Abstract
The article approaches the production of songs related to the theme of black culture by paraense pianists, composers of works of folklorist projection linked to Amazonian subjects, between the 1920’s and the 1940’s. The artistic careers of Waldemar Henrique and Gentil Puget point out ways through which avant-garde artists, from the first decades of the 20th century, in the north of Brazil, produced a set of references on the black cultural field. The study analyses the historical information available in newspapers and magazines of the period, in texts produced by the artists here focused and in memorial reports. The linkage of the modernist view on folklorist music with the attachment to popular cultural expressions (traditional feasts, African religion rituals, groups of bohemian guitar players) and to urban entertainment events (popular plays, radio programs, musical shows in bars) contributed to the emergence of the compositions from the folklorists here researched. The first years of Waldemar Henrique’s and Gentil Puget’s careers, engaged in intellectual exchanges with folklore researchers and artists of regional and national scope, brought into light, among other things, a regional pattern for the black folklorist music.
pianists; folklore; black music; Pará