Fumi Okiji

Jazz as Critique

Adorno and Black Expression Revisited

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Bringing critical theory to bear on music, this book argues that the jazz form models progressive social relations through its foregrounding of a "communal self," an African-American subjectivity that demands recognition of black humanity and alterity.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 160
• Erscheinungstermin: 4. September 2018
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 231mm x 157mm x 18mm
• Gewicht: 363g
• ISBN-13: 9781503602021
• ISBN-10: 1503602028
• Artikelnr.: 48862354

Autorenporträt

Fumi Okiji is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1Jazz, Individualism, and the Black Modern
chapter abstract
This chapter seeks to establish the socio-historical basis of an alternate
subjectivity, a gathering in difference in jazz, in contrast to the claims
presented by some commentators-shown to relate more closely to the
historical trajectory of the bourgeois. The inattention of both Adorno and
jazz critics to the significance of a distinctive black American subject is
shown to be a crucial oversight. It is argued that the notion of personal
sovereignty (and its loss) must be seen as subordinate to fundamental
everyday, often passive, battles between black life and how society tends
to define it beyond recognition, the sequela of the dehumanization of
African captives. This distinction is crucial to appreciating the manner in
which jazz and other black expressive forms contribute to a model of a
possible praxis.
2Double Consciousness and the Critical Potential of Black Expression
chapter abstract
According to Adorno, autonomous works of art, by virtue of their peculiar
attuned-outsider perspective, are ideally positioned to provide a kind of
social critique. Although implicated socio-historically in the advance of
techno-rationality-in fact, because they are so implicated-musical works
are able, in rearticulating available musical material, to expose the poor
state of human relations within late capitalist society. It is essential to
consider black expression's attuned-outsiderness within the specific
historical and material conditions from which it emerged. These provide an
alternative vantage to that of radical music of the European tradition.
Resting on Nahum Chandler's illuminating interpretation of W.E.B. Du Bois's
ideas concerning double consciousness, this chapter draws to the fore the
importance of African America's contradictory nature, the critical
character of its obligatory retention of conflicting positions. The chapter
culminates in a discussion of jazz syncopation as a manifestation of this.
3Black Dwelling, a Refuge for the Homeless
chapter abstract
This chapter frames some key turns of the study's central argument within a
universalist inclination in black radical thought and expression. The
chapter focuses on the opportunity the disjuncture between blackness and
the world presents, and how it allows us to speculate on the broad ethical
implications of black living in critical reflection on the world. Black
wordlessness and homelessness are put into conversation with Adorno's
ethics of resistance, particularly the imploration to not be at home in
one's home. It is suggested that an embrace of blackness is a way to give
up one's place in the world, and the prerequisite to any utopic future.
4Storytelling, Sound, and Silence
chapter abstract
This chapter establishes the aesthetic terms of jazz's social character by
showing that the tension between wanting to tell communal stories and doing
so with distinction permeates jazz work and tradition. Drawing on Walter
Benjamin's "The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov,"
on black thought, and on the music itself, a descriptive formulation of
collaborative work in jazz is advanced. Storytelling in jazz scholarship
has traditionally been associated with the linearity and coherence of the
individual solo, with values modeled closely on those of the modern
European tradition. The inadequacy of such approaches is discussed. The
chapter shows how the elision between sound and sense (an evasion of
designation but also a refusal to relinquish meaning) enabled black music
to continue to communicate content of social significance, despite being
faced with traumas comparable to those that have robbed Benjamin's
storytelling community of its ability to communicate experience.
5Postscript: Some Thoughts on the Inadequacy and Indispensability of Jazz
Records
chapter abstract
The study concludes with a dialectical riffing on the indispensability and
the inadequacy of jazz recording as a representative of the music's
principles of structuration. It is suggested that jazz recording is
destructive, that it congeals and obscured how jazz work is done and
compromises the incompletion, partiality, and imperfection encoded the
practice. And yet, jazz records are shown to be of crucial importance to
the way the tradition has developed, particularly for how it has
democratized study and has facilitated inter-generational collaborations
while retaining the features of oral tradition.
Introduction
chapter abstract
This introductory chapter sketches the broad strokes of the argument that
unfolds over the course of the book. A recording of the Charles Mingus
Sextet at Cornell University anchors the chapter. In it is heard
socio-musical work that appears to instantiate Adorno's ideas of art's
potential for providing social theory. It prepares the ground for the
extended conversation staged between the critical theorist and black
thought and expression.