Live Samba: Analysis and Interpretation of Brazilian "Pagode" (review)

A most significant event in the recent history of Brazilian popular music is unequivocally the emergence, in the mid-1970s, and lasting impact thereafter of a samba-derived musical style under the generic term pagode. Clearly rooted in social values and musical idioms of the traditional samba, pagode has been eventually treated in the related literature as either a new and welcome stage in the development of its parent style, or, conversely, as a deplorable point of departure from traditional samba styles and values which could claim very little cultural significance beyond commercial success.

A book version of Luiz Fernando Nascimento de Lima's doctoral dissertation in musicology presented at the University of Helsinki in 2001, Live Samba: Analysis and Interpretation of Brazilian Pagode is a rather sophisticated and all-encompassing study of the eventual continuities and discontinuities implicit in the emergence of pagode. Right at the outset the author reveals his awareness about the difficulties involved in circumscribing his research topic in terms of either time or musical corpus, so numerous and intricate may be its links with contemporary developments in samba and in other emerging styles such as overly romantic brega, or the urban-based, rural-evocative música sertaneja. Accordingly, he argues for an interdisciplinary approach which may offer a multidimensional picture of interrelating peoples, processes, and products.

The author raises the following very important point in the Introduction: for the first time, he claims, "symbolic values of 'popular' expression—such as samba songs—became tied with the values of the same expressions as commodities" (2). A rather diversified set of data (commercially and privately made recordings; ethnographic and historical data; press coverage and releases; television and radio shows; onstage talks and interviews; and bibliographic research) is then used to support this thesis.

Chapter 1 (Theorizing samba and pagode) is an incisive critique of the related scholarly literature in which the author highlights what he perceives as its potentials and shortcomings of interpretations of both samba and pagode, pointing out here and there his own perspectives on the issues raised. His well-informed and detailed analysis of more recent critical sources is a particularly welcome addition to the available literature in either English or Portuguese on Brazilian popular music. Although it would not affect seriously the substance of the text, one might question how necessary and perhaps outdated is the author's zealous attempt to place his work "outside" the field of ethnomusicology, on the basis of the latter's disputes over a preferred object (products vs. peoples and processes) in order to highlight his "unorthodox" approach.

Chapter 2 (What is samba?) offers a historical overview of samba in the Brazilian soundscape, ranging from questions of "origins" to broader social themes such as race relations, economic pressures, political co-optation, and symbolic negotiation. The author's detailed cross-examination of concurrent musical trends and historical events (rise of populist politics vis-à-vis internationalization of market relations, diversification and hegemony of worldwide entertainment industry, among others) avoid the type of reification of samba as a narrowly homogeneous entity, prevailing in a good portion of the available literature.

Lima's own first-hand research comes to the fore in chapter 3 (Pagode movement). After considering the semantic aspects of the term itself, he examines the recurrent "origin myth" referring to artist Beth Carvalho's encounter in the mid-1970s with "backyard" (fundo-de-quintal) samba performances at Cacique de Ramos, a mostly lower-middle-class Carnival group of Rio de Janeiro. Their smaller and more relaxed gatherings—when contrasted with the larger and tense Carnival rehearsals—offered both musical ("softer" instrumentation and vocal-styles) and broader symbolic values (for example, emphasis on face-to-face communal values, romantic overtones, authenticity, etc.) swiftly transformed into a highly profitable commodity, as attested by the sales figures of...