In the 1930s Brazil was dominated by the US film industry. The arrival of sound held the promise of a tool to combat such domination and, like many Latin American countries, Brazil invested in the recipe of ‘imitating’ Hollywood musicals while emphasising local ingredients: ‘our’ language, ‘our’ music, ‘our’ artists. Urban popular music was central to this recipe, given its dissemination via radio and the record industry, as well as its popularity in entertainment venues, including revues, casinos and circuses. In particular, radio played a fundamental role in the consolidation of a Brazilian star system: singers represented lucrative business not only for the recording companies and the aspirations of the nascent sound film, but also for the press, which started churning out publications aimed at fans.

Supporting musicians in filmic musical numbers are hardly ever noticed, either in the films themselves or in the corresponding critical literature. Ian Garwood's article ‘Play It Again Butch, Cricket, Chick, Smoke, Happy … The Performances of Hoagy Carmichael as a Hollywood Barroom Pianist’ (2013) and accompanying audiovisual essay ‘How Little We Know: An Essay Film about Hoagy Carmichael’ (2013) are among the few studies that explore the theme. In these, Garwood discusses the marginal role of the composer and pianist Hoagy Carmichael, with particular emphasis on To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1944). As Garwood shows, the musician plays the part of a pianist, Cricket, who, despite being a supporting role, interferes discretely in the interaction of the protagonists, Slim (Lauren Bacall) and Harry (Humphrey Bogart). One example – among many other memorable scenes – is when Cricket plays ‘Am I Blue’ (Harry Akst and Grant Clark) with Slim, alongside other musicians who are awarded even less importance than Carmichael. This chapter will focus on two of these musicians.

When Carmichael sings the phrase ‘ain't these tears’, with Bacall sitting still on the left-hand side of the frame, we are able to see two guitar players seated between them and waiting for their cue to play: these are the Brazilians José do Patrocínio Oliveira (or Zezinho) and Nestor Amaral. Marginal supporting actors, they are hardly noticeable in the scene. Nestor appears only briefly, playing a short solo. Zezinho remains practically outside of the frame, playing a discrete musical accompaniment.