‘…I tried to do something… [where] I could put together the samba rhythms, the samba with bebop, like it’s sambop’ (p. 70). These are the words of pianist Dom Salvador, one of the 173 professional musicians in the NYC Brazilian jazz scene Marc Gidal interviewed between 2000 and 2020 for SamBop NYC. ‘Sambop’ is an apt neologism that captures the genre-mixing essence of the book’s focus – Brazilian Jazz in New York City (NYC). The book is, however, more than a collection of interviews, although the reader is sure to find the anecdotes and insights engaging. Gidal uses salient points from his subjects as a source of structure that underpins the book’s five chapters, as well as distilling and analysing the interviews.

Behind the most famous names in the NYC Brazilian jazz scene (such as Dom Salvador and Elaine Alias) resides an active body of industry professionals who explore jazz, Brazilian music, and blends (or fusions as Gidal prefers) of these genres. The author examines how these experts navigate the challenges of achieving financial viability whilst developing themselves as creative artists. He delves beneath the joyous, vibrant, and often sensual nature of the music and offers an insightful account of the human issues faced by musicians operating in the capitalistic NYC music industry. In the process, he uncovers sex and race biases, competition between musicians within the scene, as well as competing national/cultural influences and self-identifications. Gidal considers the relevance of Piedade’s (Reference Piedade and Atkins2003, p. 41) ‘friction of musicalities’ between North American and Brazilian music (p. 72), as well as Adorno’s (Reference Adorno, Adorno and Bernstein1991) culture industry theory (p. 190), providing a critique of both as it applies to his topic.

SamBop NYC gives one the sense that there is a degree of musical conservatism in the NYC scene. Gidal notes that bossa nova, particularly the compositions of Antônio Carlos Jobim, have remained dominant in NYC since the 1960s in both recordings and performances (p. 113). Brazil, on the other hand, trended away from bossa nova in the 1970s. We learn that the NYC music industry manipulates the creative choices of Brazilian jazz artists through financial imperatives, encouraging conservative musical choices. The persistent promotion of bossa nova results in its domination at the expense of musical diversity. Gidal refers to the ‘bossa nova anxieties’ experienced by professional musicians in the scene, who report ‘playing it safe’ and getting ‘stuck on the bossa nova’ and its associated rhythmic tropes (pp. 140–2).

Any study or practice of intercultural music risks accusations of cultural appropriation. Gidal adopts ‘transnational polymusicalities’ as an umbrella term that applies to sambop, with its ‘musical exchange between nationalised cultures of different countries, whose societal structures influence mobility and interpersonal interactions as well as cultural practices, values, customs, and aesthetics’ (p. 82). With this perspective of Brazilian jazz fusion, Gidal adeptly addresses the issue of cultural appropriation through the lens of hybridity, informed by his interviewees and established scholars on the topic. For example, he cites with approval Born and Hesmondhalgh’s (Reference Born, Hesmondhalgh, Born and Hesmondhalgh2000) notion of avoiding the essentialisation of the music and its practitioners (p. 62), Rogers’ (Reference Rogers2006) discussion of the positive potential of transculturation (p. 62), and Kraidy’s (Reference Kraidy2002) concept of the dynamic process of hybridisation referred to as ‘cycles of hybridity’ (p. 63). Gidal reassures the reader that the polymusical artists in his study align with these concepts and have the power and moral principles to practise their art in a manner that is not misrepresentational, exploitative, or disrespectful to cultural traditions. In practising their art, Gidal observes that the musicians’ transcultural activities are an act of respect – a ‘laudable endeavour’ (p. 63).

Gidal uses the landmark 1962 concerts by Jobim and interviews with Dom Salvador as a springboard for analysing the nature of genre fusion. He draws upon insightful viewpoints from other researchers on the nature of fusion and suggests that samba-jazz and Brazilian jazz fusion could be considered genres in their own right – synthesized fusions not requiring hyphenated labels. The arguments for this thesis are sound and support my own experience with intercultural hybridity and genre-as-culture. Here, the mixture of progenitor genres is merely the starting point for a developmental process with ‘an evolving set of conventions and a shared identity’ (p. 153). I also concur with the interviewees’ consideration that in the process of such fusions, musicians ‘naturalise these new combinations rather than remain preoccupied or aware of their roots of combinatory qualities’ (p. 154). It is this question of how fusion takes place – the process and intention – that is key to any discussion of cultural authenticity and appropriation. When the issue of cultural appropriation was raised early in the book, the question of ‘whose music is being played and for whom’ (p. 42) could have been complemented with the question of how.

Gidal’s discussion of rhythm and metre is problematic. He presents a rudimentary look at rhythm and metre in the adaptation of Brazilian rhythms into samba jazz, as performed by Salvador and Western drummers. The overview of samba jazz drumming contains some confusing and erroneous uses of music nomenclature. Whilst the experienced, literate musician is likely to understand the overall analysis, the errors are likely to confuse others. For example, Gidal conflates the terms upbeat with up-tempo as well as backbeat, and refers to multiple downbeats in one measure (pp. 163–4). He also conflates the term backbeat with off-beat (p. 164), which occurs at different rates in the metrical organization of samba rhythms. In his analysis of the partido alto rhythm, Gidal incorrectly identifies accents within measures, claiming that ‘snare-drum accents occur on the third sixteenth note of each measure’ (p. 166), when, in fact, they are on the fourth.

The book has a companion website (http://www.newyorkbrazilianjazz.com) that appears to be in its early stages of development. Once finished, the site is likely to be a complementary resource through the provision of expanded interviews with musicians and associated biographic data.

SamBop NYC is a book to dip in and out of according to your specific interests, rather than read cover-to-cover. At times, the language is dense, academic, and jargonistic. Most enjoyable are the direct observations and conversations with working professional musicians in the NYC Brazilian jazz scene, where Gidal provides important insights and unearths some universal themes. Industry professionals in other geographic locations will likely find these insights and themes relevant to their careers today. Jazz aficionados will be taken backstage for an engaging account of working musicians’ lives, and scholars will find that the book enhances their critical understanding of the social, creative, and vocational issues associated with intercultural music-making.