Pelo Telefone: The First Recorded Samba

Every musical tradition has a founding document. For Brazilian samba, it is a scratchy 78 RPM record from 1917: "Pelo Telefone" — "On the Telephone" — widely regarded as the first samba ever committed to disc.^[1]

Born at Tia Ciata's house

The song emerged from the legendary gatherings at the home of Tia Ciata, a matriarch of Rio de Janeiro's Afro-Brazilian community whose house, in the Praça Onze district, was a crucible of early samba.^[1] Like much of the music of that world, it was a collective, improvised creation born in a samba circle — which is why, in later decades, several musicians would claim a hand in it.^[1] It was officially registered on 27 November 1916 by the composer Donga (Ernesto dos Santos), who afterward added the journalist Mauro de Almeida as co-author of the lyrics.^[1]

Onto record

"Pelo Telefone" was recorded for Casa Edison on the Odeon label and released on a 78 RPM disc on 20 January 1917, performed by the Banda Odeon with the singer known as Baiano.^[1] Its commercial success was enormous, and it did more than any earlier piece to carry the word "samba" — and the music it named — beyond the neighborhoods where it had taken shape.^[2]

Why it matters

Scholars debate whether it was truly the "first" samba — the genre grew from years of communal music-making, and earlier recordings survive from as far back as 1913 and 1914 — yet "Pelo Telefone" remains the recording that marks samba's entry into the commercial mainstream.^[1] From this 1917 disc runs a direct line to the samba of the radio age, the great composers such as Pixinguinha, and the Carnival that would become Brazil's defining cultural spectacle.^[2]