Cafés with Music. New Cultural Practices and Musical Sociabilities in São Paulo at the Beginning of the Twentieth CenturyABSTRACT
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a new cultural circuit was established in São Paulo, formed by a variety of mirrored cafés, elite coffee houses, singing cafés, modest bars, and obscure taverns. Expanding enormously throughout the city, this network revealed a modern nightlife entertainment and contributed to reorganize the leisure and free time for the urban population. In this new horizon, original experiences emerged, different patterns of sociability were tested, and other cultural practices were explored. This diverse set of businesses and leisure actively contributed to the development of daily musical practices, adding new elements to the modern sound culture in development. The press was attentive to this dynamic, leaving tangible traces of these modernizing practices in the city. This process of cultural diversification and musical dynamization produced particularities that still need to be better understood and discussed by historiography, usually unreceptive to listening to the past.
