By the 19th century, the eclectic blend of Portuguese colonials, European settlers, indigenous cultures, and black Africans saw the emergence of ensembles with stringed instruments and percussion playing vibrant rhythmic music loosely based around European dance forms. This was called choro, which translates as crying or sobbing. Guitars and cavaquinhos are used, producing melodies and harmonies with inventive syncopated rhythmic variations. In the 20th century, jazz influences from America mixed with choro and other Brazilian elements to create a sophisticated music that uses distinctive rhythms, including sambas.

The great Brazilian guitarist and composer "Garoto" Anibal Augusto Sardinha (1915-55), came to the fore in the 1930s, playing with many leading bands. In the early 1940s he used electric guitar on recordings such as "Rato-Rato" and "Tico Tico No Fuba," where slide melodies with attractive phrasing and fast, detailed jazz solos meet bright, well-articulated lines.

Garoto's multifaceted musical personality included classical technique, revealed on his recording of intricate acoustic fingerstyle pieces such as "Primavera." He established a strong Brazilian guitar style, and the 1950s saw many following his lead, including Paulinho Noguieira (b. 1929) who produced the influential album, AVoz DoViolao (1958). Noguieira recorded instrumental solos on classical guitar in a Brazilian style, achieving a sumptuous, harplike tone with beautiful chord voicings and arpeggiation. In contrast, Bola Sete (Djalma de Andrade, 1923—87) demonstrates a fast, inventive linear jazz style on both acoustic and electric guitar, producing flamboyant solos such as "Copacabana."

Bossa nova

During the 1950s, composer Antonio Carlos "Tom" Jobim was writing songs with rich, modulating harmonies and attractive melodies, while Joao Gilberto (b. 1931) was developing his highly personal style of singing and playing samba rhythms with subtle displacements to create a captivating sound. Gilberto's recording of Jobim's "Chega Da Saudade" (1958), paired with his own "Bim-Bom," caused a sensation, and was part of the beginning of the Brazilian bossa nova, or new wave. Gilberto's albums Chega de Saudade (1959) and Joao Gilberto (1961) combined intimate, seductive vocals, light samba rhythms and classical and jazz harmonies in which bass and upper chord voicings alternated, helping to define the new, appealing style.

Outside Brazil, Jobim's Desafinado" became a hit in Europe and the US when it was recorded in 1962 by Charlie Byrd (see page 108) and saxophonist Stan Getz. Byrd was one of the few established American guitarists to use a classical guitar; on "Desafinado," he plays the harmonies with a subdued understatement and takes a dry, elliptical solo over the rhythm section. The classical guitar bossa nova sound was further popularized when Getz and Gilberto recorded the album Samba Jazz (1962), and a year later released "The Girl from Ipanema" with Astrud Gilberto on vocals. Gilberto's modulating chord sequence, played with a laconic rhythm style and earthy texture, helped make this track one of the most popular guitar pieces in musical history.

Baden powell

A brilliant virtuoso, Baden Powell (Roberto Baden Powell de Aquino, b. 1937) drew on the innovations of Garoto and Nogueira as well as bossa nova, and developed his own dynamic fingerstyle approach characterized by a strong tone and physicality, great technical flair, and rhythmic verve. He incorporates rhythmic ideas from percussion instruments and improvises with a succession of fast, plucked chords, often staccato, to form musical sentences. Melodic variations on solos are created using arpeggios and single notes and he incorporates classical flamenco and jazz ideas.

Powell became established in Rio de Janeiro at the end of the 1950s and often worked with a cowriter, producing material such as Samba Triste (1959). From the 1960s onward, he recorded prolifically in ensembles and occasionally solo. In the early 1960s, he recorded "Girl from Ipanema" with a group and then reprised the chords and rhythms when he played it as a solo piece. He conveys a sense of momentum with rolling, syncopated rhythm and melody supported by arpeggios, then moves the harmonies with a rhythmic improvisatory style. Powell's compositions often have varied sections. His standard "Berimbau" (1964) features a powerfully hypnotic rhythmic modal figure and a melody with arpeggios before moving to a contrasting section with sentimental chords.

On the album Tristeza on Guitar (1966) he plays with flute, bass, and percussion. "Tristeza" is bright and sunny, with clean syncopated chords and passages of chord melody soloing. Thelonius Monk's jazz standard "Round Midnight" is played with a measured elegance, using space and conveying emotional depth by the careful deployment of a variety of expressive tones, bluesy bends, and flurries of notes on sensitive, inventive lines. On "Sarava," Powell adopts close-voicing chords and incorporates a chord melody soloing over an infectious rhythm with a range of percussion. The hypnotic Afro-samba "Canto De Ossanha" starts with interweaving bass parts and juxtaposes catchy, rhythmic melodies with insistent underlying syncopated chords.

The album is full of different moods and approaches; "Manha Da Car naval" is slow and reflective with attractive voicings, "Invencao Em 7M" is like a classical invention, with interweaving upper and lower parts and the guitar playing lower chords and lines, and the guitar on the introspective "Das Rosas" plays a long series of inventive voicings. "O Astronauta" is vibrant and jazzy, with powerful, driving chord figures.

Breakthrough

Powell visited Europe in 1967, winning wide acclaim and rave reviews. His fantastic power can be heard on the live Berlin Festival Guitar Workshop (1967), where he simply overwhelms the rhythm section. "The Girl from Ipanema" bursts with rhythmic invention as Powell rolls through complex syncopations and strumming patterns. "Samba Triste" hums with pulsating electricity, and the solo on "Berimbau," on which strumming cyclical patterns are played with a sparkling agility, is full of rich textures and mesmerising intensity.

His introspective album Solitude on Guitar (1971) comprises mainly solo pieces. Highlights include "Introducao Ao Poema Dod Olhos Da Amada," which is a journey through a colorful landscape of pensive moods, the sorrowful "SeTodos Fossem Iguais A Voce," full of lamentation encapsulated by a resonant string sound, and the group piece "Marcia ETu Amo" which conveys yearning via a flamenco sound and emotional soloing. The atmospheric "Por Causa De Voce" has a melancholic depth and an Oriental sound. Sweet, poignant harmonies on "Solitario" evoke loneliness.

Egberto gismonti

A visionary composer and guitarist, Egberto Gismonti (b. 1947) started with piano and studied composition in Europe with Nadia Boulanger. He became interested in Brazilian music and took up guitar in 1967. Gismonti's

music is shaped by classical compositional thinking and progressive jazz. Drawing on Native South American Indian traditions from the remote parts of Brazil, he has created a music for guitar and piano that has unique depth and color; his work ranges from reflective pieces imbued with a meditative stillness to compositions that simmer with rhythmic density. By the early 1970s he was using 8-string guitar and one of his early albums, Danca Dos Cabecas (1976), demonstrates sensitive, sophisticated playing and interplay with percussion.

Gismonti works with ideas from around the world and experiments with crossover styles, including Indian on "Raga" (1978) that features 8-string guitar with percussion backing. He creates startling vocal textures, with lines that move from harmonics to a breathtaking range of staccato sounds over a pedal tone, and uses space with great effect, building suspense with repeating motifs and flurries of swirling notes interspersed with passages of silence.

There is a calm intimacy in the weaving arpeggios on "Salvador" (1979) played on 8-string guitar; the unexpected harmonic shifts take listeners on a journey, beguiling them with thoughtful melodic improvisation, rich bass textures, and percussive artificial harmonics.

On "Magico"(1980), steel-string arpeggiation with soprano sax and double bass conjure a dreamlike continuum where a gentle, round-toned, nylon-string guitar comes in to play a sensitive solo.

Gismonti's voicings are influenced by piano and he uses 10- and 14-string guitars to create large, wide voicings and fresh sounds. An outstanding album, the concentrated, intense Danca Dos Escravos (1989), uses the guitar to imitate percussion instruments. "Trenzinho do Caipira (Verde)" opens with meditative, single-note lines brushed with delicate minute touches and low bass notes, giving way to shimmering sounds with a staccato melody, with earthy notes that are bent out of pitch, and staccato chords with dissonance. Notes are mixed with percussive, high-register, artificial harmonics, and Gismonti plays dark, rumbling lower-string figures with buzzing strings and vocal upper answering phrases. Using great dynamic control with quiet passages, he plays with meditative concentration, moving into a landscape of mysterious textures. In contrast, his single-note improvising on "Alegrinho" is full of caprice and inventive turns, performed in a style between jazz and classical music.

Rafael rabello

An outstanding prodigy, Rafael Rabello (1962—95) integrated classical flamenco and tango ideas to create his own virtuosic style. On Rafael Rabello (1988), he plays 7-string classical guitar. "Lamentos Do Morro" features a recurring tremolo note with chords across it, pulsating rhythms and punchy staccato with tremendous drive. He improvises with a legato linear technique featuring a sensuous string tone and color. Delicate arpeggiation with doubled notes and altered scales creates a rolling, tangled beauty on "Comovida." "Ainda Me Relondo" weaves inventive, low-bass figures underneath liltingly rhythmic, bouncing chords.