Sambajazz was a modernization movement of Brazilian music which took place between the late 1950s and the early 1960s. This research provides an ethnography of musicians practitioners of sambajazz in Rio de Janeiro, focusing on issues related to a sociology of musical instruments and the oppositions between rhythm section and soloists, as well as between the associatated bipartition of body and mind, and hand and head. It also raises the question of the musical use of words in sambajazz and Brazilian Popular Music. To this end, interviews with musicians who played sambajazz in the mid XX s century, as well as with current musicians, were carried out. The thesis also deals with the topic of black music which runs through sambajazz in the work of creators such as Moacir Santos and Paulo Moura, and with the study of the construction of the categories of sambajazz and bossa nova through the archival analysis of journals and magazins of the period. Issues related to Brazilian cultural industry and the current musical profession in Rio de Janeiro are also discussed.