Brazilian Nationalisms

# Brazilian International Nationalisms

![BGSU](/assets/bgsu.png)

### Christopher Witulski, Ph.D.

### College of Musical Arts

---

# Outline

* About Brazil
* Counter-cultures, counter-counter-cultures, counter-counter-counter-countercultures...
* Samba and samba-reggae
* Reactions and international notice (bossa nova)
* Modernismo and tropicália

---

* What do we know? Think we know?
--

* World's fifth-largest country by land, seventh by population
* Portuguese colony, destination of substantial slave trade
    * Claimed in 1500, independence in 1822, slavery abolished in 1888
* History of military intervention in political structure
    * Military *coup d'état* in 1889 to found presidential government
    * Military junta from 1964 to 1985

---

---

# Race in Brazil

* Significant racial mixing since colonial period
* Mapping of class- and race-based stereotypes and exclusions
    * Complex systems, based more on appearance than ancestry
    * Based on "tri-racial" combinations of European, Afro-Brazilian, and Amerindian
* History of claiming race blindness
* Cultural (and musical) importance of Bahia, Northeastern region
* Syncretic practices, faiths
    * Carnival, samba-reggae, Condomblé

---

# Samba

* A broad term
	* *Escolas de samba*
	* Cultural nationalism, celebration of African heritage
	* Community organizations, part of Carnival

---

### Olodum

---

### Berimbau demonstration

---

### Samba de Roda

### Tupi Nagô: "Escrava anastacia"

---

# Samba

* A broad term
	* *Escolas de samba*
	* Cultural nationalism, celebration of African heritage
	* Community organizations, part of Carnival
* Adapted for film, by jazz, by rock
	* Move from black *favelas* to white middle class
	* Fused with the American "mambo craze"

---

### Carmen Miranda: "Chica Chica Boom Chick" (1941)

---

### Carmen Miranda: "Slick Hare" (1947)

---

# Samba

* What's being presented here?
    * How is Brazil represented to the world?
--
* Is this positive? Negative?

--
    * Is it access to the global music industry? A source of pride?
    * Is it appropriation? Reductive stereotype?

---

# Bossa nova

* Intellectual pushback to "decadence" of samba
    * Soloists, chamber groups instead of big bands
    * Less percussive, more harmonically complex
    * "Advanced" harmonies, complex poetry
    * Dressed in black, subtly instead of glitzy costuming
* Part of an effort to redefine the country's identity
    * Moving away from caricature
    * Found substantial audiences among certain classes, groups
* Continued trends of international commercial successes
    * Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto become globally recognized

---

# Bossa nova

* Means "new trend" in Portuguese
    * "Swaying" instead of "swinging" feel of jazz
* Tom Jobim: Composer, pianist
    * 1959: contributed to the soundtrack of *Orfeu Negro*
    * "A Felicidade" from *Orfeo Negro*
* João Gilberto: Singer, guitarist
    * Moved to Rio de Janeiro at 18
    * Fired from his group, homeless
    * Developed nasal vocal style

---

### Tom Jobim: "A Felicidade" (1959)

---

# "Desafinado"

* By Tom Jobim, performed by Gilberto, 1959
    * Complex intervals, awkward shape imply insecurity
    * Melody, harmony, rhythm all integrated
* "Amateur" vocal character
    * No emphasis on singer's personality, virtuosity
    * João Gilberto's wife Astrud
* Gilberto's guitar, fusing rhythm and harmony
    * "Violão gago," Stammering guitar

---

# "Desafinado"

>If you say that I'm off key (desafinado), love  
This hurts me a great deal  
Only privileged people have an ear like yours  
I only have that that God gave me

>If you insist in classifying  
My behavior as anti-musical  
Even lying I must argue  
That this is a new trend (bossa nova)  
This is very natural

>[...]

>You can't talk like that of my love  
It's the greatest you can find.  
With your music you forgot the main point:  
That in the breast of the off key  
Deep in their breast beats quietly a heart.

---

### João Gilberto: "Desafinado"

---

### Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz: "Girl from Ipanema" (1964)

---

# Bossa nova

* Is this a better global representation than samba?
    * It's certainly intentional...
--
* Who is included or left out?
    * What values are held up as central?
--
* Is global representation something that Brazilians should even be worried about?
    * Why would it matter?

---

# Political and social changes

* 1964 period of upheaval
	* US supported totalitarian regime takes power
	* Awareness of rock and roll
* 1920s literary modernism
    * Experimenting with forms while articulating Brazilian characteristics
    * *Brazilian Manifesto*: "creative poetry for export" to stop one-way cultural influence (1924)
* *Cannibalist Manifesto*: Oswald de Andrade (1928)
	* "Consuming" cultures, "devouring" influences
    * Metaphor for creativity

---

# Political and social changes

* 1930s: Getúlio Vargas elected president
    * Focused on populist ideals
    * Emphasized the dissemination of Brazilian culture highlighted by Carmen Miranda
* 1964: Military coup
    * Fifth Institutional Act (AI-5) outlaws political opposition, leads to protests
    * Middle class conflicts

>Artists and intellectuals began to reevaluate the failures of earlier political and cultural projects that sought to transform Brazil into an equitable, just and economically sovereign nation. Tropicália was both a mournful critique of these defeats as well as an exuberant, if often ironic, celebration of Brazilian culture and its continuous permutations. (Dunn, 3)

---

# Tropicália

.image-float-right.image-30[![Tropicalia](/assets/tropicalia.jpg)]
* Bossa Nova: cool, sophisticated symbol
    * Younger artists become dissatisfied with the introspective sentimentality
    * Wanted instead to approach political, social issues – rural, working class audiences
* Young Guard: rock and roll
    * Criticized as cultural imperialism
    * Aggressive language exposes issues (slums, etc.)
    * Amid lack of freedoms, artists shift focus, dealing instead with urban middle class
* Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes
    
---
    
# Tropicália
    
.image-float-right.image-40[![Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso](/assets/gil-and-veloso.jpg)]
* Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso
    * Met in University of Bahia, 1968
    * Worked with other singers, poets
* Characteristics
    * Highlighted duality between abundance and tropical impedance on economic development
    * Evocation of "paradise" alongside political violence and social misery
    * "Rereading" popular song in light of international pop and experimentation
    * Dialogue between pop and art music
    * Focus on individuals instead of masses

---

.image-40[.image-float-right[![Bat Macumba lyrics](/assets/batmacumba.png)]]
# Bat Macumba: Gilberto Gil

* Literary references: Oswald de Andrade's *Macumba for Tourists* becomes *Batmacumba for Futurists*
    * Macumba: Afri-Brazilian religious "cults"
    * "bate macumaba" = beat [the drums] of macumba
* Pop culture
    * Batman
    * "Ié Ié": Young Guard
    * "Oba": Portuguese interjection of surprise

---

### Os Mutantes: "Bat Macumba" (1969)

---

# Gilberto Gil: "Geléia Geral"

References to *Cannibalist Manifesto*, folk dances, Young Guard, cosmopolitanism, the Beatles...

>The poet unfurls the flag  
The tropical morning begins  
Resplendent, cascading, gracious  
In a joyous sunflower heat [...]
  
>It's bumba ié ié boi  
The coming year, the month gone by
It's bumba ié ié boi
It's the same dance, my boi

>Mirth is the acid test  
Sadness your safe harbour  
My land, where the sun is clearer  
"Mangueira" where the samba is purer  
Tom-Toms in the wild wilds  
Pindorama (Brazil) land of the future [...]

---

# Popular rise

* Gil and Veloso become increasingly frustrated with the populist dependency of art/aesthetic on cultural nationalism
    * "Universal sound," breaking away from bossa
    * Debuted in a 1967 TV music festival
* Later live shows aroused suspicion
* Gil arrested via AI-5, sent to London in 1968
    * 1969 happens…, Gil responds to cultural politics
    * Other artists emigrate to London

---

# Results

* "Cultural hybridity that dismantled binaries"
    * Class, tradition/modern, national/international
* Focus on individual leads to countercultural attitudes
    * Race, gender, sexuality, personal freedom
* Béhague:
    * "Liberating Brazilian music from a closed system of prejudices and giving it conditions of freedom for research and experimentation"

---

# Brazilian International Nationalisms

![BGSU](/assets/bgsu.png)

### Christopher Witulski, Ph.D.

### College of Musical Arts