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Topic subjectReading Jazz As Critique by Fumi Okiji
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13413424, Reading Jazz As Critique by Fumi Okiji
Posted by T Reynolds, Wed Nov-11-20 11:27 AM
More relevant than you might think at a time like this. Theodor Adorno got his freudian take on fascism we are seeing from MAGA world right now pretty spot on, but he had to simplify and strip jazz of its power as a critique / counter to mainstream society at large by painting it as a by-product of late-stage capitalism.

Very dense, it took me an hour and half to read the intro (like 10 pages lol).

"A sustained engagement with Theodor Adorno, Jazz As Critique looks to jazz for ways of understanding the inadequacies of contemporary life. Adorno's writings on jazz are notoriously dismissive. Nevertheless, Adorno does have faith in the critical potential of some musical traditions. Music, he suggests, can provide insight into the controlling, destructive nature of modern society while offering a glimpse of more empathetic and less violent ways of being together in the world. Taking Adorno down a path he did not go, this book calls attention to an alternative sociality made manifest in jazz. In response to writing that tends to portray it as a mirror of American individualism and democracy, Fumi Okiji makes the case for jazz as a model of "gathering in difference."Noting that this mode of subjectivity emerged in response to the distinctive history of black America, she reveals that the music cannot but call the integrity of the world into question.

About the author

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