class, researchers and critics. At the same time
it is important to note the contradiction between the historical, ideological function
of MPB as a national treasure and the fact that not only is there a striking lack of
support for Brazilian popular music at the state, institutional and academic levels
but also that beyond the confines of the middle class the wider Brazilian public now
appear to have minimal interest in the importance of MPB as a symbol of national
identity.
14 Mention should also be made at this point of the important role of individual record
collectors in Brazil whose extensive collections have often served as invaluable archives for
record labels seeking to re- release historical material. As Shuker points out, one of the multiple
functions of the collecting of records can be stewardship and cultural preservation. Roy
Shuker, Beyond the high fidelity stereotype: defining the (contemporary) record collector,
Popular Music, 23/3 (2004), 31130 (p. 312).
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Interviews
Hermano Vianna, Rio de Janeiro, 26/9/00.

Marcus Vincius, Rio de Janeiro, 2/11/01
Mrcio Gonalves, Rio de Janeiro, 12/11/01.
Trik de Souza, Rio de Janeiro, 15/11/01.
Thomas Pappon, London, 22/2/03.
Maria Luiza Khfouri, So Paulo, 22/8/03.
Benjamim Taubkin, So Paulo, 27/8/03.
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Marcus Vincius, So Paulo, 29/8/03.
Ana Maria Bahiana, Rio de Janeiro, 23/9/03.
Paulo Csar Soares, Rio de Janeiro, 25/9/03.
Flvio Silva, Rio de Janeiro, 25/9/03.
Hermnio Bello de Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, 26/9/03.
Paulo Csar Soares, Rio de Janeiro, 29/6/04.
Beto Villares, So Paulo, 26/9/06.
Discography
L.H. Corra de Azevedo: Music of Cear and Minas Gerais, RCD 10404, 1997.
Misso de Pesquisas Folcricas, The Discoteca Collection, RCD 10403, 1997.
Misso de Pesquisas Folcricas CDSS005/06.
Turista Apprendiz, A Barca, CPC-UMES, CP519, 2000.
Msica do Brasil, Abril Music, 2000.
Msica popular do Nordeste, vols. 14, Discos Marcus Pereira MPL 20012004,
1973.
Msica popular do Centro-Oeste/Sudeste, vols. 14, Discos Marcus Pereira MPL
20052008, 1974.
Msica popular do Sul, vols. 14, Discos Marcus Pereira MPL 201013, 1975.
Msica popular do Norte, vols. 14, Discos Marcus Pereira MPL 93529355,
1977.
Coleo Cartografia Musical Brasileira / Rumos Ita Cultural Msica (2001/2002)
Cartografia Musical Brasileira AC/AP/AM/PA/RO/RR CMB75
Cartografia Musical Brasileira AL/CE/PB/PE/RN/SE CMB76
Cartografia Musical Brasileira BA CMB77
Cartografia Musical Brasileira DF/GO/MG/MS/TO CMB78
Cartografia Musical Brasileira ES/RJ CMB79
Cartografia Musical Brasileira MA/PI CMB80
Cartografia Musical Brasileira MG CMB81
Cartografia Musical Brasileira PR/SC CMB82
Cartografia Musical Brasileira RS CMB83
Cartografia Musical Brasileira SP CMB84
Index
A Escrava Isaura 84 Argentina 29, 76, 80, 138

Abertura (1975) 6872 Armorial movement, see Movimento
ABPD, see Associao Brasileira dos Armorial 38
Produtores de Discos Arraes, Miguel 147
Abreu, Fernanda 105, 169 Arturo 178
Abreu, Zequinha de 23 Assim na Terra como no Cu 83
Abril Assis, Francisco de 29
Abril Entretenimento 156, 160, 168, Associao Brasileira dos Produtores de
170, 185 Discos (ABPD) 74, 96, 100, 102
Abril Music 97n41 Associao dos Pesquisadores da Msica
Editora Abril 545, 85 Popular Brasileira (APMPB) 1, 9,
Acordeon, Oswaldinho do 128 358, 42, 48, 55, 104, 115, 116, 118,
Adelaide, Julinho da 69 121, 129, 172, 175, 182, 183, 185
Adorno, Theodor 8990, 94 Association of Researchers in Brazilian
African/Afro-Diasporic music 3, 5, 29, 105, Popular Music (APMPB), see
145, 162 Associao dos Pesquisadores da
Alagoas 164 Msica Popular Brasileira
Alf, Johnny 27n77 ax-music 42, 53, 86, 102, 181
Almeida, Renato 12 Azevedo, Geraldo 2
Almirante 4, 1617, 1822, 38, 126, 182, Azevedo, Luiz Heitor Corra de 142
183 Aznavour, Charles 22
Al Amigos 15
Alvarenga 15n21 babaus 140
Alvarenga, Oneyda 140, 145 Babo, Lamartine 23
Amap 160 Bahia 5, 29, 42, 105, 136, 153, 156, 168,
Amelinha 75 171, 183
Andrade, Carlos Drummond de 45 Bahiana, Ana Maria 58, 5960, 7071,
Andrade, Carolina 146 152n76, 185
Andrade, Leny 126 baio 27
Andrade, Mrio de 34, 6, 8, 9, 1114, 18, Baila Comigo 84
19, 24, 26, 27, 38, 44, 45, 107, 121, baile funk 164, 165
125, 1313 passim, 1437 passim, bambel 144
150, 156, 157, 159, 160, 164, 175, banda de pfanos 144
1778, 182 Bandeira, Manuel 45
Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas (MPF) Bandolim, Jacob do 120
131, 13643, 151, 157, 161, 162, Banquete dos Mendigos 115
1778 Barnab, Arrigo 73
Andreato, Elifas 54, 55 Barroso, Ary 2, 5, 15, 20, 21, 23, 27, 66,
Andrew Sisters 22 141, 180
APMPB, see Associao dos Pesquisadores Barroso, Inezita 128
da Msica Popular Brasileira Bastos, Ronaldo 44
Arajo, Paulo Csar de 44, 181 Batista, Amado 43
ARENA 113 batuque 17, 162, 171
batuque do Par 145 Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and
Beatles, The 24, 25, 30, 54, 94, 153 Statistics, see IBOPE
Becaud, Gilbert 22 Brazilian Music Society, see Sombrs
beguine 22 Brazilian Society of Folklore 142
Belm 122, 126, 165 brega 43, 47, 578, 126, 181 see also
Belissima 83 msica cafona
Belo Horizonte 122, 128 Britain, see Great Britain
Ben, Jorge 2, 45, 55, 69, 73 Brito, Brasil Rocha 4
Benjor, Jorge 53 Brown, Carlinhos 105, 108, 169, 183
Bethnia, Maria 2, 46, 53, 62, 83, 107 Buarque, Chico 2, 312, 4151 passim, 55,
Bill Haley and the Comets 24 59, 61, 66, 68n10, 69, 73, 77, 78, 83,
Billboard 34, 99 86, 115n14, 120, 180, 182
Bizz 612 bugio 145
Black Rio movement 109 bumba-meu-boi 139, 140, 144, 147, 154,
Blackboard Jungle 23 174
Blanc, Aldir 44, 74, 115n14 Byrne, David 107
Blanco, Billy 77
Blitz 100 Cabral, Joo 45
blues music 42, 60 Cabral, Srgio 312, 35, 48, 55, 121, 145,
BMG 90 155
Boal, Augusto 29 Cafi 54
boi-bumbas 140, 171 Calado, Carlos 62
boi-de-mamo 162 calango 144
boi-de-reis 162, 166 Campaign for the Defence of Brazilian
boi do Amazonas 145 Folklore 117, 143, 156n92
bois do Maranho 145 Campos, Augusto de 4, 28
boi do Par 145 Cano de Protesto 24, 25, 48, 49, 143,
bolero 23, 62 149n66
Bondinho 60 canes 144
Bonfa, Luiz 106n86 candombl 162
Bosco, Belchior 74 cantigas 140, 162
Bosco, Joo 2, 69, 74, 78, 125 cantigas de roda 140
bossa nova 2, 53, 55, 56, 59, 143, 179, 184 cantos de trabalho 145
and the cultural invasion debate 23, 24, Capinam, Jos Carlos 44
27, 28, 29, 30, 37 Carandiru prison 1
and MPB 39, 42, 44, 49, 51 Cardoso, Elizeth 127
and Projeto Pixinguinha 125, 126, 127 carimb 27, 57, 145
Bossa Nova movement 2, 3, 23, 26, 28, 38, Carlos, Erasmo 667
41, 69, 106 Carlos, Roberto 34, 42, 43, 53, 62, 66, 73,
Bossaudade 66 108, 180
Braga, Ney 35, 116, 118 Carneiro, dison 135, 143
Branco, Castelo 112 Cartola 5, 15n21, 57, 120, 125, 149n67
Brando, Leci 69 Carvalho, Beth 125
Brandt, Fernando 44 Carvalho, Hermnio Bello de 37, 12021,
Braslia 61, 128, 172 123, 1245, 126, 129, 130, 185
Brasilio Itiber da Cunha 11 Carvalho, Ilmar 30
Braunweiser, Martin 139, 140 Carvalho, Machado de 67
Bravo! 174 Cascudo, Lus da Cmara 140, 145, 161
Brazilian Bitles, The 24 Cash Box 99
INDEX 207
Castro, Max de 84 CPCs, see Centres of Popular Culture
Castro, Ruy 35, 48 CPC-UMES 62, 104, 128, 148n64, 172
catimbs 140 Cuba 80
catira 144 Cugat, Xavier 22
catumbi 162 Cuiab 122, 160
cavalo-marinho 162 Cuit 166
Cavaquinho, Nelson 125 Cultura FM 345
caxambu 162 cultural imperialism 7, 89, 913, 97100,
Caymmi, Nana 125 1014, 108
Cazuza 35 cultural invasion 9, 2238, 51, 89, 102, 103,
CBS 31, 40, 52, 91 127, 182
Cear 142 Cunha, Euclides da 148
Cearense, Catulo da Paixo 13, 44 Curitiba 122, 127
Celebridade 82n65, 83 cururu 144, 162
Centre of Folklore Research 142n45
Centre-West of Brazil 1445 dana de Santa Cruz 144
Centres of Popular Culture (CPCs) 26, 135, dana de So Gonalo 144
147 dana do cacentinho 145
Csar, Chico 3, 50 dana do caninha verde 145
Chateaubriand, Assis 66 dana dos imperiais 145
Chaves, Erlon 67 danas praieiras 140
Chico & Caetano 79n55 Dancin Days 124
Chico Science Nao Zumbi 50, 85 Davis, Clive 52
China 43n19 declamaes 145
Chitozinho and Xoror 108 Deodato, Eumir 106n86
choro 4, 5, 1617, 20, 21, 39, 11617, 121, Department of Culture 139, 140, 147n59
126, 149n67, 171, 174 desafios 140
chotes 145 desfeiteira 145
chula Marajoara 145 Detentos do Rap 1
Cidade de Deus 107, 179 disco 3, 34, 35, 72, 73, 76, 92, 95, 105, 124,
cinema 22, 23, 104n74, 107, 116, 117, 118, 150
138, 179, 186 Disney, Walt 15, 23
cirandas 144, 145, 162 distenso 11213, 123, 129
City of God, see Cidade de Deus ditos 145
Clark, Walter 712 DJ Dolores 174
classical music 27, 34, 43, 47, 81, 174 DJ Marlboro 164
CliqueMusic 62 Djavan 62, 70, 77, 126, 129
cocos 140, 144, 162 Domingo do Fausto 79
Coimbra, Lui 172 Domingues, Henrique Foreis, see Almirante
congadas 139, 144, 156n92, 162, 164, 171, Dominguinhos 86
174, 177 Donato, Joo 46n32, 83, 106n86, 125
Conjunto Exporta Samba 125 Donga 5, 149n67
Continental 52, 57 drum n bass 93, 105, 1089, 164, 177, 179
coreto 144 Duarte, Paolo 139, 147n59
Costa, Alaide 125 Duprat Rogrio 55
Costa, Gal 2, 34, 50, 61, 69, 77, 97n41, 156 Dusek, Eduardo 57n76, 100
Costa, Paulinho da 107n86
Costa, Sueli 115n14 Editora Abril, see under Abril
country music 105 Ednardo 69, 71n22
electronic music 174, 181 European 131, 1323
embolada 116, 140, 144 US 131, 1323
Embrafilme 119 folklore 8, 12, 13, 19, 38, 114, 117, 131,
EMBRATEL, see Empresa Brasileira de 132, 1346, 13643, 144, 146,
Telecomunicaes 14752, 155, 156, 165, 186
EMI 90 Folklore Society 134
EMI-Odeon 74 for-rock, see forr
Empresa Brasileira de Telecomunicaes forr 103, 107, 171, 174, 181
(EMBRATEL) 66 Fortaleza 128
England 99 foxtrot 20n48, 22, 138
folk music of 1011, 14, 17, 1323 France 84, 108, 138
English Folk-Song Society 9, 1011, 14 Franco, Itamar 95
Ensaio Geral 66 Franco, Walter 60, 69, 70, 71, 72
entrudo 17 Freire, Paulo 147
Espndola, Tet 76 Frenette, Marco 174
Europe 84, 85, 93, 107, 109, 134, 135, 184 frevo 116, 125, 143, 144, 151, 153, 171, 174
folk music of 131, 1323 Freyre, Gilberto 1367, 1667
inuence of 22, 24, 42, 60, 107, 137, FUNARTE 35, 36, 37, 38, 103, 111, 116,
182 11720, 1224, 129, 134, 136, 143,
musical nationalism in 910, 132 151, 156n92, 170
record industry in 91 Projeto Pixinguinha 6, 8, 17, 37, 103,
111, 118, 12029, 130, 172, 182,
Fbio Jr. 57 183, 184, 185
Fagner 62, 69, 72, 74, 75, 77, 82, 154n86 funk 3, 103, 105, 106, 107, 109, 126, 160,
Falco, Aluizio 148 165, 169, 172, 175, 179
fandangos 144, 145, 162
Farkas, Toms 148 Galeno, Juvenal 13
Farney, Dick 27n77 galopes 140
Federal Council of Culture 135 Gang 90 e as Absurdettes 76
Ferreira, Ascenso 140 Gata Mansa, Marisa 125
Ferrete, Joo Luiz 545 Geisel, Ernesto 11214, 115n13, 117, 118,
Festival da Msica Brasileira (2000) 778, 119, 122, 129, 136n21
1756 Gil, Gilberto 2, 5, 25, 289, 49, 50, 55, 69,
Festival da Nova Msica Popular Brasileira 78, 83, 85, 86, 98, 115n14, 156
(MPB-80) 65, 746, 86 Gilberto, Bebel 93, 106, 108, 179
Festival dos Festivais (1985) 76 Gilberto, Joo 28, 29, 41
Festival Internacional de Cano (FIC) 30, Chega de Saudade 2, 55, 95n29
60, 65, 66, 678, 70 Giron, Lus Antnio 62n90, 1812
FIC, see Festival Internacional de Cano Gismonti, Egberto 35, 46n32
Filho, Hermilo Borba 144, 148 globalization 7, 89, 913, 1046, 108, 136
folclore de Santa Catarina 145 Globo 71, 75, 76n41, 77, 80, 82, 83, 84,
folguedo 166 148, 1756 see also TV-Globo
Folha de So Paolo 60, 62n90 Gnatalli, Radams 15, 27, 126
folia 144, 165 Gois 142
folia de reis 162, 165 Gonzaga, Chiquinha 12, 35
folk music 10, 17, 43, 131, 1323 Gonzaga, Luiz 66
Brazilian 1114, 1312, 13643, 144, Gonzaguinha 334, 49, 75, 77, 115n14, 125
1523, 154, 156, 157 Goodman, Benny 15
English 1011, 14, 17 gospel music 86
INDEX 209
Goulart, Joo 26, 147 Japan 91, 107
Great Britain 92, 94, 183n9 jazz 20n48, 23, 278, 39, 46, 58, 59, 60,
Gretchen 127 105, 106n86, 109, 129
Grupo de Dana de So Gonalo da Jesus, Clementina de 40, 120, 125, 145, 153
Mussuca 164 Joanna 75
Grupo Razes do Samba de So Brs 168 Joo Pessoa 122
Guara 153 Jobim, Antonio Carlos 44, 107n86
Guarabira, Gutemberg 71, 115n14 Jobim, Tom 68n10, 180
Guedes, Fatima 76 jongo 144, 171, 174
Guerra, Ruy 44 Jornal da Msica 60
Guimares, Francisco, see Vagalume Jornal do Brasil 26, 30, 60, 99
Jos, Odair 57
Haley, Bill 24 jovem guarda 2, 28, 3940, 52, 53, 109
heavy metal 165 Jovem Guarda 667, 143
Henrique, Waldemar 145 Joyce 76, 115n14
Herder, Johann Gottfried 10, 132
hip-hop 37, 51, 103, 105, 106, 109, 173, Kamayur Indians 145
1745, 178 Keti, Z 125
Histria da Msica Popular Brasileira Khfouri, Maria Luiza 345
545, 144 Kleyton and Kledir 73
Hobsbawm, Eric 1617, 133 Kuarup 104, 128, 172
Holanda, Srgio Buarque de 137 Kubrusly, Maurcio 334, 59
Hollywood Rock festival 101, 106
house music 165 Lacerda, Benedito 16
Hungria, Jlio 30, 72 Ladeira, Antnio 139
Lancellotti, Silvio 60, 71, 150
IBM e-festival 78 Lara, Dona Ivone 15n21, 145
IBOPE (Brazilian Institute of Public Latin America 10, 22, 26, 81, 84, 91, 93, 98,
Opinion and Statistics) 21n53, 70 105, 135, 145, 150, 153, 185
i i i 235, 28 Leo, Nara 556, 145, 146, 152
indigenous music 14, 145, 163, 164, Lee, Rita 34, 97n41, 100
167n28, 173 Lee, Vander 173
Informa Som 33 Legio Urbana 40
Institute of Higher Studies (ISEB) 25, 26, Lenine 3, 50, 77
135 Lvi-Strauss, Dina 139
Institutional Act (fifth; 1968) 28, 31, 32, 79, Library of Congress 142
112, 118, 149n66 Archive of Folk Song 132
International Congress of Folklore 1423 Lins, Ivan 2, 69, 78, 83, 115n14, 125
International Song Festival (FIC), see L Borges 156
Festival Internacional de Cano Lobo 77
Internet 623, 78, 94, 96, 97, 102, 160, 161, Lobo, Edu 2, 25, 28, 47, 83
162, 170, 176 Lomax, Alan 1323, 142, 144
Intervalo 24 Lomax, John 132
invented traditions 9, 1422, 133 lundu 16, 43, 140, 145
ISEB, see Institute of Higher Studies lundum 168
Isto 46n32, 154 Lyra, Carlos 23, 42, 1256
Ita Cultural 6, 8, 170, 175, 176, 177, 185
Macal, Jards 45, 69, 70, 115n14, 125
Jackson, Michael 92n19, 98 maambique 162
Macei 128 milongas 145
Madi, Tito 126 Minas Gerais 56, 139, 142, 156, 171, 178
Magal, Sidney 82 Ministry for Justice 118
Mambembe 72 Ministry of Cultural Affairs (SEAC) 1234
mambo 22 Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC)
Manaus 122 35, 37, 11314, 118
mangue-beat 103, 106, 156, 172, 183 Miranda, Carmen 2, 5, 15, 55, 98
marabaixo 162 Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas (MPF),
maracat 116, 151, 156, 162, 164, 171, 174 see under Andrade, Mrio de
marambir 145 Mixturao 72
Maranho 139, 140, 145, 147, 165 moambique 144
marchinas 22 modas 144
Mariano, Pedro 84 modas de viola 27, 144
Marina 76 Modernist movement (Brazil) 3, 12, 43, 44,
Marinho, Roberto 67 134, 136
Marky Mark 164 modinha 11, 43, 144, 145
Marlene 125 Monarco 125
martelos 140 Monte, Marisa 3
Martins, Victor 44, 115n14 Montenegro, Oswaldo 72, 75
Marzago, Augusto 68n10 Morais, Vinicus de 35, 44
Matogrosso, Ney 69, 100 Moreira, Airto 106n86
matraca 145 Moreira, Moraes 125
Mautner, Jorge 69, 70 Morengueira, Kid 125
Maximo, Joo 48 Motta, Nelson 68
maxixe 11, 109, 136, 137, 164 Moura, Roberto 35, 61, 117, 172
Maxixe Machine 174 Movimento 58, 60, 154
mazurka 145 Movimento Armorial 38, 154
MCA 90 Movimento Democrtico Brasileiro (MDB)
MCP, see Popular Culture Movement 11213
MDB, see Movimento Democrtico MPB, see Msica Popular Brasileira
Brasileiro MPB-80, see Festival da Nova Msica
MEC, see Ministry of Education and Popular Brasileira
Culture MPF (Misso de Pesquisas Folclricas),
Medaglia, Julio 28, 70, 70, 73, 77 see under Andrade, Mrio de
Medalha, Marlia 125 MTV 54, 65, 856, 87, 102, 104, 106, 160,
Mdici, Emilio 112 161, 162, 169
Meirelles, Fernando 179 Mulheres Apaixonadas 83
Mello, Fernando Collor de 136n21 Museum of Image and Sound 36
Mello, Zuza Homem de 35, 46, 72, 78 music industry, see record industry
A Canco no Tempo 468 Music Week 99
Melodia, Luis 46n32, 69, 71n22, 82 Msica Brasileira 63n94
Mendes, Gilberto 4 msica cafona 434, 181 see also brega
Mendes, Sergio 98, 106n86 msica de inspirao indgena 145
Menudo 127 Msica do Brasil 156, 15970, 171, 1778,
Mercury, Daniela 78, 108 183, 185
Mesquita, Suely 173 msica erudita 56
Midani, Andr 524, 56, 184 msica missioneira 145
Milionrio 43n19 Msica Nova 56
Miller, Sidney 29 msica perifrica 57n76
INDEX 211
Msica Popular Brasileira (MPB) 24, 57, Ney, Nora 24
24, 30, 34, 3941, 5051, 63, 100, Nobre, Marlos 116
107, 144, 156, 159, 172, 17980, Nordeste, Cordel, Repente, Cano 155n90
184, 186 North America 84
definitions of 414 inuence of 225, 107, 117n21, 138,
and politics 4850, 180, 182, 1845 183n9
popularity of 458, 756, 78, 79, 103, North Brazil 13841, 145, 1467
104, 17980, 18082 Northeast Brazil 13641, 144, 148, 1545,
and the press 5863, 179 156, 157, 164, 174, 177
and Projeto Pixinguinha 121, 1246, nova-viola-nordestina 174
12830 novo samba-pop-mineiro 173
quality of 445 Novos Baianos 69
and record industry 518, 65, 756, Nunes, Clara 56
867, 103, 179
and telenovelas 834, 867, 180 O Fino da Bossa 66
and television 65, 71, 756, 79, 834, O Pessoal da Velha Guarda 1617, 19, 20,
857, 17980 21, 40, 69, 126
Msica Popular do Brasil, see under O Rappa 101
Pereira, Marcus Odeon 30, 31, 56
msica romntica 42, 43, 181 oitavas 140
msica sertaneja 39, 42, 48, 53, 57, 58, 73, Oliveira, Miquelinha Antonia de 145
83, 86, 103, 126, 181 Opinio 58, 59, 60, 154
Msica Viva 56 Orquestra Brasileira de Radams Gnattali
musical nationalism 9 15
in Brazil 10, 1114, 21, 24, 25, 37, 38, Os Inocentes 24
48, 1826 Os Jovens 24
in England 1011 Os Paralamas do Sucesso 100
in Europe 910, 132 Os Tapes 145, 151, 153
see also cultural invasion Os Tremendos 127
Osanah, Tony 70
Napolitano, Marcos 6 Osmar, Pedro 174
Napster 94
Nascimento, Milton 2, 34, 45, 49, 56, 78, Pacheco, Benedicto 139
108, 156 Padre Anchieta Foundation 24
Natal 122 pagode 42, 86, 102, 181
Natale, Edson 173, 176 Paiano, Enor 6
National Art Foundation, see FUNARTE pajadas 145
National Commission for Folklore 134 Pandeiro, Jackson do 66, 126
National Congress of Samba 143 Pappon, Thomas 61
National Council for Cinema 117 Par 139, 145, 173
National Council on Copyright 117 Paraba 73, 139, 140
National Cultural Policy, see Poltica Parintins 166
Nacional de Cultura Parreira, Roberto 11718, 12021
National Institute of Music 36, 116, 142, 151 Pascoal, Hermeto 35, 46n32, 69, 70, 77
National School of Music 142n45 Pasquim 58
Nazareth, Ernesto 12, 21 pssaros 145
Neves, Ezequiel 60 Peasant Leagues 26, 147
Neves, Tancredo 49 Peking Symphony Orchestra 43n19
New Musical Express 61 Pereira, Marcus 6, 8, 38, 130, 1312, 141,
1434, 157, 159, 160, 164, 167, 168, Quadros, Jnio 33
174, 1778, 182, 183, 184, 186 Quaresma, Tnia 155n90
Msica Popular do Brasil 131, 14356, Quarteto em Cy 69
157, 162, 163, 169, 1778 Quinteto Violado 125, 144, 1534
Msica Popular do Centro-Oeste/
Sudeste 1445 radio 9, 13, 1415, 16, 22, 27, 336, 58, 61,
Msica Popular do Nordeste 144, 72, 73, 75, 77, 8081, 9094 passim,
148, 150, 1535 101, 102, 104, 118, 125, 138, 151,
Msica Popular do Norte 145 155, 156, 176, 186
Msica Popular do Sul 145 Rdio Cultura 34
Pernambuco 139, 140, 147, 148, 156, 161, Rdio Nacional 15, 16
171, 172, 183 Curiosidades musicais 1617
Pessoal da Velha Guarda, see O Pessoal da Um milho de melodias 15
Velha Guarda Ramalho, Elba 86, 100
Philips 30, 31, 40 Ramalho, Z 53, 73, 82, 86
Phono 73 69 Ramos, Graciliano 141
Phonogram 523, 99 Ramos, Jos 23
Piaf, Edith 22 rancheira 145
Piaui 174 Rangel, Lcio 4, 6, 1822, 38, 44, 55, 58,
Pigmalio 70 83 126, 183
pindar 145 rap 1, 37, 86, 103, 105, 106, 109, 126, 164,
Pinheiro, Albino 120 165, 169, 172, 1745, 178
Pinheiro, Leila 76 RCA 30, 31, 54, 91
piracy (music) 94, 967 Recife 140, 143, 147, 148, 157, 174, 178
Pixinguinha 5, 16, 19, 20, 21, 40, 55, 126 record industry
PNC, see Poltica Nacional de Cultura Brazilian 14, 22, 27, 2934 passim, 40,
Poland 84 50, 518, 63, 69, 727 passim, 86,
polca 145, 164 89, 95100, 1039, 11617, 118,
Poltica Nacional de Cultura (PNC) 37, 111, 146, 151, 179, 182
11318, 1223, 124, 129, 135 and marketing 934
Polygram 82, 90 worldwide 8994
pop music 39, 40, 60, 83, 85, 92, 103, 150, reggae 3, 35, 62, 76, 94, 105, 109, 126,
169, 174, 181 165
pop-nejo 103 Regina, Elis 2, 24, 25, 35, 45, 66, 67, 74, 78,
Pops, The 24 83, 86, 145, 146, 152, 153
Popular Culture Movement (MCP) 147, 148 regional styles/music 3, 5, 15, 16, 18,
Portela, Noca de 15n21 26n68, 27, 40, 57, 73, 76, 116, 120,
Porto Alegre 122, 128 122, 1234, 126, 128, 130, 1312,
ps-rock-carioca 173 157, 159, 1778, 185
Pra Ver a Banda Passar 66 and Hermano Vianna 15970, 1778
prais 140 and Ita Cultural 17077, 1778
Presley, Elvis 24 and Marcus Pereira 1312, 14356, 157,
progressive rock 58, 60 1778
Projeto Lus Assuno 128 and Mrio de Andrade 131, 13643,
Projeto Moqueca 128 157, 1778
Projeto Pixinguinha, see under FUNARTE see also folk music
Public Music Library 137, 139, 140 reis de congo 140
punk 612, 105 religious music 46, 144, 145, 162
Purim, Flora 106n86 repentes 140
INDEX 213
retumbo 145 Salvador 61, 122, 126, 128
Revista de Cultura Vozes 30 samba 2, 1422 passim, 238 passim, 334,
Revista de Msica Popular 2021, 23, 44, 37, 57, 86, 102, 103, 104, 125, 126,
142 137, 141, 1423, 149, 160, 164, 166,
Ribeiro, Solano 72, 74, 76, 77 171, 174
Ricardo, Srgio 31, 115n14 and MPB 45, 39, 40, 42, 43, 62
Richard, Little 24 samba de parelha 162
RICM, see Rumos Ita Cultural Msica samba de roda 144, 162, 168
Rico, Jos 43n19 Samba do Estcio 5
Rio Carnival 22 samba do morro 5, 19, 27
Rio de Janeiro 5, 31, 48, 60, 73, 99100, samba-cano 15, 23
105, 136, 142, 154, 160, 174 samba-punk-curitibano 173
APMB meetings in 1, 356, 42 samba-reggae 103, 105, 109
and cultural hegemony 21, 334, 48, 73, samba-rock 103
149, 171, 172 Santa Catarina 163
festivals/shows in 30, 60, 61, 62, 65, 77, Santos, Lulu 100
100101, 106, 117, 12022, 128n63, Santos, Moacyr 106n86
165 Santos, Nelson Pereira dos 148
radio play in 21n53, 334, 61, 75, 100 Santos, Turbio 125
Rio Grande do Norte 140, 166 So Paulo 1, 25, 48, 60, 61, 99100, 109,
Rio Grande do Sul 73, 142, 145, 153, 178 139, 142, 143, 147, 154, 165, 173,
Rita, Maria 3, 834, 86 174
Ro-Ro, ngela 76 cultural hegemony and 48, 73, 121, 141,
Rocha, Mrio 74 149, 171, 172
Rocha, Mariozinho 82 festivals/shows in 12, 25, 62, 68, 72,
rock and roll 234, 109 122, 129, 155n90, 170
Rock in Rio 61, 77, 100101, 106 radio play in 335, 75, 100, 102
rock music 3, 24, 35, 39, 40, 42, 50, 54, 58, So Paulo Department of Cultural
59, 68, 83, 85, 92, 103, 104, 105, Expansion 137
150, 181 Sargento, Nelson 15n21, 126, 128n63
Brazilian rock movement 31, 34, 40, 48, Sarney, Jos 49
60, 612, 767, 100101, 107, 126, SBT/TVS 80
172, 175 Schwarz, Roberto 29, 182
and Tropiclia 5, 28, 109 SEAC, see Ministry of Cultural Affairs
Rodrigues, Jair 66 Secos e Molhados 60, 69, 71
Rodrigues, Lupicnio 5, 55, 69 Segundas musicais 128
rojes 140 Seixas, Raul 60, 107
Rolling Stone 60 Semana de Arte Moderna 12
Romero, Silvio 137 seresteiros 20
Roque Santeiro 86, 115 Sergipe 164
Ros, Edmundo 22 Severiano, Jairo 46, 62
Rosa, Noel 2, 5, 14, 16n27, 20, 21, 27, 35, A Cano no Tempo 468
40, 44, 55, 83 Sharp, Cecil 9, 1011, 13, 14, 17, 132, 133,
rumba 22 134
Rumos Ita Cultural Msica (RICM) 130, Show da tarde 128
159, 17078, 185 Sib 161
Sigla 52
S, Sandra 76 Silva, General Golbery do Couto e 112, 119
Saia, Lus 139, 141 Silva, Ismael 5
Silva, Moreira da 69 telenovelas, televised song festivals
Silva, Olando 15, 27 Thoms, John 134
Simonal, Wilson 107n90 Time-Life 115
Simone 2, 34, 62, 71, 75, 126, 129 Tinhoro, Jos Ramos 4, 9, 257, 28, 29, 35,
Simoninha, Wilson 84 367, 38, 48, 55, 58, 62, 183
Sinh 5, 20, 44 Tinoco e Tinoco 58
siriri 162 Tiso, Wagner 35
Skank 85 Tits 97n41
Soares, Elza 125 toadas 144
Soares, Paulo Cesar 123n44, 127, 130 Toquinho 69, 78
Soares, Ricardo 77 Tornado, Tony 67, 68n7
Sodr, Raimundo 75 trio elctrico 144, 153, 168
solos de viola 140 Tropiclia 4, 5, 9, 289, 31, 37, 38, 53, 56,
Som Brasil 79n55 5960, 107, 109
Som Livre 71, 76, 80, 81, 82, 84 TV-Bandeirantes 712, 76, 80
Som Livre Exportao 72 TV Cultura 34
Sombrs 115, 120, 121, 124 TV-Excelsior 67
SomTrs 33, 60 TV-Globo 65, 67, 6872, 746, 77, 7981,
Sony 82, 90 83, 84, 86, 115, 146, 1756
Soriano, Waldick 57 TV-Manchete 80
soul music 3, 30, 31, 42, 59, 678, 94, 105, TV-Record 5, 25, 66, 67, 72
107, 109, 179 TV-Rio 66
South Brazil 145, 156 TV-Tupi 65, 66, 724
Southeast Brazil 1445 Festival da Msica Popular (1979) 724,
Souza, Okky de 59 76
Souza, Raul de 106n86
Souza, Trik de 35, 51, 55, 589, 60, 62 UNESCO 1234
Suassuna, Ariano 38, 98, 148, 154 United Nations 115
Declaration of Human Rights 115
Tamba Trio 107n90 United States 80, 84, 85, 92, 93, 98, 99, 106,
tambor de mina 162 107, 108, 134, 135, 184, 185
tambor de taboca 162 folk music of 131, 1323
tambores 145 inuence of 225, 267, 34, 42, 51, 60,
tango 11, 29, 109, 138 67, 98, 182
Taubkin, Benjamin 171, 173, 1746 record industry in 9091, 98
Teatro Casa Grande debates 313, 103, 115,
118, 129 Vagalume 19
Teatro Joo Caetano 120 Valena, Alceu 2, 69, 100, 154n86
Teixeira, Humberto 23 Valente, Assis 23, 55
Tejo, Black Alien e Speed 107n90 valsa de ponto de leno 145
telenovelas 7, 52, 53, 54, 65, 67, 70, 71, 72, valsas 140
76, 7984, 867, 95, 102, 104, 115, Vandr, Geraldo 2, 28, 55, 59, 74n36, 76
124, 146, 180 vanero 145
televised song festivals 2, 4, 5, 7, 25, 41, 46, Vanguarda Paulista 73
50, 63, 65, 6679, 83, 86, 87, 101, Vargas, Getlio 2, 12, 15, 16, 21n52, 25,
156, 179 30n86, 119, 134, 136, 137n27, 139,
television 22, 27, 336 passim, 63, 867, 141
101, 104n76, 118, 125, 1467, 151, Vasconcellos, Ary 4, 6, 1822, 26, 35, 36,
155, 156, 166, 179, 186 see also 38, 55, 58, 126, 183
INDEX 215
Vasconcellos, Nan 106n86 Viola, Paulinho da 115n14, 120, 121
Veja 58, 59, 61, 46n32, 71, 767, 99, 151 Viola, Paulinho de 31, 56, 57
Velha Guarda, see O Pessoal da Velha violeiros 144
Guarda Vitria 128
Veloso, Caetano 2, 5, 279, 32, 37, 4151
passim, 53, 55, 58, 61, 72, 73, 78, Wanderlea 67
83, 86, 115n14, 156, 164, 169, 182 Warner Brothers 52, 53, 90
Verba Ecantado 60 Wasserman, Clara 6
Vergueiro, Carlinhos 70, 126 WEA 75
Vermelho, Baro 100 Wisnik, Jos Miguel 367, 44, 58, 59, 152
Vu de Noiva 83
Vianna, Hermano 6, 8, 156, 15970, 171, xangs 140
174, 1778, 181, 183, 186 xaxado 27
Vidal, Ademar 140 xote 16, 117n21
Vila, Martinho da 145, 152, 153 Xucuru-Kariri Indians 164
Villa-Lobos, Heitor 11, 137, 138 Xuxa 108
Villares, Beto 156, 159, 160, 163, 168, 183
Vincius, Marcus 31, 37, 45, 978, 148n64, zabumba 145
172, 185 Z, Tom 107
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Sean Stroud - The Defence of Tradition in Brazilian Popular Music (Politics, Culture and The Creation of Mus I Ca Popular Brasileira-Ashgate (2008)

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THE DEFENCE OF TRADITION IN

BRAZILIAN POPULAR MUSIC

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

General Editors Preface vii

1 Musical Nationalism and the Cultural Invasion Debate 9

2 Inventing the Idea of MPB 39

3 Television and Popular Music 65

4 Cultural Imperialism, Globalization, and the Brazilian Record Industry 89

5 The State as Cultural Mediator: The Poltica Nacional de Cultura,

6 Musical Mapping: Locating and Defending the Regional 131

7 Reconsidering Musical Tradition: Msica do Brasil and Rumos

Professor Derek B. Scott

MPB: A Brief Outline

Nevertheless, this chameleon-like ability to meld with elements of other urban

4 Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song: MPB 19651985 (Austin, 1989), p. 207.

MPB and Concepts of Tradition, Quality, and Authenticity

9 Excellent accounts of this period are provided by Hermano Vianna, O Mistrio do

12 The National Art Foundation (FUNARTE) was a government body established in

13 Carlos Sandroni, Adeus MPB, in Decantando a Repblica: Inventrio Histrico e

Musical Nationalism and the

Musical Nationalism in Europe and Brazil

Musical nationalism is generally considered to be a movement that began in Europe

1 Ensaio Sbre a Msica Brasileira (So Paulo, 1962).

Cecil Sharp and the English Folk-Song Society

This approach was potentially problematic in a nation lacking a recognizable peasant

. . . Membership of this elusive sub-stratum of English society was imposed rather

2 David P. Appleby, The Music of Brazil (Austin, 1983), p. 83.

As I will demonstrate, similar sentiments are to be found in the writings of Mrio de

Brazilian Musical Nationalism: Mrio de Andrades Emphasis on the Role of Folk

11 Enor Paiano, O Berimbau e o Som Universal: lutas culturais e indstria fongraca

There is nothing in folk-music common or unclean; . . . (Yet) if we compare the genuine

Invented Traditions in Brazilian Popular Music

26 McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil, p. 13.

. . . A set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a

31 Eric Hobsbawm, Mass-producing traditions; Europe, 18701914, in The Invention

18891927, fase primitiva [primitive phase]

Such unequivocal periodization of musical eras may now appear to be over

38 Paiano, O Berimbau, p. 63.

40 Paiano, O Berimbau, pp. 667.

50 Ary Barroso, Decadncia, Revista de Msica Popular, no. 9, September 1955, p. 7.

Beatles go home! : the Cultural Invasion Debate

Historical Background to the Debate

54 McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil, p. 133.

The Enemy Within: i i i

57 McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil.

Jos Ramos Tinhoro and Tropicalist Challenges to Musical Nationalism

67 Paiano, O Berimbau, p. 75.

The Debate Widens

The contemporary cultural impact of Tropiclia within popular music was so

82 Quoted in Christopher Dunn, Tropiclia, Counterculture, and the Diasporic

85 Sidney Miller, O Universalismo e a Msica Popular Brasileira, Revista Civilizao

The Teatro Casa Grande Debates

89 Werneck, MPB/Hoje, pp. 69091.

We Dont Play Samba Here: Radio and Cultural Invasion

Legislation passed by the Quadros government in 1961, which stipulated that 50

94 Anon, De volta ao livre debate, p. 61.

Resisting the Tide: So Paulos Cultura FM

The domination of the airwaves by FM stations pumping out large quantities of

The Association of Researchers in Brazilian Popular Music (APMPB) and the

101 Author interview with Maria Luiza Khfouri, 22/8/03.

105 Jos Miguel Wisnik, Encontro Nacional De Pesquisadores de Msica Popular

Inventing the Idea of MPB