Choro and Brazilian music (1870–2026)

Around 1870 in Rio de Janeiro, musicians played the fashionable European dances (polka, waltz, schottische) in their own way, adding syncopations from Afro-Brazilian rhythms. The flautist Joaquim Callado brought together flute, cavaquinho and guitars: this was choro (literally “cry”), a virtuoso instrumental music that is joyful despite its name.

Choro has its roles: the flute or mandolin sings the melody, the cavaquinho (a small four-string guitar) keeps the rhythm, and the seven-string guitar plays countermelodies in the bass, the baixarias. In the 20th century Pixinguinha turned it into a refined art; Villa-Lobos drew on it in his Choros and his guitar pieces.

Samba was born in Rio in the early 20th century in Afro-Brazilian communities; Pelo Telefone, registered in 1916, is often cited as the first recorded samba. It became the music of carnival and the emblem of the country.

In the late 1950s Antônio Carlos Jobim, the poet Vinícius de Moraes and the singer-guitarist João Gilberto slowed samba down, lightened it and added jazz chords: this was bossa nova (“new wave”). The Girl from Ipanema went round the world. For guitarists and pianists, bossa is a school of rhythm: bass on the beat, chords off the beat.