Great masters of music have always affirmed that it is impossible to create a modern work, original or revolutionary, without a deep knowledge of the traditions and musical legacies of our ancestors. But for all rules there are exceptions, and with choro things were different.

The birth of popular music at the turn of the century occurred in several countries and started with different proportions of the same elements: European dances (mainly polka), the specific accent of the colonizer, and the rhythmic influence brought by the African slaves. The process that generated danzón in Cuba, beguine in Martinique, and ragtime in the United States forged choro in Brazil.

Between 1860 and 1870 the pioneers of choro were playing more a repertoire of European polkas, mazurkas, waltzes, and tangos with Afro-Brazilian syncopation than a unique genre. A few musicians were manipulating the elements, changing rhythms, tempos, melodic lines, and instruments. The seeds had been planted.

Virtuoso flautist and leader of the group Choro Carioca, Joaquim Antônio da Silva Calado (1848-1873), was experimenting with a new style that incorporated improvisation and developed a dialogue between soloist and accompanists. Polka bands were initially comprised of woodwinds and horns. The clarinet was the soloist's instrument. The trumpet was in charge of the counterpoint. Calado introduced the cavaquinho and violão.

In Rio de Janeiro during the second half of the nineteenth century the flute, violão de sete cordas (seven string guitar), and cavaquinho were becoming the instruments of choice for these vanguard choro ensembles. Flute was the soloist's instrument, violão supplied the bass, and cavaquinho the rhythm. The music sounded spontaneous, almost as if the violão de sete cordas was improvising the bass line, and the cavaquinho taking liberties with the rhythm, but only one instrument unlike North American jazz soloed in choro.

Assimilating the strong influence of these virtuoso musicians who were its fundamental material, choro was officially born through the works of Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935) and Ernesto Nazaré (1863-1934). These two composers gave choro its musical individuality by utilizing rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic elements in combinations and proportions that were original and distinct from everything that had come before and that sounded totally different from all other styles of Brazilian music.

But what is choro? Maurício Carrilho has said that all the best popular Brazilian music is choro. Chega de Saudade by Tom Jobim, the tune that marked the inauguration of bossa nova, is a choro, albeit a choro disguised as bossa nova. It may be played in the style of bossa nova, but it is structurally a choro.

There is much debate about the origin of the name. Some feel that the name comes from the Portuguese verb chorar to cry and stems from choro's lilting melodic lines that sound like they are weeping. On Jacó do Bandolim's LP Na Roda do Choro a musicologist who wrote the liner notes contends that the term originated from xôlo, a word used by Afro-Brazilians for vocal or dance concerts. Today the term can mean a group of instruments (flute, violão, cavaquinho, bandolim/mandolin, clarinet, pandeiro), the act of getting together to play choro, or a melody in 2/4 characterized by sentimental phrases and unexpected modulations.

Choro reached maturity with Pixinguinha. He gave choro its form and orientation. The perfection of his modulations and the virtuosity of his counterpoint caused music analysts to assert that Pixinguinha was the Bach of choro. A curious comparison but one with substance. According to Radamés Gnattali, Pixinguinha was the greatest flautist of all time. At rodas de choro (choro jam sessions), he was able to improvise for hours without stopping.

Among the several groups that Pixinguinha organized was Os Oito Batutas (The Eight Masters). They spent six months in Paris during the early 1920s playing choro and maxixe (a dance ancestor of the samba). What Pixinguinha saw and heard on that trip is an example of external influences placed decisively on the head of the genre's master. When Pixinguinha and Os Oito Batutas returned to Brazil they added saxophone and trumpet to their instrumentation and ragtime to their repertoire.

Os Oito Batutas was comprised of illustrious choro figures such as João Pernambuco, the violonista and first great composer of choros for violão solo, and Donga (1891-1976) co-author of the first samba ever recorded, Pelo Telefone. This points clearly to a relationship between samba and choro that is seldom mentioned in studies about Brazilian popular music. Today recordings of Pelo Telefone are always made by choro musicians. The close relationship between the two genres is evident through music composed and played by the same musicians. Donga, Pixinguinha, Nelson Cavaquinho, and Paulinho da Viola are obvious models of the choro-samba affinity.

A similar yet more diverse connection is found in the career of Benedito Lacerda, nicknamed Canhoto. Lacerda led a back-up studio trio that accompanied recording artists in all genres of Brazilian music for over fifty years. The trio had to play rancheiras, gaúchas, cocos, emboladas, baiões (Luiz Gonzaga, the king of Baião used to play and compose choros), carnaval marches, sambas, and frevos. Chico Buarque, Clementina de Jesus, Jackson do Pandeiro, and Elizete Cardoso were among several generations of singers and composers who were accompanied by Lacerda's trio.

Paralleling this sphere of activity was Lacerda's own work composing and performing choro. Benedito Lacerda, Jacó do Bandolim, Altamiro Carrilho, Abel Ferreira, and Valdir Azevedo were principal players in the choro renaissance of the 1940s which produced the lion's share of the repertoire heard today.

Trio Carioca, Radames Gnattali, Luciano Perrone (drums), and Luís Americano (clarinet) was created in 1936 by the artistic director at RCA Victor with the declared intention of translating into "choristic" language the music of Benny Goodman. At that time, the dominance of the big bands permeated the composition of choro and the performances of the top woodwind players. This points again to the conclusion that choro's development was a dynamic process open to outside influences, that it evolved quickly, diversified, and recycled information. Gnattali and Villa-Lobos proved through their work that no genre of popular Brazilian music has ever come closer to concert music than choro.

The whole process of choro development underwent a very sensitive deceleration in the mid-1950s, and by the beginning of the 1960s choro was almost completely forgotten by the public and the media. What had happened?

By the early sixties (time of bossa nova), choro had almost disappeared. It was the victim of disinterest and prejudice. Bossa nova had taken off. It had become an international movement.

The bossa nova was modern. While choro was something that the old, the retired, or the lower class enjoyed; bossa nova was pushed to the fore by educated people in the universities. Besides, at that time, lyrics were as important as the music itself. Although a vocal form with lyrics written to existing choro titles developed later, it was not common. Choro became alienated.

The great musicians of choro lived in their own exclusive world. They would meet at private all-night jam sessions (saraus ) almost spiritual gatherings that were restricted to those in the choro brotherhood. Inevitably one of the musicians would bring a friend who wanted to "jam." If the new player could "cut-it," he would be accepted and would eventually bring in somebody he knew that wanted to play or an acquaintance just to listen. The saraus were almost a form of resistance to the encroaching bossa nova.

Ernesto dos Santos Donga, in a conversation taped in 1962, said that choro had a type of social organization, that a great respect of the genre was cultivated among the chorões (choro musicians), a respect that was extended also to those who were listening. He went on to say that people without talent were not admitted, and that a newcomer would have to be able to solo and to accompany other chorões or they would demolish the intruder.

The complex anatomy of the choro is one of its strongest and most important characteristics. Choro, like jazz, has a specific nomenclature, an anatomy made of archetypes. Choro musicians are required to be not only proficient on their instruments but also to have an extended perception of "codes" and "passwords" which enable the players to combine their vision and technique to construct torrential improvisations.

The harmonic palettes of both choro and jazz were modified from the classical European tradition. Choro, however, has little use for blue notes (the lowered third and seventh degree of the major scale characteristic in American blues and jazz). Waldir Azevedo used blue notes, but he was from the Northeast and his use was intuitive. The flat seventh is referred to by some as the sétima nordestina (northeastern seventh) and is usually attributed to African influences, as are flattened thirds, fifths and sevenths in American jazz.

In both styles the soloist improvises on the theme and form of the composition. The best improvisers in both styles are those who make the best note choices, develop ideas relevant to the tune, use extensive rhythmic vocabularies, say what they have to say in the time necessary to say it, then step back.

At the beginning of the 70's Paulinho da Viola recorded Memórias: Chorando. He felt that the escolas de samba had become overly commercialized and bureaucratized and turned from the sambas that made him an idol to playing chorinhos. It was the beginning of choro's rebirth for the public at large. At about this same time, music critic Sérgio Cabral produced the show Sarau that brought Paulinho da Viola together with the band Época de Ouro and united the different generations of choro musicians and admirers. The choros of Paulinho brought new harmonies and projected a modern perspective that prejudicial people did not suspect were possible.

A new generation of choro admirers formed the escola Camerata Carioca under the leadership of composer Radamés Gnattali. The music was sophisticated, erudite, almost classical in nature, and played by musicians who were no longer ashamed of the choro. After all, those who know how to play, play choro. Mauríco Carrilho and Raphael Rabello were just two virtuosi of the genre who were drawn to this group.

The 1970s revival was further stimulated by musicians like Paulo Moura and Hermeto Pascoal who included choros on their recordings. The revival was also sparked by the availability of the authoritative instructional methods written by Afonso Machado for bandolim and Luiz Otávio Braga and Henrique Cazes for violão. These methods were important to choro's developmental process and may have nourished a passion for choro in Brazil's next generation of musicians.

Choro's survival today depends on its ability to conquer a space in the domestic and import CD market, the development, production, and promotion of artists, and the distribution of their work. Fortunately, some smaller companies with profound and invigorating visions of Brazilian history (Brazil CDs, World Network, Acoustic Disc) are working to secure the visibility of the genre's prominent artists. With a lot of work and minimum support from the recording giants, choro could occupy a conspicuous place in world music circles.