Theodor W. Adorno and jazz: developments, contradictions and ruptures of a critical diagnosis

• Grant number: 23/09310-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: November 22, 2023
• End date: February 13, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo Musse
• Grantee: Lucas Fiaschetti Estevez
• Supervisor: Marianne Eusterschulte
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/03196-0 - Theodor W. Adorno and the heresy of jazz: the dialectical fractures of an object that surpassed critique, BP.DD

Abstract

This research project focuses on the jazz critique of Theodor W. Adorno under a socio-historical approach that addresses the gestation, development and possible contradictions and aporias of his position throughout his work. The author's interpretation of this issue has been a heated international debate for decades. The hegemonic reading tends to characterize Adorno's position as a dogmatic negation of this music. However, we take as an initial hypothesis that such criticisms start from a confusion about the specific type of jazz that Adorno analyzed. To clarify this debate, we have as our first objective to carry out a chronological analysis of the Adornian interpretation of this object, following the evolution of its ideas in its main texts. As a second objective, we will characterize the musical contexts with which Adorno had contact, both in Europe and in the USA. Finally, we aim to put the developments of his criticism to the test of the profound aesthetic, social and commercial transformations suffered by jazz from the second half of the twentieth century, establishing a dialogue with literature about history and the new reality acquired by this music. These points will serve to verify the hypotheses that (i) if, on the one hand, his criticism of jazz should not be seen at first as a stricto sensu theory about a musical genre, it should serve as a valid model of criticism to understand the current culture industry; (ii) on the other hand, the object of jazz would have surpassed its criticism, in view of the way in which this music has become a kind of autonomous and radical art. In this sense, the internship will be fundamental in the collection and analysis of bibliographic material still unpublished and in the insertion in the international debates on the subject. (AU)