Choro: A Social History of a Brazilian Popular Music . By Tamara Elena Livingston-Isenhour and Thomas George Caracas Garcia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. Pp. xiii, 254. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Discography. Index. $55.00 cloth; $24.95 paper.
While Brazilian popular music has been the subject of a number of recent studies in English, few have dealt with instrumental music in more than a cursory fashion. This oversight has now been addressed. Choro is a virtuoso instrumental music dating back to the late nineteenth century and this book, based on the combined dissertations of both authors, represents the most detailed study of this musical genre in any language. For this reason alone, the book represents an invaluable contribution to the current literature on Latin American music.