Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music
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questras d e pau e corda (orchestras of wood and string) that included guitars,
flutes, mandolins, violins, banjos, and pandeiros. The male-oriented pau e corda
ensembles provided accompaniment to female singing groups ( corais feminos ) that
were intergenerational in nature comprising relatives and close friends. Several na-
tionally known popular music composers (Raul and Edgard Moraes, Nelson Fer-
reira) from Recife participated in the blocos carnavalescos and wrote marches,
sambas, and tangos for the blocos, which were published in sheet music form
and later recorded. The marcha de bloco ( bloco march) became the favored genre
among these groups. Its characteristics included a slow tempo, a mildly syncopated
rhythmic accompaniment, use of minor keys and simple modulations, and highly
sentimental lyrics. The marcha de bloco included a verse/refrain format with a re-
curring instrumental interlude before each subsequent verse. During the late 1950s,
this form of composition would acquire the label frevo de bloco, after the national
commercial success of Nelson Ferreira’s “Evocação No. 1.”
Nationalizing the Frevo
In the 1930s, the frevo entered Brazil’s national recording and broadcast industry lo-
cated in Rio de Janeiro with songs and instrumental pieces composed by musicians
from Pernambuco. These were published under a variety of genre designations:
Frevo | 173
marcha nortista (northern march), marcha pernambucana (Pernambuco march),
and frevo pernambucano (Pernambuco frevo ). By the end of the 1930s, two dis-
tinct subgenres of recorded frevo were: frevo (an orchestrated instrumental frev o following the basic two-part plan of Pernambuco’s Carnival frevo ) and the frevo-canção (an orchestrated frevo with an instrumental section followed by a solo
song). From 1933 to 1938, Os Diabos do Ceu led by Pixinguinha (Alfredo da
Rocha Viana Filho) recorded eight instrumental frevos while the frevo-canção was
being recorded by some of Brazil’s most popular vocalists of the time, including
Mário Reis, Aracy de Almeida, and Francisco Alves. While the composers were
largely from Recife, the recording arrangements and performances were by Rio de
Janeiro-based musicians. Major frevo composers included Capiba (Lourenço da
Fonseca Barbosa) and the Irmãos Valença (João Vítor do Rego Valença and Raul
do Rego Valença).
Rio de Janeiro’s dominant position in the production of frevos prompted calls
in Recife for a musical infrastructure to support the local production of frevos. Of-
ficially sponsored competitions for frevo songs and instrumental pieces in the Re-
cife area stimulated new compositions that were arranged by the bandleaders of
local radio orchestras. From 1931 through the mid-1960s, Nelson Ferreira led the
PRA-8 orchestra of the Rádio Club de Pernambuco and, in 1952, Discos Rozenblit
opened its doors in Recife and established the local record label Mocambo where
frevo s and other local musical genres were prioritized. The first recording released
by Mocambo (1953) featured a frevo by Nelson Ferreira titled “Come e Dorme” on
side one and a frevo-canção by José Menezes and Ademar Paiva titled “Boneca”
on side two. Both recordings featured the PRA-8 orchestra under the direction of
Nelson Ferreira.
The 1950s and 1960s witnessed the codification of the frevo into three main com-
mercial subgenres: frevo-de-rua (instrumental frevo ), frevo-canção (song frevo ), and the frevo de bloco (marcha carnavalesca). A new generation of composer-bandleaders of frevo included José Menezes, Duda (José Ursino da Silva), Guedes
Peixoto, and Clovis Perreira. Claudionor Germano and Expedito Baracho were im-
portant frevo singers from Recife.
In the 1970s, several failed attempts to market frevo to younger generations re-
sulted in the decline of Discos Rozenblit and its eventual closing in 1980. New ef-
forts were undertaken to revitalize the tradition by bringing the music in line with
modern recording and production values associated with Brazilian rock and MPB.
Some of Brazil’s most popular singers of the era including Gilberto Gil, Caetano
Veloso, and Alceu Valença were contracted to cover frevos canções for the Asas
da America recording series launched by CBS/Sony Music. Rejected by frevo tra-
ditionalists and not widely popular among rock and MPB audiences, such endeav-
ors were short lived.
174 | Frevo
Most recently, some post Mangue Beat musicians in Recife have drawn on the
frevo for continued inspiration. Chief among the latest developments is the group
Spok Frevo Orquestra led by saxophonist Spok (Inaldo Cavalcanti). This group has
infused new life into the frevo tradition by emphasizing tight formal arrangements,
expanded harmonic resources, and improvisatory performance practices reminis-
cent of the role of the requinta players of an earlier era.
Further Reading
Crook, Larry. Brazilian Music: Northeastern Traditions and the Heartbeat of a Modern
Nation . Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005.
McGowan, Chris, and Ricardo Pessanha. The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova,
ad the Popular Music of Brazil. Revised and expanded edition. Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 2009.
Larry Crook
G
Gaga. See Afro-Dominican Fusion Music .
Grever, María
María Grever (1885–1951) was a prolifi c composer and singer. Accomplished
as a pianist, violinist, and singer, she published her fi rst song, “A una ola,” when
she was 18. It sold three million copies. Grever, Mexico’s fi rst famous fe-
male composer, wrote between 200 and 500 romantic songs into which she
incorporated folk rhythms and elements of Mexican and Spanish style tango.
She worked with American lyricists to translate her songs into English. Enrico
Caruso helped bring her songs international popularity. Grever’s songs were
broadcast frequently on the radio, and she wrote music for many fi lms and
Broadway musicals including the 1944 fi lm Bathing Beauty and the 1941 musical
Viva O’Brien. Her popularity peaked in the 1930s and 1940s. Her most popular
songs include “Bésame,” “Make Love with a Guitar,” “My First, My Last, My
Only,” and her biggest hits, “Ti-pi-tin” (performed by Benny Goodman) and
“Cuando Vuelva a Tu Lado,” or “What a Difference a Day Made” (performed
by Vikki Carr, Trios Los Panchos, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, and many
others).
Further Reading
Malspina, Ann. “Maria Grever.” In Diane Telgen, and Jim Kamp, eds., Notable
Hispanic American Women, 184–86. Detroit: Gale Research, 1993.
Rebecca Stuhr
Gender in Latin American Popular Music
The study of gender within the context of Latin American popular music consid-
ers the ways in which the people of Latin America interpret their roles as men and
women using music as one form of expression. Gender, the cultural, social, and
175
176 | Gender in Latin American Popular Music
historical interpretation of the biological and physiological state of being male or
female, is undoubtedly an important part of the construction of both personal and
cultural identity along with other fa
ctors such as age, race, and sexuality. Recent
studies have pointed to gender as a learned phenomenon that is socially and cul-
turally imposed, which makes it difficult to define in concrete terms. As a result,
gender is a variable field of study that has altered over time and taken on different
meanings in different cultural contexts. In studying the importance of gender in the
context of Latin American popular music, scholars have used a variety of method-
ological approaches including textual analysis, evaluations of the production, con-
sumption, and reception of popular songs, and studies of the separate gender roles
for men and women musicians.
Gender, in Latin America, is derived in part using two important concepts: ma-
chismo and marianismo. In Spanish, the word machismo is used broadly to define masculine traits, cutting through class lines to describe the generosity, dignity, and
honor expected of men from all social positions. But machismo also has wide-
ranging connotations, and has even been interpreted as dominating and chauvin-
istic. Marianismo is the female counterpart to machismo that is used to describe
the ideal of femininity and a veneration of female virtues such as purity and moral
strength. Because many Latin American countries are deeply immersed in Catholi-
cism, the role of women, termed marianismo, is often linked to the maternal figure
of the Virgin Mary. Traditionally, domesticity is highly respected in Latin America
and while men are concerned with the public sphere, women dominate the private
sphere of the household. Even though urbanization, modernity, and political revo-
lutions have challenged traditional sex roles, the gendered expectations represented
by machismo and maranismo are so inherent in Latin American culture that their
vestiges still remain an important part of understanding gender in both the Latin
American and popular music contexts.
As a central means of expression, music is one of the many ways that Latin
Americans have wrestled with issues relating to traditional and modern gender
roles. With music, Latin Americans have reinforced the social constructions of gen-
der and sexuality that they cannot discuss directly due to social taboos and mores.
But music does not just passively reflect society, it also provides a public forum
for models of gender organization to be affirmed, tested, or challenged. Popular
music, often found as an outgrowth of mass culture in large urban centers, is es-
pecially susceptible to volatile changes as the boundaries between traditional and
modern sex roles clash. By examining different aspects of Latin American popular
music including its texts, reception, and sex roles, scholars have gained a better
understanding of the role that music plays in the critical analysis of gender identity
in Latin America.
Textual analysis is one important way that musicologists conceptualize the
role that gender plays in Latin American popular music. Scholars are especially
Gender in Latin American Popular Music | 177
concerned with the ways in which gendered language in song texts create stereo-
types that intersect with other social and historical factors. For example, Frances
Aparicio discusses women as absence through the lens of the texts of boleros . The
image of the lost, or fallen woman, known as perdida in Spanish, is prevalent in
boleros and alludes to the abandonment of the domestic sphere as women began
to work outside the home a result of the industrialization and urbanization of the
turn of the century. To Aparicio, boleros are an alternative discourse on masculin-
ity that have allowed men to be open, raw, and emotional while still attempting to
retain their dominance and control over women. María Herrera-Sobek considers
the Mexican corrido in order to make larger claims about Latin American popular
music. Through literary analysis of the lyrics of the corrido, Herrera-Sobek iden-
tifies five types of recurring images, or archetypes, of women: the good mother,
the terrible mother, the mother goddess, the lover, and the soldier. She sees these
archetypes, which tie the role of women to motherhood, as a product of not only
the patriarchal system inherent in the Latin American notions of machismo and
marianismo, but also the class consciousness and widespread worldviews found in
Mexican society. John Murphy links his textual analysis of samba lyrics with is-
sues of work and money that appear prominently in samba songs from the 1920s to
the 1950s. While these musicologists primarily consider song texts, other scholars
have approached gender issues in popular music by considering its reception or by
examining the sex roles of male and female musicians.
The reception of songs and the opinions of the consumers who actively use and
enjoy the music is a telling and often overlooked aspect of popular music. Peter
Manuel studies the ways in which Latina women help to produce meaning through
the plurality of their responses to popular songs, specifically those that are overtly
misogynistic. He describes how some of these women find misogynistic lyrics to be
offensive, while others feel that even sexually explicit songs give women the oppor-
tunity to express their sexuality on their own terms on the dance floor. Brenda Ber-
rian considers the different ways in which male and female performers are marketed
in the French Caribbean. She finds that as a result of the struggling recording in-
dustry, women feel more intense pressure than men to conform to preset molds that
often exploit their female sexuality to sell their music. In addition, Berrian studies
how French Caribbean musical groups such as Kassav and Zouk Machine perform
for and market themselves differently at home than they do abroad by changing the
lyrics and length of their songs. These reception studies of Latin American popular
music coupled with close textual analysis lead other scholars to consider the fixed
gender roles that are found in Latin American popular music.
Scholars have begun to highlight the often clearly delineated gender boundaries
for the roles of women and men as musicians performing Latin American popular
music. While there are exceptions, the different roads for inclusion taken by male
and female musicians are often clearly marked. Susan Thomas raises questions
178 | Gender in Latin American Popular Music
about these gender barriers in her study on the Cuban nueva trova movement,
which she found to be dominated almost entirely by men. Through interviews
with both male and female trovadores, Thomas uncovered the stigmas associated
with including women in the genre. For example, female trovadoras were often
thought to be lesbian, they could rarely perform outside of Cuba, and their music
was often dismissed as children’s music. Thomas linked these stigmas to histori-
cal factors especially the extreme homophobia, institutionalized repression of
sexual deviance, and strong emphasis placed on the ideals of machismo found in
Cuba after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The Mexican ranchera is another exam-
ple of a genre that has been long associated with men. Women performing within
this genre are limited to singing and even such a well-known female ranchera
as Lucero has
chosen to adopt the traje de chorro, the cowboy outfit of a man.
Through analysis of the constrained worlds of male and female performers, some
scholars have come to understand gender roles within the Latin American popu-
lar music context.
Gender is no less complex when applied to Latin American popular music than
it is in any other field of study. The approaches to its study touched on here, while
representative of the methodologies used by musicologists and scholars within the
broader academic study of gender, are by no means an exhaustive sampling. Never-
theless, influential scholars have illuminated aspects of gender within Latin Ameri-
can popular music through the methods of textual analysis, reception, and gender
role studies.
Further Reading
Aparicio, Frances R. Listening To Salsa: Gender, Latin Popular Music, And Puerto Rican
Cultures. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998.
Berrian, Brenda F. Awakening Spaces: French Caribbean Popular Songs, Music, And
Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Herrera-Sobek, María. The Mexican Corrido: A Feminist Analysis. Bloomington: Indi-
ana University Press, 1990.
Manuel, Peter. “Gender Politics in Caribbean Popular Music: Consumer Perspectives
And Academic Interpretation.” Popular Music and Society 22, no. 2 (1998): 11–29.
Manuel, Peter, Kenneth M. Bilby, and Michael Largey. Caribbean Currents: Caribbean
Music From Rumba To Reggae. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006.
Murphy, John P. Music in Brazil: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2006.
Thomas, Susan. “Did Nobody Pass The Girls The Guitar? Queer Appropriations in
Contemporary Cuban Popular Song.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 18, no. 2 (2006):
124–42.
Whiteley, Sheila. Women and Popular Music: Sexuality, Identity, and Subjectivity . Lon-
don: Routledge, 2000.
Tracy McFarlan
Guajeo
|
179
Gran orquesta. See Orquesta.
Guadeloupe. See Martinique and Guadeloupe.
Guaguancó
Guaguancó is the most common form of rumba and often synonymous with the
word rumba itself. Guaguancó appeared in Matanzas and Havana, Cuba, during