Bossa Negra: Afro-Brazilian Musicians in Spaces of Whiteness

• In Event: Music and Afro-Latin American Studies

Abstract

João Gilberto’s 1959 album Chega de Saudade inaugurated Bossa Nova, a musical movement characterized by its refined reading of samba, influenced by cool jazz and represented by white middle-class young musicians from Rio de Janeiro. While presented as a new approach to samba, BN represents a long tradition in samba of white musicians crafting niches in which modernity and whiteness were conflated and racist ideologies and artistic projects were entangled. Never explicit, these imaginary boundaries of genre and race became a site of struggle for the construction of Brazilian culture and identity. This essay examines the work and lives of Johnny Alf and Moacir Santos, two Afro-Brazilian musicians and composers who challenged these invisible lines. Through close readings of selected recordings, I demonstrate their ability to creatively engage with standards of modernity that favored Western art music aesthetics, mastering intricate melodies, complex harmonic concepts, and elegant orchestration techniques. They did so while also combining their own individual musical sensibilities with shared practices from Afro-Brazilian communities. Modernity was often invoked to criticize or validate certain musical practices in samba, and my goal with this analysis is to demonstrate ways in which racial ideologies and racism permeated debates about modern aesthetics. Despite being celebrated late in their careers, these musicians are often overlooked in samba’s historiography. This essay highlights the significance of their creative work.

Author

• Marcelo B Kuyumjian, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign