Neobaroque regeleia: perspectives on the neobaroque from songs by Gilberto Gil
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7917.2025.e101239Keywords:
baroque traits, Geléia Geral, Refazenda, Gilberto GilAbstract
Abstract: Chiampi (2010) states that any debate about modernity in Latin America must include the baroque, otherwise it risks becoming incomplete. From this perspective, this article aims to observe baroque features in the songs: “Geléia Geral” and “Refazenda” by Bahian singer and composer Gilberto Gil. The song Geléia Geral was released in 1968 and carries in its title a term coined by Décio Pignatari that reveals a mixed-race, hybridized, traditional and modern Brazil at the same time. A tropical morning that cooks all the “relics of Brazil”, a neo-baroque cooking. Refazenda, was released in 1975 on an album of the same name. The composition is by Gilberto Gil and is part of the RE trilogy (Refavela, Refazenda and Realce) that the Bahian worked on during his career. The song Refazenda presents a tropical baroque feast, a fruity feast, of flavors, of smells, a song that chooses tropical fruits to discuss issues such as time and becoming, themes that seem invisible due to the baroque refinements, tropical, fruity metaphors. Both songs seem to engender neo(baroque) characteristics, be it the Brazilian mestizo jelly or the neo-baroque banquet. Authors such as: Ávila (2016), Arriarán (2010), Coutinho (1994), Lezama Lima (1993) and Sarduy (1987), will provide theoretical support for this analytical approach. Gilberto Gil weaves a baroque Bahia into neo-baroque poetic links, a baroque style that resurfaces as poetic, melodic and aesthetic refinements.
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