This article deals with the correlations between race, aging and silence present in the trajectories of two black Brazilian popular music artists, Alfredo da Rocha Viana Filho, or Pixinguinha, and Dorival Caymmi. Recovering some decisive moments of their consecration processes in the face of specialized criticism and the historiography of popular music, this study seeks to demonstate how the silence concerning certain social marks of both artists, notably color, figured as a crucial dimension of their racial experiences. In existing biographies and interviews, with very few exceptions, Pixinguinha and Caymmi are not identified as black, while references to their age and genius abound. In addition, the non-enunciation of blackness, analyzed in the specific context of their trajectories as instrumentalists and composers, can also be understood as a strategy employed by themselves in an attempt to circumvent certain constraints resulting from the racism present in Brazilian society.
Keywords:
Pixinguinha; Dorival Caymmi; silence; race and aging