Adorno and jazz. A Dialogue with the Philosopher from an Audiotactile Perspective

Adorno’s irrevocable aesthetic anathema towards jazz remains one of the most crucial critical problems, not only about the exegesis of Adornian thought. The particular authoritativeness of the source from which this axiological devaluation came, and its totalizing extent, has exacerbated even more the reactions of the advocates of one of the most significant experiences of the musical creation of the 20th century. Where there has been no open and hostile rejection of the Adornian theses, many attempts have been made, from time to time, to rationalize this critical censorship by resorting to justifying arguments, such as a lack of knowledge of “real” jazz, and therefore of artistic developments after the 1950s, or a misunderstanding of jazz with German popular music of the Twenties, or even an insufficient awareness of the specificity of the jazz musical language. These observations, partly admitted by Adorno himself, do not, however, seem to fully grasp the philosophical sense of Adornian criticism of jazz, which appears exorbitant from – and refractory to – such empirical issues. In this chapter, apart from considerations on stylistic aspects, I will instead try to highlight the intrinsic cogency of Adornian positions against jazz, identifying the deep motivations connected to the core of his philosophical conception. At the same time, precisely about these theoretical knots, the conditions for a possible aesthetic retrieval of the historical experience of jazz will be verified, in the light of the very categories of Adorno’s philosophy and relating the investigation of his essays on jazz to my Theory of Audiotactile Music.