Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

CHORO, CHORINHO

The first important genre in Brazil, beginning in the 1870s and revived periodically ever since. 'Chorar' means 'to weep' in Portuguese, but the music is as often jolly as not; another possible source of the word was 'xolo', an Afro-Brazilian term for a party. Still a grass-roots, non-commercial form of music, it began with polkas, mazurkas, waltzes, maxixes (a forerunner of the samba) etc and immediately began to evolve, taking on some African influence. A typical choro combo has the melody carried on flute or cavaquinho (a small guitar), with a contrapuntal six-string guitar (bass) and tambourine rhythm. The cavaquinho is played with a plectrum, producing a sweet sound similar to a mandolin. Other instruments are used, such as the trombone, and occasionally the voice. Improvisation is an important feature. The music was in binary rhythm and featured unexpected intervals and modulations and an element of competition: it resembled dixieland jazz except that there was only one soloist, who often tried to outplay the rhythm section. A choro tune achieving world-wide fame was 'Tico-Tico' (originally 'Tico-Tico no Fubá', or 'Tico-Tico Bird In The Cornmeal'), by Zequinha de Abreu (1880-1935). The legendary Pixinguinha (Alfredo da Rocha Vianna Jr, 1897-1973) began in choro and was one of the inventors of the samba; he was a master of the flute, wrote about 600 tunes and was wildly successful in Paris in the 1920s. Other figures important to choro were Chiquinha Gonzaga and Ernesto Nazaré, mandolinist Jacob de Bandolin, and the classical composer Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Choro artists played sambas, but the samba became a separate genre (see that entry); as bigger bands became popular in Brazil from the 1920s, the smaller choros played in bars and at parties. In the 1940s-'50s there was a revival of choro even as the samba had become the sound of Rio. Bandleader and cavaquinho master Waldir Azevedo started on the flute at age seven; he recorded over 130 of his own tunes including the international hit 'Delicado'; see his entry. Choro was eclipsed again in the late 1950s by bossa nova, but more recently has been included in the repertoire of such Brazilian musicians as Egberto Gismonti and Hermeto Pascoal. Octet Os Ingénuos had two charming CDs on Nimbus in the UK, including trombone, trumpet and soprano sax as well as various guitars.