ADORNO & JAZZ: REFERENCES (4) [14]

[Ralph Dumain <rdumain@xxxxxxx>]

I have some more information on an item previously mentioned:

TELOS, no. 87, Spring 1991; special section on Musicology: Popular Music
from Adorno to Zappa.

Aside from the Volpacchio interview with Zappa already mentioned, the other
articles are:

Berman, Russell, A.; D'Amico, Robert.  "Introduction: Popular Music from
Adorno to Zappa", pp. 71-77.

Adorno, Theodor W.  "Marginalia on Mahler", pp. 79-87.

Schonherr, Ulrich, "Adorno and Jazz: Reflections on a Failed Encounter",
pp. 85-96.

Hullot-Kentor, Robert.  "The Impossibility of Music: Adorno, Popular, and
Other Music", pp. 97-117.

Volpacchio, Florindo.  "The Unhappy Marriage of Music and Emancipation",
pp. 118-123.

Overall, I get the impression of the dead-end of the whole Adorno/music
project, perhaps reflective of the dead end of TELOS itself, now a dead-end
right-wing journal, drained of any reason for existence, a sad lesson in
where European snobbery will ultimately get you.  There are attempts to
circle the wagons, as well as recognition that the whole enterprise is
futile.  Hullot-Kentor makes a most unconvincing attempt to perpetuate the
method of importing arbitrary sociological evaluations into aesthetic
analysis, for example in his analysis of a Beatles song.  Volpacchio
counters by exposing the futility of trying to impose subjective judgments
about the emancipatory or politically regressive nature of a work onto
aesthetic assessments of same.  Perhaps the ultimate lesson is that TELOS
has become a complete waste of paper.

I've engaged in discussions with various friends about the characteristics
of various genres, their evolution, their historical limitations, and their
social being for a number of years.  One of them knows the Frankfurter
stuff as well as music; the others know music only; but none of them are in
your orbit and you wouldn't have them if they wanted to be there.  We seem
to be in a completely different world from the seemingly sophisticated yet
ultimate banality of formal academicism that doesn't know how to think
outside of obeying the orders of its superiors.

There are important questions of the limitations of form imposed by genres
themselves, or by less intrinsic factors such as the nature of the music
business, marketing strategies, technological determinants, etc.   It is
important to understand the limitations of certain forms whatever their
causes, but given that form is the essence of art, and that throughout
history most forms are circumscribed within certain rules, the mere
presence of restriction or limitation cannot in itself invalidate the
aesthetic content of a form.  Even the desire of audiences to focus on
certain hooks and the repetition of familiar pleasure-inducing forms is not
inherently a sign of regression or commodity fetishism.  Only an ascetic
and over-intellectualized philosophy of aesthetics that a priori measures
value by psychological distance versus emotional participation and
intellectual analysis over pleasure could justify such a position, which is
indeed Adorno's, but I submit that it is precisely THIS posture which is
decadent, socially and culturally bankrupt.  Something _more_ must be
demonstrated if one wants to argue for the reactionary nature of certain
forms.  I would suggest that such arguments are most convincing when (a)
the aesthetic qualities of a given form are so reduced or so emotionally
fraudulent and manipulative that there is something dishonest about their
appreciation to begin with, (b) a genre has outlived its time and and
potential for development, and the combinatorial reshuffling of its
constituent elements only reveals, contrary to ostensible intent, that the
perpetuation of the form and trying to adapt it to changing conditions and
the need for new product has become bankrupt.  This is not the same as
preserving something that is old, classic or even dated, as it was, for
even something that is dated can be enjoyable if presented in its original
form and spirit; the problem appears when the discrepancy between the need
for novelty and the exhaustion of the form becomes manifest.

Too abstract?  Examples?  Well, first, one needs to have people who are
capable of discussing these matters, both the nature of the musical forms
themselves and the types of markets in which they circulate.  The bare
dichotomy of popular and high culture is a grossly inadequate framework in
which to discuss the characteristics of various genres, their market niches
and social basis.

Oh, Schonherr shows how Adorno failed with regards to jazz, and goes on to
discuss the work of Mingus and Coltrane (in the context of the development
of the jazz avant-garde) and compares them to Mahler.