The artistic production of Tom Zé in the 1970s: considerations on the project of “worker” music and the disc “Estudando o samba”

Abstract

This article deals with the artistic production of the composer Tom Zé performed during his period of ostracism and seek to better understand the specifics of his actuation and insertion in the Brazilian musical market. Based on discourses present in articles published in journals, we researched the meaning of action of the composer Tom Zé in developing the project of “worker music”, accomplishing an experimental research with tools, workshop machinery and sounds derived from the playing of magnetic tapes. Considering that, in the 1970s, the genre samba was going through a phase of revitalization and popularity in the market, we conducted a study on the album “Estudando o samba” (1976), verifying how Tom Zé positioned himself artistically in the ongoing aesthetic debates about the genre.