page_title: Brazilian Carnival
section_title: Samba
hierarchical_section_title: Brazilian Carnival / Music / Samba
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Carmen Miranda published by the New York Sunday News in 1941. Dating is at upper right of uncropped photo.
context_page_description: The Carnival of Brazil is an annual Brazilian festival held between the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday at noon, which marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period before Easter. During Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally abstained from the consumption of meat and poultry, hence the term "carnival", from carnelevare, "to remove meat."
  Rhythm, participation, and costumes vary from one region of Brazil to another. In the southeastern cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Vitória, huge organized parades are led by samba schools. Those official parades are meant to be watched by the public, while minor parades allowing public participation can be found in other cities, like Belo Horizonte, also in the southeastern region. The northeastern cities of Recife, Olinda, Salvador, and Porto Seguro have organized groups parading through streets, and public interacts directly with them. This carnival is also influenced by African-Brazilian culture. It is a six-day party where crowds follow the trios elétricos through the city streets, dancing and singing.
context_section_description: Originated in Rio de Janeiro between the end of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century, the samba is still one of the most popular music styles of Brazil. From intimate samba-canções (samba songs) sung in bars to explosive drum parades performed during carnival, samba always evokes a warm and vibrant mood. In the 1930s, a group of musicians led by Ismael Silva founded in the neighborhood of Estácio de Sá the first samba school, Deixa Falar. They transformed the musical genre to make it fit better the carnival parade. In this decade, the radio spread the genre's popularity all around the country, and with the support of the nationalist dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas, samba became Brazil's "official music."
  In the following years, samba has developed in several directions, from the gentle samba-canção to the drum orchestras which make the soundtrack of carnival parade. One of these new styles was bossa nova, a musical movement initially spearheaded by young musicians and college students from Rio de Janeiro. It got increasingly popular over time, with the works of João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim. In the sixties, Brazil was politically divided, and the leftist musicians of bossa nova started to draw attention to the music made in the favelas. Many popular artists were discovered at this time. Names like Cartola, Nelson Cavaquinho, Velha Guarda da Portela, Zé Keti, and Clementina de Jesus recorded their first albums. In the seventies, the samba got back to radio. Composers and singers like Martinho da Vila, Clara Nunes, and Beth Carvalho dominated the hit parade.
  In the beginning of the eighties, after having been sent to the underground due to styles like disco and Brazilian rock, Samba reappeared in the media with a musical movement created in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. It was the pagode, a renewed samba, with new instruments, like the banjo and the tantan, and a new language, more popular, filled with slang. The most popular names were Zeca Pagodinho, Almir Guineto, Grupo Fundo de Quintal, Jorge Aragão, and Jovelina Pérola Negra. Various samba schools have been founded throughout Brazil. A samba school combines the dancing and party fun of a night club with the gathering place of a social club and the community feeling of a volunteer group. During the spectacular Rio Carnival, famous samba schools parade in the Sambódromo.
caption: Singer Carmen Miranda led samba to the world in her films.
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