In my last post in this series, I discussed chorinho, and reader Chameli posted a wonderful long comment in Portuguese, with a hall of fame of choristas.  It’s full of interesting information; I don’t have time to translate it now (I will try to get around to it and add it as a post) , but having figured out how to link to Spotify,  I’m going to pick out some of her suggestions and add a few links here:
Adoniran Barbosa, Trem das Onze  [some of these links go to the invaluable site, letras.mus.br, which posts lyrics, often with a video of a good performance of the song. The lyrics of Brazilian popular music are generally exceptionally good: poetry full of imagery, wit, and often with real bite.  If you only know Gene Lees' English lyrics for bossa novas, you are missing a lot]:  Here, a man explains that he can’t stay with his lover any longer or he will miss his train at 11 PM and his mother will lie awake worrying.  This song extracts a lot of poignancy from a banal situation. Barbosa’s gruff cigarette-roughened voice reminds me of Paolo Conte.
Chiquinha Gonzaga, Tupan:  The first woman to lead an orchestra in Brazil, born in 1847 and lived until 1935.  In addition to choros, she wrote piano music like the one I linked to, that echo ragtime’s syncopated but very formalized escape from European forms. Early in the last century, Brazilian composers wrote in a variety of forms, including tangos, waltzes, maxixes, and more.
Ernesto Nazareth, Odeon   Nazareth was a formally trained musician whose works were published as fully developed piano scores.  Odeon commemorates his job as the pianist at the Odeon silent movie theater.
Zequinha de Abreu, Tico-tico No Fubá  Here performed by Carmen Miranda, a controversial figure on the Brazil-US musical bridge, who acquired a largely unfair reputation for exploiting and exoticizing Brazil for the gringos.  The lyrics lightly address a bird eating the singer’s cornmeal, and have nothing to do with the silly English lyrics with which the song was an Andrews Sisters hit.  It lives as a virtuoso display piece for instrumentalists.
Waldir Azevedo Ve Se Gostas  As the title says, see if you like it.  Azevedo was a multiinstrumentalist most famous as a virtuoso of the cavaquinho, an instrument that you would expect to have only 33% more potential than a tres cubano, but like the pandeiro I mentioned in the previous post, in the right hands it can be astonishing.
Altamiro Carrilho, Aeroporto do Galeão  The late (d. 2012) Carrilho was a giant of Brazilian music over almost a century, as composer and a virtuoso flautist (cf. Robison).
Paulinho da Viola, a composer and performer in a class by himself, will probably get a whole post  as he is more noted for samba than choro.
Pixinguinha and Jacob do Bandolim (composers and performers) are so widely recorded you will have no trouble finding hours of listening.  For something different, listen to Jacob comping the great Elizete Cardoso
Oh, little shack/hanging on the hillside
and begging for help/from the city at your feet
I hear your voice/and haven’t forgotten you for a minute
Because I am what you are
Sheet-metal shack/tradition of my country
Sheet-metal shack/poor unhappy thing
Compare this song, which doesn’t have a false note or a hint of sentimentality, to this American equivalent  and this one . Now  I have to mention Harry Gibson’s delicious sendup of the latter, which I recommended to Mark as the anthem of his Washington State marijuana legalization consulting project; I guess we’ll save it until we get a gig in Hawaii.