Sandroni, Carlos. 2021. Respectable Spell: Transformations of Samba in Rio de Janeiro. Translated by Michael Iyanaga. Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies Series. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press.

Since 2001, Feitiço decente: transformações do Samba no Rio de Janeiro (1917–1933) (Editora UFRJ) has remained a pivotal book in the world of samba music historiography and Brazilian ethnomusicology. Written by the Brazilian scholar, professor, and musician Carlos Sandroni (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco), the book synthesizes archival, musical, literary, and historiographic materials primarily from the 1910s to the 1930s. In so doing, it documents the transformation of samba from a folk genre played at house parties to a commercial product that became a source and emblem of modern Brazilian national identity. Feitiço decente lends greater insight into scholarly and popular debates about who—and what social processes—contributed to the hybridization of samba’s folkloric roots with urban forms of popular culture. Sandroni astutely shows how these transformations drew from—but also helped to change—socioeconomic and aesthetic discourses and practices.

The book’s recent English language translation, Respectable Spell, by Michael Iyanaga (College of William and Mary) makes the significant contributions of Feitiço decente accessible to Anglophone readers with some relatively minor but well-executed revisions and updates. The translation seamlessly conveys the book’s original arguments to a non-Brazilian readership. More importantly, Iyanaga, who has known Sandroni for more than ten years, worked with the author on a “dialogical project” to translate and revise the book. As a result of this close partnership, the translation preserves and arguably amplifies the original version’s friendly, unintimidating tone. As someone who has also been fortunate enough to know and work with Sandroni over the years, I appreciated how the translation illustrates his significant scholarly contributions while capturing his approachable personality and musical passion, which have helped make him a vital figure in Brazilian ethnomusicology.

Respectable Spell is an excellent complement to other oft-cited samba monographs such as Bryan McCann’s Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil (2004, Duke University Press); Marc Hertzman’s Making Samba: A New History of Race and Music in Brazil (2013, Duke University Press); and Hermano Vianna’s The Mystery of Samba: Popular Music and National Identity in Brazil (1999, University of North Carolina Press). Respectable Spell, however, is important beyond its contributions to samba historiography; it tells the story of how music mediates and generates socioeconomic and cultural changes. Like the development of rock n’ roll, country-western, and other massively popular genres, samba is the ongoing product of complex socioeconomic, cultural, and aesthetic processes. Musical practices and genres catalyze change while revealing and, at times, solidifying complex contradictions around issues like authenticity, race, class, and modernity. In other words, while the story of samba’s metamorphosis is inherently tethered to early-twentieth century Brazil, in Sandroni’s retelling it is also a story with theoretical and empirical implications that will surely interest non-Brazilianist scholars in ethnomusicology, cultural studies, cultural anthropology, and related fields.

The ten chapters in Respectable Spell are organized in two parts. Part I includes Chapters 1 and 2, which describe genres that preceded and influenced samba, like lundu and maxixe, including how these genres were received across regions and classes. The remaining three chapters in this section trace the geographic, social, and commercial shifts of embryonic samba elements. The chapters in Part II focus more on samba’s development in Rio de Janeiro. They contrast early samba performed in the city from 1917 to 1926 with a later form, characterized mostly by distinct rhythmic patterns, known as the Estácio paradigm. These chapters examine contemporaneous journalistic accounts, interview excerpts from the era and after, as well as recorded music to show the social tensions and affordances that arose from the standardization, professionalization, and reification of samba. Throughout, Sandroni investigates how social types and categories associated with samba became focal points within debates over authenticity and respectability. Specifically, the malandro, a bohemian hustler associated with specific kinds of clothing and practices like gambling, was central to the urban imaginary that samba shaped during the early-twentieth century in Rio de Janeiro. Sandroni’s attention to detail in sketching out the social contexts where samba music was performed and heard closely complement his musicological analyses, which reveal how the sound of samba shifted in step with its milieu. Although passages in Parts I and II of the book include technical descriptions of musical transcriptions and technical descriptions, his interpretations of these materials are accessibly and compellingly narrated.

As part of this translated edition, Respectable Spell also includes new content that makes it even more appealing to a broad Anglophone audience. Iyanaga’s foreword uses an explanation of the book’s translated title to uncover major themes and issues. The foreword is especially helpful for readers unfamiliar with Brazil and Brazilian Portuguese; however, it also provides productive insights for those who might be familiar with Brazil but not with the country’s ethnomusicological literature. Sandroni also wrote a new Introduction for the translation that provides additional context, including a comparison of how terms like ‘popular music’ are used in Brazil versus the U.S. and how such terms play out in the book. Lastly, this translation includes a helpful glossary of Brazilian Portuguese words that reappear throughout the book. Overall, Respectable Spell is an expertly crafted translation that will surely enrich ethnomusicological and cultural scholarship.