Full text
| |
| Author(s): |
Lucas Fiaschetti Estevez
Total Authors: 1
|
| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2025-04-10 |
| Examining board members: |
Ricardo Musse;
Jorge Mattos Brito de Almeida;
Rodrigo Antonio de Paiva Duarte;
Fabio Akcelrud Durão
|
| Advisor: | Ricardo Musse |
| Abstract | |
This thesis critically examines Theodor W. Adorno\'s analysis of jazz. Throughout his writings on the subject, spanning from the 1930s to the mid-1950s, Adorno described jazz as the epitome of commercial music, standardized and antithetical to the artistic achievements of his time. Although the jazz Adorno encountered during the early 20th century was largely stripped of its more disruptive characteristics, this situation changed profoundly in the post-war era with the emergence of bebop and free jazz. However, Adorno\'s negative evaluation of jazz remained fundamentally unchanged even in this new context. Thus, we argue that his critique approached the subject in a highly monolithic manner failing to account for its internal fissures. With the profound transformations in jazz and the centrality of its heretical and radical elements, the object ultimately surpassed the critique. Through free improvisation and, consequently, an ideal of a decentered subject open to intersubjective dialogue with other musicians, the most radical forms of jazz developed a type of open and processual musical practice. This practice abolished the separation between composition and performance, significantly expanding melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic possibilities. In this way, \"unstabilized jazz\" challenged many of the assumptions underlying Adorno\'s conception of the artwork. The limitations of Adorno\'s critique of jazz, therefore, reflect the broader limits of his aesthetic theory. On the other hand, we argue that jazz offered an alternative – not competing – response to Adorno\'s notion of autonomous art. From this perspective, we aim to read Adorno against the grain, seeking in his extensive body of work answers to the limits of his critique of jazz. To this end, the research not only closely examines all of Adorno\'s writings on the subject but also delves into the history of jazz and its diversity (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 21/03196-0 - Theodor W. Adorno and the heresy of jazz: the dialectical fractures of an object that surpassed critique |
| Grantee: | Lucas Fiaschetti Estevez |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct) |