Open Access Peer-reviewed Review

On Music and Soul: Coltrane’s My Favorite Things, LeRoi Jones' Black Music and Adorno's papers on Jazz

Article Sidebar

Download PDF
Submitted   Jan 1, 2022
Published   Jan 18, 2022
Issue    Vol 2 No 1 (2021)
DOI   10.25082/IJAH.2021.01.003

Views

2365

Downloads

736

Citations

PlumX Metrics

Main Article Content

Wilfried Allaerts corresponding author
Biological Publishing A&O, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract

In this review, we elaborate on the contrasts between Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy of New Music and E. LeRoi Jones’ reports on the Avant-Garde of Jazz in Black Music. Whereas Adorno’s papers on jazz nowadays are considered at least inadequate to describe the post-war developments in jazz, and, according to some, rather refer to the German salon music of the Weimar Republic, an interesting key figure of the emancipation of jazz is found in John Coltrane’s music. In Coltrane’s version of My Favorite Things, an audaciously musical and conceptual link is found between the popular music of the Broadway musical, the avant-garde of jazz and a famous masterpiece of the Baroque era. Consequently, building upon a statement by Blaise Pascal, the notion of passion in music – in contrast with the notion of boredom - is analyzed in relation to the personality structure of gifted individuals, as described by Kazimierz Dąbrowski and followers.

Keywords
new music, Jazz, avant-garde, dialectical philosophy, passion in science and music

Article Details

How to Cite
Allaerts, W. (2022). On Music and Soul: Coltrane’s My Favorite Things, LeRoi Jones’ Black Music and Adorno’s papers on Jazz. International Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2(1), 56-69. https://doi.org/10.25082/IJAH.2021.01.003
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

References

  1. Kierkegaard, S. A. (1843, 2000). Enten-Eller. (Dutch translation by J.M. Marquart [2000], Of/Of. Een levensfragment uitgegeven door Victor Eremita. Amsterdam: Boom).
  2. Nietzsche, F. (1888). Der Fall Wagner (Letter sent from Torino). In: P. D’Iorio (1975, Ed). Digitale Kritische Gesammtausgabe Werke und Briefe (eKGBW), digital version of German reference edition of Nietzsche’s works, posthumous fragments, and correspondence edited by G. Colli and M. Montinari (Friedrich Nietzsche Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGW), Berlin/New York, 1967 and Nietzsche Briefwechsel. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1975).
  3. Žižek, S. (2006). La Seconde mort de l’opéra. (French transl. from English, by G. Brzustowski). Dijon-Quetigny: Éditions Circé.
  4. Adorno, Th. W. (1929, 2002). The Opera Wozzeck. (Engl. Transl. by S.H. Gillespie). In: Theodor W. Adorno. Essays on Music, selected, with introduction, commentary and notes by R. Leppert (Ed.) (2002), pp. 619-626, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press (translated from 1929 original of Th. W. Adorno, Gesammelte Schrifte, Vol. 18, pp. 472-479).
  5. Benjamin, W. (1936). Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. Zeitschrift f¨ur Sozialforschung (Herausgabe in Walter Benjamin [posthumously edited with co-operation of Theodor Adorno & Gershom Scholem, re-edited by Rolf Tiedemann & Hermann Schweppenh¨auser]. Gesammelte Schriften, Band I,2. Frankfurt a. Main, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1972-1989; Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Ausgabe, 2010)
  6. Adorno, T. W. (1933). Abschied vom Jazz. (Farewell to jazz, Engl. Transl. by S.H. Gillespie). In: Theodor W. Adorno. Essays on Music, selected, with introduction, commentary and notes by R. Leppert (Ed.) (2002), pp. 496-500, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. (Originally publ. Abschied vom Jazz, in Europ¨aische Revue, 9, pp. 313-316, reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften, XVIII (1984), pp. 795-799).
  7. Habermas, J. (1992). A generation apart from Adorno. Interview with J. Früchtl. Translated by James Swindal. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 18(2): 119-124. (fide: R. Leppert in ’Introduction’ to Theodor W. Adorno. Essays on Music, selected, with introduction, commentary and notes by R. Leppert (Ed.) (2002), pp. 1-82). https://doi.org/10.1177/019145379201800201
  8. Adorno, T. W. (1937). Über Jazz. (On Jazz, Engl. Transl. by S.H. Gillespie). In: Theodor W. Adorno. Essays on Music, selected, with introduction, commentary and notes by R. Leppert (Ed.) (2002), pp. 470-495, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. (Original publ. Üeber Jazz [pseud. Hektor Rottweiler]. Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 5. Reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften, XVII [1982], pp. 70-100).
  9. Robinson, J. B. (1994). The jazz essays of Theodor Adorno: some thoughts on jazz reception in Weimar Germany. Popular Music (Cambridge University Press), 13(1): 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000006814
  10. Adorno, T. W. (1953a). Zeitlose Mode: Zum Jazz. (Timeless fashion: on jazz). Merkur (June 1953), reprinted in Prismen and Gesammelte Schriften, X/1 (1977), pp. 123-137 (fide: J.B. Robinson, 1994, p. 24.) (not included in R. Leppert’s [2002] compilation, see footnote 6).
  11. LeRoi Jones, E. (Baraka, I. A.) (1967). Black Music. New York, Madison Avenue: Quill, 222 p. (ISBN: 0-688-24344-4).
  12. Adorno, T. W. (1962). Einleitung in die Musiksoziologie (Frankfurt). (Engl. Transl. by E.B. Ashton [1988])(fide: J.B. Robinson, 1994, p. 24).
  13. Mazzola, G. (2018). Structure Theory of Performance (Part VIII), Mathematics of Gestures (Part XVI) and Gestures in Music and Performance Theory, and in Ethnomusicology (Part XIX) containing Reviewing Flow, Gesture, and Spaces in Free Jazz (Chapter 84). In: G. Mazzola, The Topos of Music. Vol II: Performance and Vol III: Gestures. Springer International Publishing AG (Part of Springer Nature). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64481-3_29
  14. Allaerts, W. (2021). On music and computability: Contrasts between Harry Partch’s Bitter Music and Guerino Mazzola’s Topos of Music. International Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2(1), 44-55. https://doi.org/10.25082/IJAH.2021.01.002
  15. Nye, W. P. (1988). Theodor Adorno on Jazz: A Critique of Critical Theory. Popular Music and Society, 12(4), 69-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007768808591335
  16. Wilcock, E. (1996). Adorno, Jazz and Racism: ‘U¨ ber Jazz’ and the 1934-1937 British Jazz Debate. Telos, 107, 63-80. https://doi.org/10.3817/0396107063
  17. Adorno, T. W. (1938). On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening. In: Gesammelte Schrifte, XIV, pp. 14-50 (Frankfurt) and in: Theodor W. Adorno. Essays on Music, selected, with introduction, commentary and notes by R. Leppert (Ed.), new Engl. transl. by S.H. Gillespie (2002), pp. 288-317, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
  18. Sloterdijk, P. (2009). Du muβt dein Leben ¨andern. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
  19. Hobsbawm, E. (1993). The Jazz Scene. New York, p. 300. (fide: J.B. Robinson, 1994, p. 1).
  20. Tillich, P. (1953). Letter to T.W. Adorno, written in Aberdeen, Scotland, 23 November 1953 (Berlin: Walter Benjamin Archiv, TWAA Br 1548/1).
  21. Adorno, T. W. (1966). Notiz (Berlin: TWAA).
  22. Adorno, T. W. (1933). Kierkegaard: Konstruktion des Ästhetischen. (Herausgegeben Rolf Tiedemann, unter mitwerkung von Gretel Adorno, Susan Buck-Morss und Klaus Schulz, Suhrkamp Verlag 1962). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 1702, Erste Auflage 2003.
  23. Tillich, P. (1952). The Courage to Be. Yale University Press. Binghamton, NY: Vail-Ballou Press.
  24. Allaerts, W. (2017). When Teddy met Paulus (Tillich). Adorno on Kierkegaard again, ‘das Ganze und die Innerlichkeit’. bi-logical, 6(2), 45-52.
  25. Müller-Doohm, S. (2005). Adorno: A Biography. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
  26. Adorno, T. W. (1941). Zur Philosophie der neuen Musik. (Original typescript, not publ., Berlin, TWAA Ts 1302). Re-edited and published [1949, 1975]: Philosophie der neuen Musik). Gesammelte Schriften, XII (Hrsg. Rolf Tiedemann, 1976.), Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 239.
  27. Adorno, T. W. (1993). Beethoven. Philosophie der Musik. In: Nachgelassene Schriften, Abteilung I: Fragment gebliebene Schriften, Band 1 (Hrsg. Rolf Tiedemann, 1994). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp/ Insel.
  28. Adorno, T. W. (1955-1966, 2014 Ed). Kranichsteiner Vorlesungen. In: Nachgelassene Schriften, Abteiung IV, Vorlesungen, Band 17 (Hrsg. Klaus Reichert und Michael Schwarz, 2014). Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag.
  29. Allaerts, W. (2016). Walter Benjamin: facing the Angel of Oblivion. Between the Storms of Progress and the Ruins of History. bi-logical, 6(1), 44-55.
  30. Adorno, T. W. (1941). Reviews of American Jazz Music by Wilder Hobson [1939] and Jazz: Hot and Hybrid by Winthrop Sergeant [1938] in Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, 9, pp. 167-178. German original in Gesammelte Schriften, XIX (1984), pp. 382-399. (fide: Robinson, 1994). https://doi.org/10.5840/zfs19419117
  31. Adorno, T. W. (1942, 1946). ‘Jazz’, in: Encyclopedia of the Arts, ed. D. Runes and H. Shrikel (New York), pp. 511-513. Original German in Gesammelte Schriften, XVIII (1984), 70-73. (fide: Robinson, 1994).
  32. Darrell, R. D. (1932). ‘Black Beauty’, originally publ. in disques, pp. 152-161, reprinted in The Duke Ellington Reader, ed. Mark Tucker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) (fide: Leppert, 2002, p. 494).
  33. Howard, R. (2019). Pavarotti (Documentary movie). Polygram Entertainment and Decca Records, CBS Films, USA.
  34. Adorno, T. W. (1953b). ‘F¨ur und wider den Jazz’, Merkur (September 1953), reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften, X/2 (1977), 805-809. (fide: Robinson, 1994).
  35. Franklin, A. (1972). Amazing Grace (double album). New York: Atlantic Records.
  36. Clark, N., & Robinson, W. (2015). Aretha Franklin wins injunction to block screening at Telluride Film Festival. http://ew.com/article/2015
  37. LeRoi Jones, E. (1961, 1967). ‘The Jazz Avant-Garde’. In: Black Music, pp. 69- 80. New York, Madison Avenue: Quill.
  38. Spellman, A. B. (1966, 1985 Ed.). ‘Ornette Coleman’. In: Four Lives in the Bebop Business, pp. 77-150. New York: Limelight Editions.
  39. Case, B., & Britt, S. (1978, 1979, 2nd Ed). ‘Ornette Coleman’. In: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz, pp. 50-52. London: Salamander Books ltd.
  40. Case, B., & Britt, S. (1978, 1979, 2nd Ed). ‘John Coltrane’. In: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz, pp. 52-53. London: Salamander Books ltd.
  41. Coltrane, J. (1961). My Favorite Things (record). New York: Atlantic Records (Re-recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival, 1963, 1980 MCA Records Inc.)
  42. Rodgers, R., & Hammerstein, O. (1959). ‘My Favorite Things’. In: The Sound of Music (musical). New York: Original Broadway Production.
  43. Kofsky, F. (1980). Cover text of 1980 re-edition of ‘My Favorite Things’. Williamson Music, MCA Records.
  44. Dylan, B. (Zimmerman, R. A.) (1966). Blonde on Blonde (double album). New York: Columbia Records.
  45. Allaerts, W. (2015). ‘Van Passie voor modellen tot model voor passie’ (lecture, not published). Enschede, 24 September 2015.
  46. Crick, F. (1988). What Mad Pursuit. A Personal View of Scientific Discovery. New York: Basic Books, p. 182.
  47. Watson, J. D. (2007). Avoid Boring People. (Lessons from a Life in Science). New York: Alfred A. Knopf Publ., p. 347.
  48. Pascal, B. (1652-1653). Discours sur les passions de l’amour. Biblioth`eque municipal de Lisieux, B.P. 7216, 14107 Lisieux. http://www.bmlisieux.com
  49. Dabrowski, K., & Piechowski, M. (1969). Les ´emotions sup´erieures et l’objectivit´e d’´evaluation. Annales medico-psychologiques, 127(2), 589-613.
  50. Ackerman, C. M. (1997). Identifying gifted adolescents using personality characteristics: Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities. Roeper Review, 19(4), 229-236. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783199709553835
  51. Dabrowski, K. (1970). Mental growth through positive disintegration. London: Gryf.
  52. Tillier, W. (2006). The philosophical foundation of Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration. In: W. Tillier [Ed], Proceedings from the Seventh International Congress of the Institute of Positive Disintegration in Human Development, Calgary, AB, Canada.
  53. Lorre, C., & Prady, B. (2007-2019). The Big Bang Theory (comedy series). Chuck Lorre Productions, Warner Bros Television.
  54. Berio, L. (1985). Two Interviews, p. 27. New York & London: Marion Boyars (fide: Wikipedia.org).
  55. Adorno, T. W. (1949, 1976). Philosophie der neuen Musik). Gesammelte Schriften, XII (Hrsg. Rolf Tiedemann, 1976), Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 239.
  56. AVROTROS. (2021). ‘Vrijdagconcert’. Registration of concert at TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, October 16th 2021, with Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Katia and Marielle Lab`eque, directed by John Adams and interview of Adams by Leonard Evers. Broadcasted by Avrotros (NPO 4) on October 29, 2021.
  57. Jäger, L. (2005). Adorno. Eine politische Biographie, p. 32. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (fide: Wikipedia.org).
  58. Adorno, T. W. (1962). ‘Kierkegaard noch einmal. (Dem Andenken Paul Tillichs).’ In: Kierkegaard: Konstruktion des Ä sthetischen, p. 239 a.f. (Hrsgb. R. Tiedemann, 1962, Frankfurt amMain: Suhrkamp Verlag).
  59. Adorno, T. W. (1960). ‘Mahler, Eine musikalische Physiognomik’. Frankfurt am Main. In: Gesammelte Schriften, XIII, pp. 149-319.
  60. Adorno, T. W. (1956, 2021). ‘Schoenberg’s Counterpoint’. (Engl transl. W. Hoban, 2021) In: The New Music: Kranichsteiner Lectures, Cambridge, UK, Medford, MA: Polity Press. (Hrsgb. von K. Reichert and M. Schwarz, 2014, Kranichsteiner Vorlesungen, Nachgelassene Schriften, Abteilung IV, Band 17, Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag).
  61. Kurth, E. (1917). Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunkts: Einf¨uhrung in Stil und Technik von Bach’s melodischer Polyphonie (Bern: Drechsel) (cited in Adorno’s 1955 Kranichsteiner lecture 3 on ‘Der junge Schoenberg’).
  62. Adorno, T. W. (1949, 2006). Philosophy of New Music (Eng. transl. R. Hullot-Kentor, 2006). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  63. Adorno, T. W. (1966). Negative Dialectics. (Eng. transl. E.B. Ashton, 1983, New York: Continuum). Gesammelte Schriften, VI, pp. 7-412.
  64. Markus, W. (2018). Een feest waar hij niet naar toe zal gaan. Essays over Adorno, Mahler, Sch¨onberg, Stravinsky, Messiaen, Boulez, e.a. Deel III. Permutatie in 8 stadia (in Dutch). Soest: Uitgeverij boek.scout.
  65. Žižek, S. (1994). Courtly Love, or, Woman as Thing. In: S. Žižek (1994, 2005). The Metastases of Enjoyment. On Women and Causality. New York, London: Radical Thinkers series, Verso, pp. 89-112.
  66. Allaerts, W. (2012). Slavoj Žižek, obscene interpreter between Hegel and Occupy movement. Enjoyment and view on women and causality. bi-logical, 4(1), 37-46.
  67. Adorno, T. W. (1969). “Zum Probleme der musikalischen Analyse” (Eng. transl. M. Paddison, 1982, On the problem of musical analysis, in: Music Analysis, 1(2), 169-187. German text in the journal of the Adorno Archiv, Frankfurter Adorno Bl¨atter, 7 (2001), pp. 73-89).
  68. Winter, A. (2021). Zappa (Documentary). (Reconstructed from unpublished archive film material). https://www.ntr.nl
  69. Omroep MAX. (2021). Maatwerk. Radio broadcasting with Sander Zwiep, Dutch Radio NPO4, December 16th, 2021.
  70. Brandes, G. (1906). Reminiscences of my Childhood and Youth. New York: Duffield, pp. 276-277.