Though I can't say I've ever been sympathetic to Adorno's views, he's always been the source I go to when relating music to politics. So-called "free jazz" is enjoying a revival internationally, so much so that the majority of live music reviews that I edit for a jazz website speak glibly and naively about the greater "freedom" of this "new" music (which actually appeared over 50 years ago, or about half-way through the telescoped history of jazz) and as a welcome escape from "the tradition." My role is not to correct or criticize but to teach, and Adorno at least holds forth the possibility of opening minds to the meaning of words like tradition and anarchyl, creativity and invention (they're not the same), and free choice vs. unlimited freedom. Although naivete and ignorance often win the day (it's much easier for a writer to describe the visual choreography of "free jazz" artists than the invisible architecture of a Charlie Parker solo), Adorno has on occasion opened up minds to some important questions about music, culture and politics. When he fails to promote further thought upon the subject, I simply accede to the label that has become my scarlet letter: "he's a traditionalist!" (Thank goodness, there are some of us left. Traditions are the most ephemeral, fragile, deconstructible of all human fabrications. But they're preferable to the alternative, and some of them--like playing notes instead of raw emotions on your horn--still make a lot of sense. Also, traditions assure the academization of a subject (literature and canons, film and auteur theory and, for a while, jazz and race). By contrast, freedom might get you a gig but not tenure.
