Resumo:
Several travelers who passed through Bahia left their impressions about the
musicality marked by the presence of black musicians. The presence of blacks in
music was not uncommon, but the sounds produced by the instruments played by
these hands usually seemed strange to foreign ears. The sounds that permeated the
daily life of the streets of the city of Salvador were commonly classified as noisy and
deafening. From another perspective, in addition to travellers’ accounts, other
documentary sources such as newspapers, reports, balance sheets, manuscripts,
receipts, etc., indicate a prominent role of black musicians in the the craft of written
music, reaching other spaces such as churches, theatres, dance-halls, and military
regiments. Given this sound-labor panorama permeated by the presence of
professional black musicians, the aim is to analyse the intersections in the
sociorracial structure through the musical texture woven in the city of Salvador, in the
first half of the 19th century, in order to understand how music was activated by
these men in a context of subsistence, distinction, and social upward mobility.
