Howard S. Becker, Michal M. McCall Symbolic Interaction and Cultural Studies 1990

The Jazz Essays of Theodor Adorno: Some Thoughts on Jazz Reception in Weimar Germany
Author(s): J. Bradford Robinson

Source: Popular Music, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Jan., 1994), pp. 1-25
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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The jazz essays of Theodor

Adorno: some thoughtson jazz
receptionin WeimarGermany
J. BRADFORD ROBINSON
Theodor Adorno's writingson jazz remain at best a puzzle, and to many an acute
embarrassment.To jazz historians they merely contain 'some of the stupidest
pages ever writtenabout jazz' (Hobsbawm 1993, p. 300) and are generallydismis-
sed without furthercomment. Adorno scholars, on the other hand, are unlikely
to see in themanythingmore than preliminarysteps to his laterand more substan-
tial studies in the sociology of music, or - in the words of Martin Jay (1984, p.
132) - a 'gloss on TheAuthoritarian
Personality'.Nor are mattershelped by Adorno's
own attitude. In the preface to volume 17 of his Gesammelte Schriftenhe clearly
distances himselffromhis early jazz writings,referringto his ignorance of the
specificallyAmerican featuresof jazz, his dependence on the German-Hungarian
pedagogue Mityas Seiber in mattersofjazz technique,and his willingnessto draw
hasty psycho-sociologicalconclusions withoutclear knowledge of the institutions
of the commercialmusic industry.If these essays are belittledby theirown author,
why should we botherto study them at all?
Adorno, however, is not to be taken at his own evaluation. True, ifread for
theirinsightsinto jazz historyin the narrow sense of the term,1 his writingshave
littleto offertoday, unless we are willingto believe thatthe rhythmicachievements
of New Orleans Jazz were already present in farmore sophisticatedformin the
music of Brahms, or that Armstrong'sinstrumentaltimbrewas derived fromthe
lead violinistsof the centralEuropean cafrconcert.But theyhave consistentlybeen
read in the wrong light, perhaps not least of all by their own author. In what
spirit,then, should we approach this body of writingstoday?
Our first step must to be remove two misconceptions associated with
Adorno's use of the term'jazz': first,that it referredto what we regard today as
jazz, and second, that the music it referredto was American. Neither was the
case. Because of the peculiar mannerin which Americanpopular music was intro-
duced into Weimar Germany,Adorno could not have known that when he took
up his pen to polemicise against jazz he was writingabout a specificallyGerman
brand of music. Adorno's jazz writings,although post-datingthe Weimar Repub-
lic, must be read withinthe contextof WeimarGermany'scommercialmusic scene
as a whole, a contextlargelyforgottentoday and, due to the predations of recent
history,extremelydifficult to reconstruct.2For the purposes of thisarticle,Adorno
will be treated for the moment not as a socio-culturaltheoristbut as an astute
observer of the popular music of his time - indeed, the most astute observer
1

2 Robinson
J.Bradford
this music was to experience. Later, in Section V, we will returnto some of his
socio-culturalconclusions.
I: Overviewof Adorno'swritingson jazz

Adorno's jazz essays, as already mentioned,were all writtenafterthe fall of the
Weimer Republic over a period of twentyyears, from1933 to 1953. Yet they are
intimatelyconnectedwiththe music of the 1920s,and mustbe read in those terms.
Even his later writingson jazz, ratherthan reconsideringthe subject, are mainly
intended to bring his ideas on 1920s commercialmusic up to date or to correct
some of theirdeficiencies.As such, theyforman integratedand inter-related body
of materialwhich can, and should, be read as a whole. Beforeproceeding, then,
it is best to describe these writingsbrieflyand the circumstancesthatgave rise to
them.
Adorno's firstjazz essay, 'Abschied vom Jazz' (Farewell to jazz), was
promptedby a radio ban on Niggerjazzpromulgatedin October 1933 by the newly
installed Nazi broadcastingdirectors(reprintedin Wulf 1983, p. 385). The essay
is highlyironicin tone: since jazz, Adorno insists,had alreadylived out itslifespan
and succumbed to otherformsof commercialpressure,the radio ban accomplished
nothing that had not already occurred fromnatural causes. Many of Adorno's
constantthemes are touched upon in highlycompressed form:the mythof black
jazz, jazz as a false utopia, the limitsof its technicalfeatures,its relationto the
rulingclass. In the event, of course, Adorno's 'obituary' proved premature:jazz
did not disappear, as he was to discover in exile, and his later essays take on a
slightlydefensive edge to account forthe 'paradox' (1953a, p. 126) of jazz's con-
tinued existence.
This briefessay was followed by a substantialstudy writtenin 1936 during
Adorno's years at Oxfordand published one yearlater,pseudonymously,as 'Uber
Jazz' (On jazz). Here the notions outlined in the earlieressay are vastlyexpanded
to include a detailed account of jazz technique, the various subgenres of jazz, its
distributionwithinsociety,its false promises,its commercialexploitation,its rela-
tion to fascism.Particularlynew is his positingof a Jazz-Subjekt (jazz mentalityor
personality) with distinctly sado-masochistic traits. This latter discussion, so
remote from present-daynotions of jazz, points directlyto the larger psycho-
sociological works of Adorno's Americanexile.
The 'OxforderNachtraige'(Oxfordaddenda) to the precedingessay, though
writtenin 1937, were withheld frompublicationuntil 1982, when they appeared
in volume 17 of the GesammelteSchriften. Essentially they elaborate, in highly
polemical language, those featuresof the 'jazz subject' that brought this music
withinthe sphere of fascismand anti-Semitism.As such theyreflecta deep-seated
bitternessmore readily accountable by Adorno's frameof mind during his early
years of exile than by the topic under discussion. Indeed, thereis some reason to
doubt the wisdom of publishingthese highlyspeculative ruminations,unless one
is willing to grant a resemblance between Amfortasand the jazz personalityor
to detect an essential relation between syncopated dance music and the Final
Solution.
The reviews of Wilder Hobson's AmericanJazzMusic (1939) and, especially,
WinthropSargeant's classic studyJazzHotandHybrid(1938) gave Adorno an oppor-
tunityto compare the pointsin his earlieressays withthe findingsof two American

Thejazz essaysofTheodorAdorno 3
experts and with recent developments of jazz in the countryof its origin. This
essay-review,published in 1941, shows that Adorno was not about to revise his
notions of jazz upon contactwith the American original. Although he now dis-
cusses, forthe firsttime,the phenomenon of 'swing' (as opposed to syncopation),
the vocalisationoftimbreand the superimpositionof speech-melody,he is content
to fitthese musical characteristicsof legitimatejazz into his earliercategoriesand
dismiss them as 'pseudo-vocalisation', 'pseudo-improvisation' and, altogether,
'pseudo-morphosis'. The reviews may be seen as an elaborationunder new condi-
tions of the thoughtscontainedin which, indeed, is citedin a footnote.
'Uber Jazz',
This essay was immediately followed in 1942 by an entry on jazz from
Runes's and Schrikel'sEncyclopedia oftheArts,published in English in 1946. Here
Adorno distillshis ideas and sets them forthe firsttime against the background
of American jazz historiography,which had begun to emphasise the importance
of the New Orleans traditionand the early black-Americantrumpetkings. Once
again, however, Adorno's interestattaches primarilyto commercialisedformsof
jazz, and he sees his thoughtson 1920s popular music reconfirmedby his experi-
ence of the American cultureindustry.
Finally,in 1953,having returnedto Germany,Adorno was able to summarise
twentyyears of thoughtson jazz in a lengthyarticleentitled'Zeitlose Mode: Zum
Jazz' (Timeless fashion:on jazz). In lengthand complexitythe essay was obviously
meant to stand alongside 'iOberJazz' (which is cited in a footnotealong with the
reviews of Hobson and Sargeant) and to correctseveral of its misconceptions.As
its title implies, however, the general conclusions he drew of jazz in the 1920s
apply 'timelessly' to its later offshoots,and jazz is reinstated as the music of
fascism.This view, however, applicable to German commercialmusic of the 1920s,
was unlikelyto pass uncontestedby writerswho recalled the suppression of jazz
under the Nazis. Challenged by the new German expert on jazz, Joachim-Ernst
Berendt, Adorno published a rebuttalunder the title 'Fuirund wider den Jazz'
(Jazz pro and contra) which made only too clear that these two authorities
approached theirsubject fromentirelydifferentangles - Berendtfromlegitimate
jazz, of which commercialmusic representsa dilution,and Adorno fromcommer-
cial music, fromwhich jazz is a failed attemptat individualisation.Indeed, this
spiritedrebuttalshows Adorno retrenchingto some of the positionshe had seem-
inglyabandoned in the USA, among themhis insistencethatjazz is a white man's
music to which blacks merelyadded the frissonof theirskin colour.
Toward the end of his life,however, the self-rejuvenating propertiesof jazz,
and perhaps some of Berendt's criticism,apparentlycaused Adorno to rethinka
number of his earlierideas. By the time of Einleitungin die Musiksoziologie (1962)
the generic term 'jazz' had given way to 'leichteMusik' (popular music), and the
discussion tends to centre on operetta, musical and popular songwriting,legiti-
matejazz being dealtwithin passing. The conclusionshe draws, however,are much
the same: not even legitimatejazz is allowed to partakeofa claimto artisticstatusas
it has constantlybeen co-opted by the entertainmentindustry.Even this chapter,
Adorno's finalstatementon jazz, betrayshis lifelonginsistenceon the primacyof
the compositionalsubstrateratherthan on improvisedperformance.The achieve-
ments of legitimatejazz musicians within the tightrestrictionsimposed by their
genre are seen as less significantthan the existenceof those veryrestrictions.
As this briefsurveymakes clear, Adorno's ideas on jazz, however tempered
by his experiences abroad, never entirelyleftthe Weimar Republic and can only

4 Robinson
J. Bradford
be understood in that context.His very use of the termjazz, which elevates the
vaudeville entertainerTed Lewis into a 'patriarchof jazz' (1941, p. 395), requires
furtheranalysis and differentiationifwe are to understandthese writingsin their
full significance,and particularlyif we are to understand the burden of all his
thoughtson jazz: its fascistpropensities.It is to the stylisticand social historyof
popular music in Germanyof the 1920s, then, thatwe shall now turn.
II: Styles and currentsof the German 'Jazz Age'

Weimar culture,at least in the eyes of its media and of later culturalhistorians,
was Germany's 'Age of Jazz'. Yet its relation to this music, or rathermusics,
differedfundamentallyfromthatexperiencedin the United States or even in other
European countries. Germany,like France and England, was seized with a jazz
craze among its urban upper-middle-classpopulation immediatelyafterthe cessa-
tionof hostilities,but its craze assumed a unique form.First,while black American
musicians of the statureof Sidney Bechet were playingin London and Paris, and
the records of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band were spreading an image of the
new music, however distorted,among the peoples of western Europe, Germany
was still isolated culturallyand economicallyby the continuationof the Allied
blockade. No gramophone records were imported into Germany; no American
jazz musiciansvisitedthe country;indeed, even the latestprintedAnglo-American
foxtrotswere unobtainable. Hardly had the blockade been liftedthan thissituation
was prolonged by the inflationof Germany'scurrency,culminatingin the Hyper-
inflationof 1923. Americanmusicians avoided Germanyforthe simple reason that
its money was worthless;recordcompanies refusedto exportrecordsto Germany
because its economy was too unstable. From 1919 until the firstAmerican jazz
group appeared in Germany at the belated date of 1924, the German jazz craze
thrivedon a musical surrogatedeveloped by German musicians fromtheirown
commercialtraditions,upon which they imposed vague notions as to the actual
sound and nature of the fabled music fromAmerica.
Some German commentatorsof the time,and many of its commercialmusi-
cians, were painfullyaware of theircountry'sculturalisolation. In 1922,when jazz
was still so new in Germany that even its spelling was uncertain,a well-known
writeron social dance described the situationas follows:
Fora wholeyeartheyazz [sic]band was morethanmerelya fashion.Thisstateofaffairs,

thoughin itselfdeplorable,is not withoutits elementof highcomedy.The joke is that
neitherin Germanynor,withfewexceptions, has a genuine
on therestof theContinent
Americanyazz band everbeen seen,muchless dancedto. (Pollack1922,p. 79)3
The German jazz craze, at least in its early years, was thus forced to rely on
home-grownproductsto satisfythe demand forthe new dance music. These were
supplied by commercial musicians who, like a Dortmund bandleader in 1920,
concocted theirown 'yazz' by importingAnglo-AmericanfoxtrotsfromLondon,
adopting the instrumentsshown on the printedcovers, and guessing its musical
characteristicsfromconversationswithjazz fans who themselveshad never heard
the black Americanoriginal(an amusing first-person account of these salad days
of German jazz can be found in Ernst 1926). Under these circumstances,German
jazz was invented by graftingragtimesyncopations and an uninhibitedperform-
ance style onto threeexistinggenres of commercialmusic inheritedfromWilhel-

mine Germany: the militaryband, the salon orchestra,and the Radaukapelleor

'racketband'.
This process of assimilation is documented, however scantily,in the few
recordingssurvivingfromthis period. The earliestGerman recordingbearing the
word 'jazz' - 'Tiger Rag-Jazz' by a pseudo-American bandleader called
Groundzell - is nothingmore than military-band music to which have been added
a few stiffsyncopationsof the type marketedbeforethe war under the name of
cake walk. The Radaukapelle, a termthat survivesin the memoirsof George Grosz
(1955, p. 97), was Viennese salon music played with deliberate distortionsand
clown-likestage antics. It, too, existed beforeWorld War I, and was now simply
marketedunder the name of jazz and undergirtwith an arsenal of percussion and
noveltyeffects,frompolice whistlesand pistol shots to musical saws. An example
of this music, thoughtat the time to be revolutionaryforits disregardof musical
convention,can be heard on a recordingby the Original PiccadillyFour. Later it
was exploited commerciallyby such groups as Weintraub's Syncopators, who
among other things supplied the music to Josefvon Sternberg'sThe Blue Angel
(1930).
It was however the salon orchestra,headed by a lead violinistor Stehgeiger,
that provided the primarybasis of early German jazz. (A German jazz manual of
1929 even offersprecise instructionsforconvertinga salon orchestrainto a jazz
band; see Baresel, p. 62.) There were several reasons for this. First, the salon
orchestra,or at least the 'gypsy music' variant known in Viennese cafes, had a
traditionof improvisationwhich could be transferred to jazz. Second, these bands
and theirleaders already existed, and needed only to be slightlyrefurbishedand
rechristened'jazz bands' to enter the commercialmusic market. It comes as no
surprise to learn that the leading figuresof early German jazz - Marek Weber,
Dajos Bela, EfimSchachmeister,Erno Geiger, BerhardEttd,Barnabyvon Geczy -
all derive fromthe centralEuropean traditionof the Stehgeiger. In the eyes of the
German public, the typicaljazz musician of the 1920s was a violinistof Hungarian
or Slavic extraction,and there was no difficultyin accepting Krenek's Jonnyas a
jazz musician and his violin as a jazz instrument.
At the same timethatthese earlyperformancetraditionswere being created,
the leading and most lucrativebranch of the commercialmusical trade, the pub-
lishing industry, was turning out American and German dance music, semi-
virtuoso piano rags and popular songs under the name of jazz. Here the leading
exemplars were Zez Confrey,whose 1921 noveltypiano piece Kittenon theKeys
achieved almost classical status (Adorno (1933, p. 799) considered it one of the
two lastingachievementsof theJazz Age), and the Americansong composer Irving
Berlin.Again it should be observed thatthe notorietyof IrvingBerlinand Tin Pan
Alley, as with piano ragtime,pre-dated the German Jazz Age, and that German
jazz could build upon established traditions.Early Weimar publicists regarded
Berlinin particularas the quintessentialjazz composer,and the new styleof Amer-
ican popular song in syncopated rhythmsas a formof jazz. It was this music, so
readily available in printand so easy to study and assimilate, that underlay the
early essays in jazz by Weimar's young art composers Paul Hindemith, Ernst
Krenek and Kurt Weill.4
These subgenres of German jazz were all in existencebeforethe firstAmer-
ican jazz band visited Germany in 1924. The firsthalf-decade of Germany's Jazz
Age, then, was nourished on music which bore only a tenuous relationto Amer-

6 Robinson
J.Bradford
ican popular music, and no relationat all to the legitimateAmericanjazz of King
Oliver, Sydney Bechet, Louis Armstrongor JamesP. Johnson.From mid-decade,
however, new influencesimpinged on German jazz with the stabilisationof the
economy,the rise of the matrix-exchange programmeamong internationalgramo-
phone monopolies, and the first
tours of legitimateAmericanjazz musicians. Each
of these developments engendered new stylesin Germany's popular music.
The matrix-exchangeprogramme revolutionisedthe import and export of
gramophone recordings. No longer were heavy shellac discs shipped between
countries, but merely the metal matrices, which could then be used to press
recordsin the new country.By 1926-7this programmehad given rise to a steady
influxof American dance music in exchange for German recordingsof classical
music. The recordingschosen for import, however, excluded a priori the 'race
records'on which most black Americanjazz was issued (Americanrecordcompan-
ies published theirmusic in segregatedcatalogues formarketingpurposes). With
few exceptions, the classics of black American jazz were thus commercially
unavailable at any timeduringthe Weimar Republic."Still,besides a vast amount
of 'sweet' commercialdance music oflittleinterestto jazz, by the end of the decade
a number of legitimatejazz recordingsby white New York studio groups under
the leadership of Red Nichols and MiffMole began to enterthe German market.
This music sold in verylow quantities(no more than 500 copies of each recording),
but soon gained a followingamong jazz insiders and aficionados, as can be seen
in several first-personaccounts of this period (e.g. H6chst6tter1987).
More significantwas the influxof recordingsby such white bandleaders as
Vincent Lopez and especially Paul Whiteman, the self-proclaimedKing of Jazz,
whose own publicityagents had made him by farthe leading proponent of com-
mercialjazz in America. Unlike the New York studio jazz mentionedabove, these
recordingswere sold in issues of up to 10,000 copies, and thus leftan indelible
mark on Weimar Germany's image of jazz. Other leading 'jazz' figureswhose
recordingswere sold in comparable numbers were the famous vaudeville singer
Al Jolson(soon to be immortalisedas 'The Jazz Singer' in the firstsound movie)
and the now forgottenbanjo virtuoso Harry Reser. Neither of these figures,of
course, had anythingto do with jazz as we know it today.
Whiteman pursued two goals: the establishmentof the jazz arrangeras a
musician equal in importanceto the composer and soloist, and the elevation of
jazz to a formof concertmusic withoriginalorchestralcompositions.Both of these
currents- the 'arranger'sorchestra'and 'symphonicjazz' - lefta strongimprint
on Weimar Germany's commercialmusic. Many German dance bands expanded
their numbers, hired staffarrangers, and aped the performancestyle of the
Whiteman orchestra,especially afterWhiteman's triumphantEuropean tour of
1926. German popular composers likewise tried their hand at symphonic jazz
modelled afterGershwin's Rhapsodyin Blue, which Whitemanhad commissioned
and premieredin 1924. At the same time,the 'art jazz' of Krenekand Weill began
to attractpopular attention,especially afterthe phenomenal box-officesuccess of
Krenek's opera Jonnyspieltauf in 1926.6 By the end of the 1920s concertjazz was
thus being produced fromtwo directionsat once: by popular musicians attempting
to elevate jazz to the concerthall, and by art composers tryingout new hybrids
with lowbrow music.
Black American jazz, however, was still virtually uncharted territory.
Althougha few superiorblack Americanmusiciansin revue orchestrashad visited

Berlinin 1925-6,theyremained unknown to expertsand the mass public alike. In

1929 the great jazz clarinettistSydney Bechet played anonymously in the Wild
West room of Berlin'sHaus Vaterland (an entertainmentcomplex immortalisedin
SiegfriedKracauer's 1930 study of the rising German white-collarclass) and pri-
vately on invitationfromthe grande bourgeoisie. At no time, however, did he
performin public under his own name; even his appearance in an early German
'talkie' was anonymous.' In the words of KurtWeill (1926, p. 732), who otherwise
showed a discerningappreciationforblack revue orchestras,jazz 'does not reflect
toweringpersonalitiesstandingabove time,but ratherthe instinctsof the masses'.8
The German radio networks,also established around mid-decade, did noth-
ing change the image of white jazz propagated in Weimar Germany,preferring
to
instead to broadcast the music of theirown radio dance bands and, later,gramo-
phone recordings from the leading German bandleaders. A statisticalstudy of
Weimar Germany'sjazz broadcastingreveals that of 12,500 titlesbroadcast under
the name of jazz, three were by Duke Ellingtonand none by Louis Armstrong
(Hoffmann1987). Only in 1930 were these two musicians mentioned forthe first
time by name among the millions of words published on jazz by the hyperactive
Weimarpress (Strobeland Warschauer1930). The same articleintroduces,likewise
forthe firsttime, a distinctionbetween genuine black American jazz, black jazz
diluted forcommercialdistribution,and jazz-influenceddance music. By this late
date, however, Germany'sJazz Age had already come to a close as the Wall Street
crash of 1929 and ensuing depression leftAmerican popular music bereftof its
ideological attraction.By the early 1930s the same salon musicians who had pro-
duced Germany's Tanzjazz, notably Barnaby von Geczy, were now playing non-
syncopated dance music and marches forincreasinglyconservativedancers and
audiences.
III: Adorno's jazz terminology

Of the many strands touched upon in this briefoutline of the complex reception
of American popular music in Weimar Germany,only Theodor Adorno was able
to keep them apart and recognise thateach had its own social carrier-stratum that
separated it from the others, both musically and sociologically. For purposes of
reference,these strandsare summarised here in Table 1 below. By the end of the
decade, when Adorno began to formulatehis thoughtson jazz and commercial
music, all of these various styles and concepts coexisted under the blanket term
'jazz' and were included accordinglyin his jazz writings.However, a closer read-
ing reveals that foreach of these subcategoriesAdorno had his own terminology
which he maintained even in his essays of the 1950s, long afterthe
'hot' jazz and
syncopated dance music of the 1920s had disappeared and new jazz styles had
arisen in theirplace (Swing, Bebop, cool jazz). Adorno's termsare summarisedin
Table 2 below.
Since Adorno's terminology hardly coincides with the terms generally
accepted by jazz historianstoday, a few explanatoryremarksare called for. The
like
Militiarmarsch, ragtimeitself,was not a jazz styleper se but ratherone of the
forebearsof German jazz, indeed of jazz altogether.Hot-Musikgraduallycame to
be Adorno's termforthe main traditionofjazz as understoodby today's historians,
including New Orleans Jazz, Chicago Jazz, New York small-groupjazz, Swing
and Bebop. Jazz-Excentric, implyinga connectionwith circus and music hall, was

8 Robinson
J.Bradford
Table1.
Style Years Features and social distribution
Militaryrags 1905-1920 Orchestralragtimeand cake walks played by German

marchingbands.
Radaukapelle 1912-1930 Music of youthful protest, sustained by young
middle-classand upper middle-classamateurs, with
much stage clowning and percussion effects;later
commercialised.
Syncopated dance music 1920-1930 Derived fromWilhelminesalon music and performed
by professionaldance musicians fromthe Stehgeiger
traditionformass middle-classconsumption.
Novelty piano 1922-1930 Semi-virtuosopiano ragtime,admiredand studiedby
art musicians; sometimesrecorded commercially.
Popular song 1918-1930 Printed and recorded for mass consumption, often
closely patternedon recentAmericanhits.
Arranger'sjazz 1925-1932 Syncopated dance music forlarge ensemble using a
distinctivearrangementeitherpurchased froma pub-
lisher (and possibly revised to suit the given
ensemble) or created by the bandleader; dominated
Weimar jazz during late 1920s.
Symphonicjazz 1925-1930 Jazzcompositionsin the styleof Gershwin'sRhapsody
in Blue.
Artjazz 1922-1930 Jazz-influencedconcertor operaticworks writtenby
composers in the classical tradition(e.g. Hindemith,
Krenek, Weill, Milhaud, Schulhoff,Ravel, Wilhelm
Grosz) and cultivatedby the musical intelligentsia.
Small-ensemblejazz 1926-1932 Improvisedjazz in traditionof Red Nichols and Miff
Mole, admired by professionaldance musicians and
connoisseurs forits musical expertisebut with little
commercialpotential.
Legitimateblack Americanjazz 1925-1930 Known only to a few connoisseurs,cultivatedby the
grande bourgeoisie and aristocracy;no directimpact
on the jazz of Weimar Germany.
Table2.
Style Adorno's term
Militaryrags Militirmarsch
Radaukapelle Amateurjazz
Syncopated dance music Tanzjazz
Novelty piano musikalisches
Kunstgewerbe
Popular song Jazzschlager
Arranger'sjazz Arrangeur,Arrangement
Symphonicjazz Jazz-Symphonie-Orchester
Art jazz Kunstjazz
Studio jazz hot-Musik
Black Americanjazz Jazz-Excentric
a termadopted fromDebussy's piano piece GeneralLavine,eccentric (1937a, p. 97).

Adorno firstused it in referenceto Louis Armstrongwhen he became aware of
the great jazz trumpeterin the mid-1930s,and later applied it to leading black-
Americanjazz soloists, who combined flamboyantinstrumentalvirtuositywith a
certainamount of showmanship. (At that time, it should be recalled, Armstrong
was cultivatinga careeras an entertainer,and comparisonswithclowns and circus
antics were not entirelyinappropriate.)More importantly,however, Adorno con-

Thejazz essaysofTheodor
Adorno 9
sidered the true earmarks of black-Americanjazz - vocalised timbre, blues
inflections,identifying licks,expressiveinstrumentaleffects(smears, wavers, pitch
sags, fall-offs,etc.) - as personal eccentricitieswhich left the substance of the
music unchanged.
Adorno, then, considered legitimateimprovisedjazz and the greatjazz solo-
ists as marginalphenomena withincommercialmusic as a whole. Throughouthis
career, at least until Einleitungin die Musiksoziologie
(1962), jazz to him meant the
most widespread formsof popular music, whether the syncopated dance music
of the 1920s or the big band music of the 1930s and 1940s. This accounts forhis
narrow view of jazz technique, which was limited to the blandest of formulae
ratherthan those elements by which a jazz musician could distinguishhimself
fromhis less talented confreres.It is to Adorno's analysis of these formulaethat
we shall now turn.
IV: Adorno on jazz technique

Adorno's jazz essays, even the shortest,invariablyinclude a summary of the
technical basis of jazz music as he understood it. What surprises the modern
reader, however, is the passionate and generallydisparaging language he chose
to describethe supposedly objectivefeaturesofthismusic. Jazz,forAdorno, posed
a threatnot only by its prevalence in Weimar societyor its manner of distribution
and inculcation, but in its very essence, much as did the music of Stravinsky.
Accustomed to analysing works of music as the expression of their moment in
history,Adorno treatedjazz music as a single, undifferentiated 'work' cryingout
to be socially deciphered.
The tools with which he set out to analyse this music were, of course, those
of art music. For this he should not be held to account: only recentlyhas an
analytical vocabulary been developed forjazz, and the technical terms used by
musicians themselves were long disparaged, not only by Adorno, as the ill-
informedjargon of musical illiterates.But lacking a vocabulary for the defining
featuresof legitimatejazz, it was a foregoneconclusion that Adorno would dis-
cover those aspects of popular music that pointed up its deficiencieswhen com-
pared to musical works of art, and would conclude thatjazz is at best 'good bad
music' (1962/1988,p. 32).
Adorno saw the technicalinnovationsof jazz primarilyin two areas: rhythm
and timbre(1937a, p. 74). In otherareas jazz was merelyderivative.Jazz harmony,
he concluded, was borrowedwholesale fromimpressionism:'Ninth chords,added
sixths and other mixturessuch as the stereotypical"blue chord" [i.e. the tonic
seventh], parallel chord progressionsand whatever otherverticalcharmsjazz has
to offerare taken fromDebussy' (1937a, p. 90).' While this is certainlytrue if one
examines the printedsheet music and stockarrangementsof 1920s popular music -
and if one takes musicians such as Duke Ellingtonat theirword, as did Adorno
(ibid.) - it hardly accounts forthe non-standardharmonies actuallyheard in jazz
performance,whetherfromits improvised contrapuntaltextureor the microtonal
inflectionsof blue notes on the 3rd, 5th and 7th degrees of the scale. Neither of
these harmonic effects,of course, could be fixed in notation, and neitherwas
specially emphasised in Weimar's commercialmusic. Accordingly,both escaped
Adorno's analysis. Later he tried to rectifythis shortcomingby treatingthe blue
note as an ambiguous major-minorthirdand microtonalinflectionsas 'dirtynotes'.
Since, however, the formerhad already been examined by Eduard von der Nuill

10 Robinson
J.Bradford
as a formativesonorityin the music of Bart6k(1953b, p. 807), and the latterleft
the harmonic functionof the inflectedpitch unchanged (ibid),1oneithercould, to
Adorno's mind, be considered innovative. Harmonically, jazz remained well
behind the state attainedby art music.
Adorno found stillless to praise in jazz melody,which likewise had 'impres-
sionisticmodels' (1937a, p. 90). Not knowing the freelyevolving melody of great
black American soloists such as Bechet and Armstrong,he could only draw his
conclusions fromthe melodies of popular songs and fromthe 'daredevil cadenzas
Kadenzenderhotmusic',1993,p. 796), those pseudo-
of hot music' (dieabenteurlichen
improvised instrumental breaks inserted at regularlyrecurringjunctures in the
thirty-two-bar song form. These two- and four-barimprovisationswere strictly
codifiedat the timeand in no way permittedthe freeunfoldingof melody associ-
ated with jazz today. German musicians generallylearnt them by rote fromany
of the many 'break manuals' published by the house of Zimmermannin Leipzig
(e.g. Evans 1928a and 1928b;Baresel c.1930) and played themas small-scaleconcert
etudes. Adorno was fullyaware of these jazz manuals and of their stultifying
effecton the musical creativityof commercialmusicians, who in fact replicated
tiredformulaewhere theyclaimed to be improvising.Indeed, one of these manuals
was writtenby his long-timeassociate and jazz adviser Mityas Seiber (1929).
It was the thirty-two-barsong formitself,the periodic structureof jazz, the
'eight-bar period with its subdivision into half-cadence and full cadence'
mit[ihrer]
Periode
('achttaktige Gliederung Adorno1933,p.
inHalb-undGanzschluss',
797), that constitutedthe most atavisticfeatureof the music, preventingit from
evolving organicallyand its practitionersfromdeveloping individualityof expres-
sion. Being unaware of the work of the major jazz soloists, who showed great
ingenuityprecisely in overcoming the rigid structureof the standard tunes on
which they improvised, Adorno may be excused for seeing in jazz only the
straitjacketof the Tin Pan Alley song and the limited expressive opportunities
offeredby the two- to four-barbreak. In later years, however, even afterhe had
become acquainted with Bebop, he saw no reason to revise this opinion. It never
occurredto him that this 'straitjacket'was in facta prerequisiteto improvisation,
which must leave some parametersintactin order that othersmightbe explored,
and a stimulusto the performer'simaginationmuch like a rigid fugue subject to
an improvisingorganist.The jazz musician,itwould seem, is faultedfornot acting
with the libertiesgranted an art composer: 'popular music is touched up rather
than jazz as such being composed; ('LeichteMusik [wird]frisiert, nichtetwaJazzals
solcherkomponiert', 1953a, p. 125).
If the preceding featuresof jazz were evidentlyderivativeof art music, the
same could not immediatelybe claimed of its timbreand rhythm,which were
quite obviouslynew to the world of 1920s commercialand concertmusic. Adorno,
however, was not willing to grantjazz even these modest claims to innovation.
Jazz timbre,he maintained, consists in instrumentalvibrato,this being its 'vital
element' ('Lebenselement',1937a, p. 75). While the applicationofvibratoto standard
orchestralinstrumentssuch as the clarinet,trumpetand trombone was indeed
unusual at the time, Adorno saw the roots of this vibrato in the Wilhelmine
Stehgeiger, in whom he correctlyrecognisedone of the forebearsof Weimar's com-
mercialmusic. Other formsof jazz instrumentaltimbre- growl and plunger-mute
effects,slap-tonguing,and especially the new percussion sounds (crash cymbal,
hi-hat,wirebrushes) - escaped his attentionwhere theywere not simplyexplained

as instances of Excentric.Later, afterencounteringlegitimatejazz in the USA, he

feltthe need to expand upon the achievements of jazz timbre,specificallymen-
tioning the application of vocal effectsto instrumentalperformance(1953a, p.
381) and the individualisationof instrumentaltimbre(1953b, p. 805). For these
phenomena, however, he reserved the words 'pseudo-vocalization' and 'pseudo-
individualization' to indicate that they in no way altered the substance of the
music, by which he meant the compositionalsubstrateof the thirty-two-bar song.
Once again we notice that Adorno's encounterswith legitimatejazz only encour-
aged him to restate his earlier positions with greaterinsistence. Jazz, no matter
how complex, no matterhow obscure to the general public, no matterhow remote
fromthe dance music of the Weimar Republic, was not allowed to shed its label
as popular music.
This became especially apparent in Adorno's treatmentof the rhythmic
propertiesof jazz. Like all commentatorsof the time, he saw the rhythmicbasis
of jazz in syncopation, a technique familiarin art music and ubiquitous in the
music of ragtime. This impression was reinforcedby the jazz publicists of the
1920s, who lauded the revolutionaryand disinhibitingpropertiesof jazz syncopa-
tion, and by the aforementionedjazz manuals, which largely consisted in rudi-
mentaryexercises foradding syncopationto existingmelodies (e.g. Baresel 1926).
Indeed, one of the champions of syncopationas a teaching device was Adorno's
jazz adviser Mityais Seiber, who later went on to elaborate his theory of jazz
syncopationto almost comic proportionsin an Englishscholarlyjournal (1945). The
rhythmoflegitimatejazz, as we now know, meant much more than syncopation:it
included tripletswing, the superimpositionof speech rhythms,the freedom to
anticipate or lag behind the unit pulse, and all the while that urgency and
momentumknown as 'swing'. By insistingon syncopationAdorno kepthis discus-
sion rooted at the level of ragtime,fromwhich, he maintained,jazz differedonly
by abandoning the timbreof the piano (Adorno 1953a, p. 123). Indeed, because
syncopationis also found in two Americanfiddlingtunes fromthe 1830s - Turkey
in theStrawand Old Zip Coon- Adorno could claim thatjazz's rhythmicbasis had
remainedunchanged since the mid-nineteenthcentury(1946, p. 71; 1953a, p. 123).
However, it should be borne in mind thatWeimar's commercialmusic, the object
of Adorno's inquiries, never in fact strayed very far fromragtime syncopation,
and thatWeimar's jazz manuals never demanded of aspiringjazz musicians more
than the simplestformsof syncopation.
Adorno identifiestwo sub-categoriesof syncopation,the firstcalled UGberbin-
dung (tying)and related to ragtime,the second Aussparung(excision) and related
to the Charleston (1937a, p. 74). The principaldifferenceseems to lie in whether
the syncopationis produced by a sound or silence - by a tie or a rest- although
this distinctionwould presumablybecome less importantin actual performance.
But however the syncopationis produced, it is always resolved to coincide with
the underlyingunitpulse maintainedin the bass drum. To Adorno, thisresolution
automaticallynegates the artisticfreedomexplicitlyclaimed forjazz syncopationby
its champions. Moreover, syncopationin Weimar Germanywas almost invariably
applied mechanicallyto a pre-existingmelody, which was meant to remainimme-
diatelyrecognisablebeneath the rhythmicdistortions.(Indeed, one ofthe favourite
practicesof Weimar's jazz musicians was to syncopate a melody fromthe classical
repertoireas a sort of irreverentcaricature.)Again, as Adorno pointed out, the
freedomclaimed forsyncopationproves illusory:never does it sever the bonds of

12 Robinson
J. Bradford
the compositionalmodel, and never does it break the shackles of the unit pulse.
More importantis Adorno's discussion of Scheintaktigkeit, a technical term
specificallycoined by Weimar Germany'sjazz theoriststo explain what is known
today as secondaryrag. Scheintakte, or 'pseudo-bars', are createdwhen crotchetsor
quavers are grouped in threeswithina 4/4metreand allowed to produce three-beat
patternsextendingover the normalbar lines. This simple device, immortalisedin
Euday Bowman's familiar12thStreetRag (1914) and more spectacularlyin Con-
frey'sKittenon theKeys (1921), was lauded by Weimar's more enthusiasticjazz
apologists as an importantcontributionto the evolution of rhythmin Western
music. Adorno was suitablysceptical. It is in this contextthat we should under-
stand his claim that the rhythmicachievements of jazz - meaning specifically
Scheintaktigkeit- were already foreshadowed if not surpassed in the music of
Brahms (1933, p. 797; 1953a, p. 126), who indeed occasionally used displacement
of metreto massive effectin his orchestraland chambermusic.
Still,Adorno himselfmisunderstoodthe nature of the Scheintakt. On several
occasions he describes it as a combinationof 3 + 3 + 2 quavers withina 4/4bar,
which, of course, would merely produce the Charleston rhythm(1933, p. 798;
1937a, p. 74; 1941,p. 393). It is surprisingto findthata musical analystof Adorno's
fastidiousnessshould consistentlyoverlookthe simple factthatScheintakte can only
be perceived iftheyextendbeyond the normalbar line. Adorno's point, however,
is that no matterhow complex Scheintakte may become, they always eventually
resolve into the underlying4/4metre.The rhythmicfreedomof the Scheintakt, like
syncopation, ultimatelyproves deceptive, a favourite thought of Adorno's first
elaborated in 1937 (1937a, pp. 74-5) and repeated in all his later essays.
The thirdelement in Adorno's discussion of jazz rhythm,aftersyncopation
and Scheintakt, is the break. As surprisingas it may seem to consider the break a
featureof rhythm(we have already examined it fromthe standpointof melody),
it was here that the most daring polyrhythmsand cross-accentsof Weimar's jazz
were to be found. Many of the examples contained in Weimar's break manuals
are almost case-studies of the level of complexitythat a jazz performancemay
attainwhen the soloist is allowed to play unaccompanied. Adorno's point here is
much the same as with Scheintaktigkeit: no matterhow daring and uninhibitedthe
break, it will always fitinto the underlyingeight-barperiodic structureof the
performance.The break thereforemerely functionsas an ornament- or, as he
lateracidlyremarked,a 'vitamininjectionin the tedium of mass-producedarticles'
('Vitaminspritze im Einerleider Massenproduktion', 1953b, p. 806) - rather than
imparting form and structure. Again, the alleged rhythmicfreedomof jazz proves
to be illusory:jazz performanceeven in its wildest outburstsof improvisationis
hamstrungby the thirty-two-bar song form,the eight-barperiod, the 4/4metre
and the unit pulse.
It need hardlybe mentionedthat,as dance music, jazz could scarcelyafford
to do without an underlyingbeat, clear metre and regular periodic structure.
Adorno sees jazz's effortsto freeitselffromthe unitpulse and the eight-barperiod
into the world of rubato and compound time signaturesthwartedby its function,
by its need to fulfila purpose and to reach a large body of listenerswho insisted
The factthatlaterjazz no longerfunctionedas dance music,
on easy intelligibility.
and appealed to a limited audience, did not lead him to revise these opinions.
On the contrary,he merelyinsistedthatmodernjazz was attractingtalentedyoung
musicians fromart music into pseudo-art (1953a, p. 135). To the end of his days,

when speaking ofjazz, Adorno clung to the technicalvocabularyhe had developed

to analyse the German commercialmusic of the 1920s; and as his analyticalter-
minologyremained the same, so did his conclusions.
V: Jazzsociologicallydeciphered
The limitationsthat Adorno saw in jazz's technical devices, then, resulted from
and were accountable to its functionas dance music. Jazz, in other words, was
Gebrauchsmusik, and had to be approached in a way fundamentallydifferentfrom
art music. 'Jazz', as Adorno succinctlyput it, 'is a commodityin the strictsense
of the term'('Ware im strikten Sinn', 1937a, p. 77). This did not absolve jazz, how-
ever, froman obligationto reflectin good faithits position in historyand its role
in society. Here, too, 'the technologicalfactof [its] functionmay be viewed as a
cipher forits role in human society' ('der technologische Tatbestand derFunktiondarf
als Chiffreeinesgesellschaftlichen
verstanden werden',1937a, p. 76). Like musical works
of art, then, jazz music cries out forsociological deciphering.
Admittedlythereare no works to appeal to in the case of jazz. Adorno rarely
mentions the name of a jazz composer or performer,the titleof a song or jazz
number, and never a recorded or live performance.Being a mass music jazz was
necessarilyanonymous, or at best 'pseudo-individualised', and should therefore
be treatedas such by its analysts. The few names or worksmentionedin Adorno's
essays - Confrey,Armstrong,Ellington,TigerRag, Valencia,TheIsle ofCapri,Deep
Purple - are never singled out for analysis but only to add a detail to a more
generalised argumentabout the nature of popular music. 'No jazz piece', Adorno
proclaimed,'knows historyin a musical sense' ('wie keinJazzstiick, im musikalischen
Sinn, Geschichte kennt',1953a, p. 127). It was the formulaeof commercialisedjazz
itself, as suggested in the preceding section, that constitute the 'work' to be
deciphered.
To begin our discussion we will take one of the most striking,and to later
generationsmystifying, of Adorno's pronouncementsupon jazz: his denial of its
black Americanheritage.Time and timeagain he refersto the Negerfabel, the myth
of black jazz (1937a, p. 88, and passimin the lateressays). For Adorno, as formany
of his Weimar contemporaries(including his mentor MaityasSeiber, 1931), jazz
was a white man's music that followed upon and completelysuperseded some
colourfulblack American traditions:the spiritualsand, to a lesser extent,ragtime
(Adorno, 1937a, p. 83). (Adorno knew or said nothingabout black gospel music
or ruralblues.) In his most caustic formulationsof thisview he merelygrantsthat
'the skin of the Negroes, like the silverof theirsaxophones, is a colouristiceffect'
useful at best foradvertisingpurposes ('die Haut derNeger[ist]so gut wie das Silber
derSaxophoneein koloristischer 1937a, p. 83). Even in laterlifeAdorno clung
Effekt',
to the notion that blacks added nothing to jazz apart fromtheir skin colour: 'I
have no prejudice against Negroes except that they only differfromwhites in
point of colour' ('Ich habekeinVorurteil gegendie Neger,als dass sie von den Weissen
durchnichtssichunterscheiden als durchdie Farbe',1953b,p. 809). Small wonder that
he has been unable to escape charges of covert racism fromhis latter-daycritics
(Barnouw 1976 and Berendt's originalcritiquein Adorno 1953b).
These charges, however, prove groundless the moment we transferhis
remarksto the commercialmusic of Weimar Germany, where jazz, as we have
seen, followed a completely differentline of development. Confrontedwith a

14 Robinson
J. Bradford
music played by whites, heard, purchased and danced to by whites, and mass-
produced and marketedby whites, Adorno may be excused forconcluding that
any black Americanfeaturesthatmay have existedin jazz had been utterlyeradic-
ated in the course of its social evolution. Nor was he able to detectblack American
traitsin the music itself,remarkinglaconically,'It is, incidentally,difficult to pin-
point the authentic Negro elements of es
jazz' ('Ubrigensfaillt die
schwer, authentischen
Negerelemente des Jazz zu isolieren',1953a, p. 124) - an opinion that can only be
seconded aftera close hearing of Weimar's jazz recordings.Jazz, by the time it
reached Adorno, had undergone two processes of re-acculturationduring which
its black Americanfeatureswere firstblunted forconsumptionby white American
audiences and in turn virtuallyobliteratedfor the musicians and consumers of
Central Europe. Not until 1930 were German jazz enthusiasts aware that black
American musicians played a differentand more earthy style of jazz for race
recordsand varied theirperformancestyleto suit the skin-colourof theiraudience
(Strobeland Warschauer 1930).
If the true originsof jazz were not to be found in the music of black Amer-
icans, where then did jazz originate?Adorno's answer to thisquestion goes to the
heart not only of his sociological interpretationof jazz music but of Weimer Ger-
many's jazz receptionaltogether:
Due to its origins,jazz is rooteddeep in the salon style.To put it bluntly,it is thesalon
stylefromwhichjazz derivesits espressivo, everything about it thatseeks an emotional
outlet.[ ... ] The subjectivepole ofjazz [ ... ] is salonmusic;it quiverswiththelatter's
everymovement.Ifone wishedto definejazz in broadand tangiblestylistic categoriesas
an interferential
phenomenon, one might call it thecombination of salonmusic and march.
(1937a,pp. 91-2)"
The last words - 'the combinationof salon music and march'- deserve reiteration.
We have already seen how Adorno traced 'jazz vibrato' to the playing of the
Stehgeiger.Now, it seems, the roots of jazz itselfare to be found in the Paris
ensembles and militarybands of WilhelmineGermany.However bizarreAdorno's
view may appear fromtoday's standpoint,our surveyof Weimar's jazz reception,
given in Section II, confirmsthe accuracy of both these claims when applied to
Germanjazz. For Adorno, as formost German musicians and commentators,very
few of whom ever set footin America untilforcedby circumstancesto do so, jazz
was a thoroughlycentralEuropean phenomenon and could be understoodentirely
in centralEuropean categories.
Adorno, then, correctlyrecognised two of the currentsthat contributedto
the formationof German jazz in the early post-waryears. This discoverywas of
centralimportancewhen he came to 'decipher' this music. Nor did he overlook
the thirdcontributingfactorto early Weimar jazz, the Radaukapelle,or what he
called Amateurjazz.But he was quick to see throughthe revolutionaryposturingsof
thismusic, withits unmotivatedpercussion and noveltyeffects,animal imitations,
deliberate executive blunders and general attitude of dpaterle bourgeois.In this
respecthe was farin advance of many commentatorsof his time, who found the
music so rebellious that it was sometimes called Matrosenmusik in order to link it
to the sailors' mutiniesthathad precipitatedthe German revolutionsof 1918 (e.g.
Bernhard1927).12Adorno recognisedthatAmateurjazz,farfrombeing produced in
a revolutionaryspirit,was in realitynothingmore than a debased versionof ordin-
ary commercialdance music:

The amateuris notthefreshand unencumbered musicianwhoseoriginality liftshimabove

the dailyroutineof commerce;thatbelongsto the realmof the Negerfabel. [ ... I The
amateurapes the stereotypes of currentjazz musicand bestowsupon thema commercial
opportunityto be retailedat a possiblyeven cheaperprice.(1937a,p. 88)13
In lateryears,thoughwithoutdenyingthe original'anarchic'impetus of thismusic
(1953a, p. 132), he correctlysaw that the fate of such musical outburstsby the
rebellious young is to be subsumed into the culture industry,as happened to
Weimar's Amateurjazzin the 1920s and has happened since then to every sub-
sequent jazz, rockand urban blues stylewith the sole exceptionof the deliberately
unmarketableFree Jazz. Later historyhas borne out the patternthatAdorno pos-
ited forsuch youthfulheresies in popular music: standardisation,commercialcan-
nibalisation, paralysis ('Standardisierung, kommerzielleAusschlachtungund Erstar-
rung', 1953a, p. 124).
At the other extremewas the highlyprofessional'hot music', which raised
a claim to artisticstatus by virtueof its qualityof execution,freedomof improvisa-
tion, and the relativelyhigh standards and small size of its audience. Adorno was
aware that such music appealed to dance-band musicians as an antidote to bore-
dom, and to fans who placed higherdemands on the music than did the dancers
on the dance floor.Moreover, these fans generallycame fromthe higherechelons
of society,and used the artisticclaims of this music to set themselves apart from
middle- and lowbrow consumers (1937a, p. 80). However, by accepting the func-
tionallimitationsof dance music, 'hot music' (by which Adorno also meantlegitim-
ate black American jazz) was unable to distance itselfessentially fromthe mass
product:
Theorymust[... ] confronttheproblemofcontingency vis-a-vishotmusic,no matter how
littleheadwaythismusichas madein thebroadpublic,at leastin Europe.Forcomparedto
the minimaof marchand salon music,hot musicrepresents the greatestattainablemax-
imum.(1937a,p. 95)"
At the most,hot music could aspire to the statusofKunstgewerbe, a slightlyderogat-

ory term usually associated in German with and
porcelain figurines antique furni-
ture, but likewise capable of exhibitinghigh-qualitycraftsmanshipand attracting
admirers.
This was also the label Adorno set aside fornoveltyragtime,especially Zez
Confrey's Kittenon the Keys with its clever cross-relations,major-minortriads,
overlapping Scheintakte and concludingpiano clusters.Like many of Weimar's jazz
publicists,and like composers as farapart as Darius Milhaud and ErwinSchulhoff,
Adorno feltsecretlyattractedto the technicalpolish of this music and its playful
treatmentof elements new at the time to art composers. (The clustersin its final
chorus, though merelyevocative of a cat stumblingon a piano keyboard,antedate
those of Bart6kby several years.) But by applying the analyticalcategories of art
music to Confrey,BillyMayerland Rube Bloom he could only discoverthe poverty
of novelty ragtime compared to the art music of the time, and particularlyits
failureto evolve into somethingmore substantial.In the event, noveltypiano rags
soon disappeared fromWeimar's music culture,leaving behind nothingmore than
'the elan of a new beginning' (1933, p. 799).
If novelty ragtime was familiaronly to a few professional musicians and
intellectuals,the same could not be said of the popular song, or Jazzschlager.It is
importantto note that, for Adorno, popular song was not a separate genre of

16 Robinson
J. Bradford
commercialmusic that occasionally betrayedechoes of instrumentaljazz, but the

centralgenre of jazz itself.Indeed, most of his referencesto jazz, even where he
does not specificallymentionJazzschlager, could be replaced by the term'popular
song'. There were several reasons forthis. Popular songs appeared in printand
could thereforebe studied and analysed, whereas live or recorded performances,
at least at that time, could not. They were also published in huge numbers,and
were thus farmore widely distributedthan gramophone discs. What is more, the
sheet music tradewas in controlof musical copyright,makingit the most lucrative
branch of the 'culture industry'. It was popular song, ratherthan instrumental
'hot music', thatconstitutedthe musical core of Weimar's Jazz Age.
The popular song also provided jazz with its compositionalsubstrate.To a
criticsuch as Adorno, with his fixationon writtenmusic, this was essential for
his assessment of other styles and sub-categoriesof jazz. Confrontedwith the
compositional monotony of Weimar's popular song output, he could feel with
many others that superior musicians were more likely to be found among the
arrangersof jazz ratherthan among its composers:
Ifwe comparetheachievement ofa good band withthemusicprintedin, say,thepiano
score,we mightreadilyconcludethatqualifiedmusiciansaremorelikelytobe foundamong
thearrangers thanamongthecomposers.(1937a,p. 85)15
Yet no matterhow inventivethe jazz arrangement,it was fatedto followthe strict

thirty-two-bar melody and harmonicpatternof the compositionalsubstrate,and
was thus condemned to banality:
Gimmickand artifice, the new colourand the new rhythm: all are merelyinsertedinto
qualityinjazz is theachievement
banality.[... ] True,thisinterferential ofthearrangement
upon thecomposition. The contoursofthelatter,however,remainthesame. [ . . ] The
musicianmaytugat thefetters ofhisboredom,and even at timesmake . them
performing
but
jingle: he willnever be able to breakthem. (1937a,p. 86)16
The achievements of the jazz arranger,like the improvisingsoloist, were thus
merelyornamental.
Nor did the symphonicjazz of the later 1920s, whether fromGershwin or
German epigones such as Mitja Nikisch, succeed in liftingjazz fromthe realm of
Kunstgewerbe. The firstsin of thismusic was to eliminateall of the 'hot' improvised
passages thatgave at least a certainphysiognomyto the facelessnessof the under-
lyingcomposition.What is more,by leaving itselfopen to the evaluativecategories
of artmusic, symphonicjazz - or what Adorno called 'stabilisedjazz' - could only
reveal its compositionalbackwardness (1937a, pp. 89-90). Adorno recognisedthat
the pompously inflated music of Whiteman's 'jazz symphony orchestra' was
merelyan attemptto reach out to a new circleof potentialbuyerswho were willing
to accept 'consumption as artisticenjoyment' (Konsumals Kunstgenuss',1933, p.
798). Later jazz historians,untroubledby the lastingsuccess in the concerthall of
Gershwin's ingratiatingpotpourris,have seconded this judgment.
But Adorno was no more willing to accept the value of attemptsto ennoble
jazz fromthe other direction. While admittingthat hardly an art composer in
WeimarGermanyhad been able to withstandthe attractionsofjazz, Adorno found
the reasons forthis in the coincidence that both jazz and art music were at that
time exploringthe same asymmetries,particularlyin the subdivision of the bar.
Yet the factorthat ultimatelymotivated these composers had littleto do with
compositionaltechniqueand much to do withexpansion ofthe audience. Milhaud,

Krenek and Weill were merely 'nimble art composers' ('fixeKunst-Komponisten',

1933, p. 795) reachingout fora wider marketwith jazz as theirvehicle:
It cannotbe disputedthatmany'serious'composerstriedto escape theirisolationand
withthehighlysuccessfuland technically
get in touchwiththe publicby experimenting
stimulatingnew kindofdancemusic.Evenwithinautonomousproduction thereis almost
no composerwho did not somehowreactto theimpulseofjazz. This is not onlydue to
theso-calledmood ofthetimeand thesupposedup-to-dateness ofjazz butalso to purely
musicalreasons.In seriousmusictheemancipation and itsintrinsic
fromtonality symmet-
fromtheaccentupon thedown-beat,mettheidea
ries,and esp[ecially]theemancipation
ofjazz half-way.(1946,p. 72)17
The deprecatorytone of Adorno's originalGerman has been considerablyblunted
in translationfor the purposes of a purportedlyobjective encyclopaedia entry:
'experimentingwith' was originally'wormingits way into' (Anbiederung), 'getting
in touch with the public' originallyread 'enteringthe market' (Anschlussan den
Markt), 'highly successful' should rather read 'trendy' (smart). Yet even the
attemptedscientifictone of Adorno's authorised translationscarcelyconceals his
contempt for the early effortsat jazz hybridisation.If Aufstiegund Fall der Stadt
Mahagonnycould draw his praise forits hard-nosed attack on capitalism and the
opera business, Weill's songs even fell behind the standards set by hot music,
dispensing with syncopationto such a degree thattheywere connected to jazz by
timbrealone (1933, p. 797; 1937a, p. 76). As befithis perception of jazz rhythm,
Adorno saw the culminationof this process of hybridisationin Stravinsky'srag-
time essays of 1917, written,it should be noted, beforethe veryword jazz, much
less the music, had been heard in Europe:
The mostimportant resultsoftheprocessbetweenartmusicand jazz, however,are prob-
ablyStravinsky's Ragtime and PianoRagMusic;and above all, his Histoire
du soldat.In the
latter,the wholetechniqueof jazz, particularlythatof percussion,is put intothe service
of a genuine[compositional whichreveals,as it were,the hiddenmeaningof
intention]
jazz itself.(1946,p. 73)18
In retrospect,Adorno cannot be entirelyfaultedforlocalisingthe technicalattain-
ments of Weimar's Kunstjazzin ragtime.German art composers, partlyfromlack
of opportunity,partlyfroman inbred sense of self-importance, refusedto visitthe
United States to acquaint themselveswith the roots of the music theywere trying
to assimilate. How differentfromtheirFrench counterpartsMilhaud and Ravel,
who made expeditions to Harlem to encounterjazz at firsthand, or, in the case
of Ravel, even went so far as to take weekly jazz lessons froma professional
trombonist.There is nothing in Weimar's Kunstjazzto compare with the free-
flowingdissonant counterpointof La crdation du mondeor the pliant melody in the
slow movement of Ravel's Violin Sonata, both products of first-handencounters
with legitimatejazz. Weimar's Kunstjazz,however, as shown by the accuracy of
its part-writing,its harmonic conservatismand the stiffnessof its rhythms,was
beholden to printedmusic and the rhythmiclegacy of ragtime,as found in Weim-
ar's syncopated dance tunes and as codifiedin its jazz manuals (a more detailed
discussion of this subject can be found in Robinson 1994). While Adorno certainly
failed to foresee the fullhistoricalimpact of Kunstjazz,particularlyits bearing on
the stylisticpluralismof post-serialmusic fromBernd-AloisZimmermannonward,
his rejectionof this music withinthe contextof Weimar society,when measured
against the claims made forit at the time, carriesat least an air of plausibility.
Having dispensed with popular song and Kunstjazz, hot music and the

18 Robinson
J. Bradford
arranger'sorchestra,symphonicjazz and the Radaukapelle,Adorno was leftwith

that genre that made up the largestpart of Weimar's jazz cultureand formsthe
actual objectof his jazz polemics: syncopateddance music, or Tanzjazz. This music,
being entirelycommercialby its very nature, posed no false or inflatedclaims to
be a music of revolutionaryprotest,a new species of art music, or an indigenous
urban folkmusic. It was merelyintended to serve the functionof accompanying
Weimar's dancers in the new social dance formsimportedfromAmerica by way
of France and England: tango, foxtrot,shimmy,Charleston,and the blues, then
understoodto be a slow dance takenat approximatelythirty-three bars per minute.
Here, with jazz strippedof its artisticclaims and reduced to the level of its social
function,Adorno was prepared to proceed rigorouslywith his sociological ana-
lysis. 'Jazz is not thatwhich it "is", he maintained,disclaimingany of the music's
individual traits,'it is that for which it is employed' ('Jazz ist nicht,was er "ist"
[ ... . er ist,wozu man ihnbraucht',1937a, p. 77). As such it is consumed like any
other useful commodity,becoming a 'commodityin the strictsense'. It is from
this axiom, the commoditynature of jazz, that Adorno's analysis implicitlysets
out: 'To decipherthe formulaeofjazz [ ... ] is automaticallyto presuppose insight
into theiroriginalcharacteras a commodity'('Die Dechiffrierung derJazzformeln setzt
S.
. die Einsichtin derenunspriinglichenWarencharakter
aus', 1941, p. 382)."
This raises the twin questions of who consumes the music and who profits
fromits consumption.Adorno, relyingon his own post-warexperiences,required
no statisticalsurveysto findtheanswers to these questions: 'Jazzwas the Gebrauchs-
musikof the grand-bourgeoisupper crust during the post-war years' ('Der Jazz
wa die Gebrauchsmusik der grossbiirgerlichen in der Nachkriegszeit',
Oberschicht 1933,
p. 796), seeminglyimplying that the music was consumed by a mere handful of
aristocrats,industrialistsand high-leveldiplomats. While this class certainlydid
constitutean early body of jazz consumers (one need only read the diaries of
Harry Graf Kessler or recall the live performancesof Sidney Bechet at the Roth-
schild mansion in Berlin-Griinwald),it is unthinkablethat the jazz craze was
restrictedto such a narrow spectrum of society. Adorno's point, however, is
slightlydifferent.The new dance formsrequired trainingand leisure time which
were not available to the less well-off,who only participatedin the jazz craze
vicariouslythroughthe media or in large dance halls:
The function ofjazz, then,mustfirstbe understoodin relationto theupperclass. Today
itsmorestringent forms, as theyinvolvea moreintimate
atleastinsofar mannerofreception
thanmereexposuretoloudspeakers and bandsinmassdance-halls, areprobably thespecial
preserveof thehighly-trained,dance-groomed upper crust.To thisclassjazz is no different
than,say,thegentlemen's eveningattire:bothputon displaytheimplacability ofthesocial
courtofappeal thattheythemselves constitute.(1937a,p. 78)20
Lest we imagine thatAdorno has tailoredhis view of the social distributionof jazz
to suithis theories,we would do well to quote the observationsof an earlystudent
of Weimar's jazz fever. Here again is the dance criticHeinz Pollack, writingin
1922:
Socialdancing[i.e. thenewdanceformsfromAmerica]is heldtobe an affair oftheso-called

upperten-thousand. different
thingsare slightly
Fortunately, today.Dancingis at leastas
muchan affairof the lowerone-hundred-thousand. But it is not an affairof the lowest
millions.[... ] Fromtheveryoutsetone encounterstheirviolentresistancebecause(thanks
tothebriskpropagandaofourgloriousmondaines) theycan onlyregarddancingas a luxury,
as theprivateentertainment ofwealthyracketeers, youthsand affluent
capitalist ladies-of-

Adorno 19
the-night;becauseeveryday theywalkpast salons,winelocalesand hotelloungeswhich

theyareforbidden to enterforthesolereasonthattheylackappropriate attire;and because
theyare obligedforthisveryreasonto turntheirbackson the culturalattainments of a
fewidlerswho are at a loss to knowhow bestto killtheirdaysand nights.(Pollack,1922,
pp. 108-9)21
This 'propaganda', if such it was, cannot have been entirelyfar-fetched,
forto the
end of the Jazz Age the tuxedo remained de rigueuras male attirefor dancing,
performingand listeningto jazz. German jazz, to quote the satiricalsongwriter
WalterMehring (1919), was fromits earliestdays the music of the Frackmensch.
Adorno was correct,then, to equate jazz and the tuxedo as emblems of the
upper classes. Partlythroughimitationby the middle classes, partlyby deliberate
marketingthrough the heavily monopolised Weimar media (the entire gramo-
phone industrywas in the hands of a few magnates based in Berlin), jazz now
began its marchdownward throughthe strataof Weimar society,subduing all but
the peasantry:
Even so, theimpactofjazz remainsno morebound to theuppercrustthanthemindsof

thisclass standapartin acuityfromthoseofthepeopletheydominate.The mechanism of
psychicdeformation, so centralto the continuation of present-day
conditions, wieldsits
poweroverthe deformers themselves.[ . . . ] As a distraction
and diversion,ifnotas a
seriousritualofamusement, jazz permeatesthewhole of society,even theproletariat. In
Europe,theonlygroupsleftunaffected are perhapsthosespecificallyinvolvedin agricul-
ture.(Adorno1937a,p. 79)"
Adorno, probablyunder the spell ofthe urban media, exaggeratesboth the volume
of jazz consumed and its actual distributionin Weimar society.Neitherthe prolet-
ariat nor the burghersof small- and middle-sized towns would have anythingto
do with the music, which became the province of a new class of young urban
white-collarworkers,uprooted fromearliertraditionsofleisurepursuitsand avidly
seeking new diversions. Adorno was more correctto see the typical mass con-
sumer of Weimarjazz as the young professionalintenton impressinghis girlfriend
by takingher out to a new-fangledjazz bar.
But Adorno goes one step further.The descent of jazz throughthe levels of
society was ineluctablybound up with a decline in musical quality. High-quality
jazz - 'hot music' - thus remained the domain of the upper classes, while the
lower classes had to make do witha music thatprogressivelyshed its syncopations
and timbraleffects,returningalmost phylogeneticallyto its 'reactionary'roots in
salon music and the march:
The fartherjazz movesdowntherungsofsociety,themorereactionary traitsitadopts,the

morecompletely it becomessubservient to banality,the less patienceit shows towards
freedomand outbursts of theimagination,untilfinally,as themusicalaccompaniment of
collectivefashion,it does littlemorethanapotheosizesuppressionitself.The moredemo-
craticthejazz, theworseit becomes.(1937a,p. 80)3
At this point we mightpause to note with some astonishmentthat Adorno

has, without knowing it, stood the social dissemination of legitimateAmerican
jazz squarely on its head. Whereas legitimatejazz arose among Americanblacks
in the very lowest rungs of society,or at best in an ostracised black middle class,
and reached the white bourgeoisie through a process of cultural assimilation,
German jazz proceeded in the exact opposite direction,being firstintroducedby
a small coterie fromthe upper classes and then imposed, in a dialecticalprocess

20 Robinson
J. Bradford
of imitationand aggressive marketing,on the lower strataof society.If legitimate

jazz in America was the music of a minority- the urban black population - its
Weimar equivalent, the 'more advanced, grand-bourgeois,New Sobriety hot
music, so difficultto comprehend by the layman' ('vorgeschobenere, neusachlich-
grossbiirgerlicheund dem Laien schwererverstilndliche hot music', 1937a, p. 92) was
likewise the music of a minority,namely of the white upper class. Sociologically,
Weimar Germany's jazz was the mirror-invertedimage of its American
counterpart.
Adorno was one of the few commentatorsof the time who clearlyinsisted
on the elitistoriginsof jazz ratherthan repeatingjournalisticcant about jazz being
the music of skyscrapersor the Africanjungle. Not contentwith this insight,he
goes on to itemisethe mechanisms that led to jazz's debasement as it spread out
fromthe upper classes throughthe institutionsof Weimar's jazz reception.Since
cheap dance halls were not in a position to pay fora virtuosojazz band, theyhad
to make do with radio broadcasts that conveyed a highlydiluted version of the
live original (1937a, p. 79). In this respect, Adorno would probably have found
himselfin agreementwithKurtWeill (1926) on the low qualityofjazz broadcasting
by Weimar's radio stations,which tended to rely on theirown house orchestras
ratherthan reachingout forestablished and recognised dance bands.
The retrogradetransformation of jazz into salon and marchmusic is likewise
borne out by recent research in German popular music. An examinationof the
printed dance anthologies of the Weimar Republic reveals an increasinglylarge
percentage of marches beginning around 1930 (Ritzel 1987, especially p. 291).
Indeed, just as German dance-band musicians had feltchallenged and bewildered
by the new jazz music in the early post-waryears, trade journals such as Musik-
Echo, a little-knownmonthlypublished by a jazz specialityshop in Berlin,now
carried editorials with titles such as 'German militarymarch or modern dance
music?' ('DeutscherMilitiir-Marsch odermoderneTanzmusik',4/2,1933, pp. 37-8) or
'Cultivationof dance music, not exclusion!' ('Kultivierung derTanzmusik - abernicht
Ausschaltung!', 4/3,1933, pp. 47-51), all indicativeof a wave of uncertaintyamong
commercialmusicians who had barelyhad timeto masterthe secretsof the instru-
mental break. A quotation fromthe first-namedarticle,published shortlyafter
Hitler's seizure of power, shows the accuracy of Adorno's analysis fromthe per-
spectiveofan ordinarydance-band musician: 'In these days ofnationalturnabouts,
when our German militarymarch in particularis being restored to its former
station, it seems appropriate to bring clearly to mind its meaning and
significance.'24
By 1933, then, the year in which Adorno published his firstjazz essay, the
regressionof German dance music to the militarymarchwas complete. Adorno's
commentaryon this development betraysall the bitternessof one who suffered
the full brunt of its consequences, and yet could claim that he had predicted it
fromthe very start:
For two yearsnow [i.e. since 1931]the manufacturers of jazz have, however,withan
alacritywhichwillnotredoundto theircreditand whichhas alreadybeen seen through,
readjustedto thepatriotic kitschimposedat thesametimethatjazz was bannedbygovern-
mentaledict.Noris thismerecoincidence, forthetwomusicsareintimately related:beneath
jazz's colourful themilitary
filigrees marchlonglay readyand waiting.(1933,p. 798)2
In Adorno's view of jazz technique - as we saw in Section IV - improvisation,
syncopation,vocalised timbreand instrumentalbreaks were all ornamentswhich

leftthe essence of the music unchanged: the unit pulse, the 4/4metre,the eight-bar
period, the restrictedinstrumentationof winds and percussion. With these orna-
mentsnow discarded, only the underlyingsubstance ofjazz remained,a substance
identicalto thatof the militarymarch. The 'Gebrauchsmusik of the upper crust'was
no longer put in the service of the social dancing, but of the newly awakened
German militarism:
The presenceofthemarchprinciplein jazz is patentlyobvious.The underlying rhythm of

continuo[sic]and bass drumdovetailsperfectly withtherhythm ofthemarch,and itwas
possibleto transform intomarchmusic.[ ... ] Not onlyis the
jazz [ ... ] effortlessly
saxophoneborrowedfromthemilitary band, theentirelayoutofthejazz orchestra, with
itsdivisionintomelody,bass, 'obbligato'accompaniment and simplefillerinstruments,is
identicalto thatofmilitarybands. Thatis whyjazz has lentitselfso readilyto theusages
offascism.(1937a,p. 92)26
Jazz, in its finaltransformation,

thus proves to be the music of politicalreaction.
The historyof German jazz, sociologicallydeciphered, parallels the downfall of
the Weimar Republic itself.
VI: Conclusion: Adorno and the jazz opera

To modern-dayreaders accustomed to thinkingofjazz as the musical expressionof
the black Americanunderclass, as indeed it was at certainperiods in its evolution,
Adorno's conclusion - that jazz was the music of fascism - seems risible. After
all, was not jazz suppressed in totalitarianregimes the world over, includingthe
Third Reich? And why have its fascisttendencies not revealed themselves in the
land of its origin,in the USA? Even allowing forthe Nazi 'Swing craze' of the late
1930s (forfurtherinformationon this strangelyself-contradictory phenomenon see
Polster 1989) and the manipulativeentertainmentcartelsof America today, these
objections cannot be taken lightly.Adorno was perhaps too eager to draw univer-
sal conclusions fromthe particularsof his musical environment.Narrowed down
to the context of Weimar Germany, however, they not only take on an air of
plausibilitybut find confirmationfromother sources as well: fromgramophone
catalogues and sheet music anthologies, professionalmagazines and radio broad-
casting. But therewas another,highlyauthoritativesource of confirmation:Weim-
ar's art composers.
The late 1920swere also the age ofthe so-called 'jazz opera', in which German
dance music was not only quoted as a musical ingredientbut enteredthe
meaning
of the work as a signifier.The typicaldramaturgicaloutlineof a jazz opera
(always
exceptingKrenek'sJonny spieltauf)was a progressionfromdance rhythmsto march
music as the syncopationand instrumentaltimbresof jazz gradually
dissipate in
the last-act finale. Even overtones of fascism play a part. The most illustrious
example, KurtWeill's AufstiegundFall derStadtMahagonny(Brechtspecificallygave
his citythis fictitiousname because of its colour relationwith the fascistBrown
Shirts), culminates in a brutal funeralmarch as Mahagonny disintegratesin an
orgy of mass demonstrations.But even lesser works - Max Brand's Maschinist
Hopkins,George Antheil's Transatlantic, Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock (a
work profoundlyinfluencedby Brechtand Hanns Eisler) - end in politicallysym-
bolic march finales,usually involvingthe disaffectedpopulace in a mass demon-
stration.The era of fascismand mass politicsis clearlyforeshadowed in a process

22 Robinson
J.Bradford
whereby the jazz syncopations, just as Adorno had predicted, revert to the
rhythmsof the march.
Weimar's opera composers were also implicitlyin agreementwith Adorno's
inversion of jazz's social distribution,which cast jazz as the music of the upper
classes. One revealing example, set on a transatlanticliner, is Karol Rathaus's
FremdeErde,in which jazz is played live to passengers on the upper deck while
the proletarianimmigrantsin the hold sufferto the music of expressionism.The
same distinctionbetween upper-classjazz and proletarianexpressionismis found
in WilhelmGrosz's lightweightballet-pantomimeBabyin derBar. Brand's Maschin-
ist Hopkinsemploys a live jazz band in the executive suite of a large corporate
officebuilding while the lower classes, in a dive called Bondy's Bar, listen to a
debased surrogate played mechanically on a pianola. For these composers,
Adorno's dictumof jazz as the 'Gebrauchsmusik oftheuppercrust',and its debase-
mentin the lower levels of society,were sufficiently obvious to functionas theat-
rical topoi.
If these works symbolicallysituate the jazz milieu in the upper echelons of
society, and outline the demise of the German Jazz Age in the oom-pah of the
militarymarch, we mightconclude that Adorno's views on jazz were forecastin
the works of Weimar's own art composers. This conclusion falls short,however,
when we consider the sado-masochisticcharacteristicsposited by Adorno forthe
'jazz subject', although some of these traitsare doubtless presentin the fourAlas-
kan lumberjackstransformedin Mahagonnyinto middle-classjazz consumers. We
may be willingto see a connectionbetween 'jazz and pogrom', as Adorno asks of
us in the 'OxfordAddenda' (1937b, p. 101),27but we are unlikelyto hear the voice
of Amfortasbeneath the strains of JulianFuhs and Bernhard Ette. If for 'jazz
subject' we read 'authoritarianpersonality'these sections of Adorno's jazz essays
are put into clearerperspective,and point the way to his more detailed and illu-
minatingdiscussions of the same topic in the book of that title.What is leftis a
series of brilliantsociological and aesthetic analyses of Weimar's popular music
culture by a committed contemporaryobserver who understood, more than
anyone else at the time,the peculiarorigins,musical fabric,institutionalprerequis-
ites and foreordaineddemise of this uniquely German music.
Endnotes
1. For the purpose of this articleI will use the tion (1940). Informationon the press runs of
term'legitimatejazz' in referenceto the music Weimar's jazz recordingwas obtained by the
understood as jazz by historianstoday, i.e. author in a telephone conversation on 6
the traditionextendingfromthe New Orleans October 1988 in BerlinwithHorst Lange, who
trumpetkings to the Free Jazz of the 1960s had access to the companies' filesbeforetheir
and 1970s. Otherwise, the term 'jazz' refers destruction.
to that largercomplex of popular music out- 3. 'Yazz-Band war ein Jahrlang mehr als nur
lined in SectionII below. This is how jazz was Mode. Der Fall, an sich beklagenswert,
understoodin Adorno's day and how he him- entbehrtdoch nicht k6stlichen Witzes. Der
self used the term. Witz ist, daf3weder Deutschland, noch, mit
2. The sales and marketingrecordsof Weimar's wenigen Ausnahmen, der uibrigeKontinent,
gramophone companies, all based in Berlin, jemals bis jetzt eine richtigeamerikanische
were largely destroyed after the Second Yazz-Band gesehen, viel wenigernach ihrge-
World War when the companies transferred tanzt hat'.
their operations to West Germany. Many 4. All three composers had already dabbled in
useful import-exportstatisticsare contained popular music formsby 1922, when Hindem-
in Dietrich Schulz-K6hn's pre-war disserta- ith published his piano Suite 1922, Krenek

Adorno 23
composed the 'Foxtrott'of his Suite op. 13a, 13. 'Die Theorie ... mulB... das Problem der
and Weill wrote down several unpublished Kontingenz stellen im Angesicht der hot
revue numbers in score (see Drew 1987, pp. music, so wenig auch diese, jedenfalls in
129-30, 157-8). Europa, in der Breite des Publikums sich
5. The Parlaphon-Beka catalogue of 1925-6 durchgesetzt hat. Denn den Minima von
includes among its American jazz recordings Marsch und Salonmusik steht die hot music
only two titlesby black musicians, the Odeon als das erreichbareMaximum gegenuiber'.
catalogue of 1926 none at all. Yet these were 15. 'Vergleichtman die Leistung einer guten Ka-
the leading German importersof American pelle mit dem Notentextetwa der Klavierfas-
'jazz' at the heightof the German Jazz Age. sung, so mag man gernglauben, daf3die qual-
6. Allowing a conservativeestimateof 1,000 lis- ifiziertenMusikerunterden Arrangeurenund
teners for each of the 500 known perform- nichtunter den Komponisten sich finden'.
ances we arrive at the phenomenal figureof 16. 'Reiz und Kunststiick,die neue Farbe und der
halfa millionpeople who heard this work on neue Rhythmus werden dem Banalen bloB
stage, a figurethat matches the greatestfilm eingelegt ... ; ja diese Interferenzdes Jazz
successes of D. W. Griffithand Charlie ist die Leistung des Arrangementsan der
Chaplin. Komposition. Deren Konturen aber bleiben
7. Einbrecher (1930), a filmof no artisticsignific- die alten ... .Der Reproduzierende mag an
ance apart from its jazz scenes. Nor did den Ketten seiner Langeweile zerren, wohl
Bechet's name appear in any of the advert- auch mitihnen klirren:zerbrechenkann er sie
ising materialused to marketthe film. nicht'.
8. 'Die Tanzmusik gibt ja nicht - wie die 17. 'Waihrendfraglosviele seri6se Komponisten
Kunstmusik- die Empfindungiberragender durch Anbiederung an die smarte und tech-
Pers6nlichkeitenwieder, die uiber der Zeit nisch avancierte Tanzmusik ihrer Isolierung
stehen, sondern sie spiegelt den Instinktder zu entgehen und AnschlufB an den Marktzu
Masse'. gewinnen hofften,muf3zugestanden werden,
9. 'Nonenakkorde, Sixte ajoutee und andere daf3es auch in der autonomeren Produktion
Mixturen,wie der stereotypeblue chord, par- kaum einen Namen gibt, der auf die Anre-
allele Verschiebung von Akkorden und was gung des Jazz nichtirgendreagierthaitte.Das
immerder Jazz an vertikalenReizen zu bieten erkliirtsich auBer aus der vorgeblichenZeitge-
hat, ist von Debussy entlehnt'. miiBheitdes Jazz rein musikalischdamit, daf3
10. It is importantto observe, as Adorno did not, die Emanzipationvon den der TonalitAit inhtir-
thatthe effectofdirtynotes is as much timbral enten SymmetrieverhAiltnissen, insbesondere
as harmonic. Distortion of instrumental vom Akzentauf dem guten Taktteil,dem Jazz
timbreand harmonicambiguityare mutually sehr entgegenkam'.
conditioned. 18. 'Das wichtigste Resultat der Begegnung
11. 'Mit seinen Urspriingenreichtder Jazz tiefin diirften Strawinskys "Ragtime" und Piano
den Salonstil hinab. Aus ihm stammt,dras- Rag Music, vor allem aber die Histoire du
tischgesagt, sein Espressivo; alles, womitein soldat sein. In der letzterenist die gesamte
Seelisches darin sich kundtun will ... .Der Jazztechnik, insbesondere die des Schlag-
subjektivePol des Jazz ... istdie Salonmusik; zeugs, einer kompositorischen Intention
von ihrenRegungen zitterter. Wollteman die dienstbargemachtund gleichsamdurch diese
Interferenzerscheinung Jazz mit groi3enund gedeutet'.
handfesten Stilbegriffenbestimmen, man 19. Surprisinglythis bold sentence, here trans-
k6nnte ihn die Kombinationvon Salonmusik lated fromthe German original,was omitted
und Marsch nennen'. fromthe American publication.
12. Jazz was even thoughtto have been invented 20. 'Die Funktiondes Jazz ist dann auch zunaichst
by Anglo-American sailors, presumably relativauf die Oberklasse zu verstehen,und
because it firstreached Germany by transat- seine folgerichtigeren Formendiirften,jeden-
lantic steamer. A residuum of this myth fallssoweit es um intimereRezeption geht als
belatedlyfoundits way intoGermanKunstjazz das bloBe Ausgeliefertseinan Lautsprecher
in Ervin Schulhoff's jazz oratorio H.M.S. und Kapellen in Massenlokalen, heute noch
RoyalOak of 1930. der tanzgerechtenund hochtrainiertenOber-
13. 'Der Amateur ist nicht der Unbelastete und schicht vorbehaltensein. Der Jazz repriisen-
Frische,dessen Originalittit gegen die Routine tiertihr, ihnlichetwa wie die Abendkleidung
des Betriebssich durchsetzte;das gehortins des Herrn, die Unerbittlichkeitder gesell-
Bereich der Negerfabel ... So klatscht der schaftlichenInstanz, die sie selber ist'.
Amateur die Schablone der kurrenten 21. 'Man hailtGesellschaftstanzftireine Sache der
Jazzmusikab und gewihrt die kommerzielle sogenannten Oberen Zehntausend. Gluick-
Chance, sie womoglich noch zu unterbieten'. licherweiseliegen die Dinge heute schon ein

24 Robinson
J.Bradford
wenig anders. Tanz ist zumindest ebenso bruch von Phantasie, bis er endlich als Be-
Sache der unteren Hunderttausend. Aber gleitmusik der zeitgemaen Kollektive
eben noch nichtder UnterstenMillionen ... schlechtweg die Unterdrtickung selber
Man wird dabei zunachst auf heftigen verherrlicht.Je demokratischerder Jazz, um
Widerstandbei ihnen stolen, weil sie - dank so schlechterwird er'.
rtihrigster Propaganda unserer herrlichen 24. 'In einer Zeit des nationalen Umschwunges,
Mondanen - den Tanz als Luxus, als Privat- in der besonders unser deutscher Militar-
vergniigen reicher Schieber, Kapitalisten- marsch seine friihereStellung wieder ein-
jiinglinge und begiiterer Kokotten ansehen nimmt,erscheintes angebracht,sich einmal
miissen, weil sie taglichan Bars, Weinrestau- uiberseinen Sinn und seine Bedeutung klar
rants und Dielen vorbeikommen, die zu zu werden'.
besuchen ihnen allein schon mangels einer 25. 'Die Jazzfabrikanten aber haben, mitjener Eil-
Toilette verwehrt ist, und fertigkeit, die ihnen nicht zum Guten aus-
standesgemaiBen
weil sie eben deshalb sich abwenden mtissen schlagen wird und die durchschautist, schon
von den Kulturerrungenschafteneiniger seitzwei Jahren[i.e. since 1931] sich auf jenen
Mfiiigganger, die nicht wissen, wie sie am patriotischen Kitsch umgestellt, den wohl
besten ihre Tage und Nachte totschlagen nicht zufillig ein Regierungsverdiktzugleich
sollen'. mit dem Jazz ereilt, eben weil er ihm nahe
22. 'Allein die Wirkungdes Jazz bleibt so wenig verwandt ist; lingst schon lag unter den
an die Oberschicht gebunden, wie deren buntenSchn6rkelndes Jazz der Militarmarsch
BewulBtseinvon dem der Beherrschtenin bereit'.
Scharfe sich abhebt: der Mechanismus der 26. 'Die Wirksamkeitdes Marschprinzipsim Jazz
psychischenVerstiimmelung,dem die gegen- ist evident. Der Grundrhythmusvon Con-
wartigen Bedingungen ihren Fortbestand tinuo und groi3erTrommel failt mit dem
verdanken, hat Macht auch uiber der Ver- Marschrhythmusdurchweg zusammen, und
stiimmlerselber .... Als Oberflachenwir- miihelos konnte der Jazz . .. in den Marsch
kung und Zerstreueng, ob auch nicht als sich verwandeln .... [N]ichtbloli das Saxo-
seri6ses Amiisierritual,durchdringt der Jazz phon ist den Militarkapellen entlehnt,
die gesamte Gesellschaft,selbst das Prolet- sondern die gesamte Disposition des Jazzor-
ariat; in Europa diirftenallenfalls spezifisch chesters, nach Melodie-, Bai3-, "obligaten"
agrarischeGruppen ausgenommen sein'. Begleit-und bloi3enFiillinstrumenten, ist mit
23. 'Jetieferder Jazz gesellschaftlichwandert,um der der Militarkapellenidentisch.Darum will
so mehr reaktionareZuige nimmter an, um der Jazzzum faschistischenGebrauchgut sich
so vollkommenerist er dem Banalen h6rig, schicken'.
um so weniger duldet er Freiheitund Aus-
References
Adorno, Theodor. 1933. 'Abschied vom Jazz', Revue,9, pp. 313-16. Reprintedin Gesammelte
XVIII (1984), pp. 795-9 Europa'ische
Schriften,
1937a. '[OberJazz. [pseud. HektorRottweiler],Zeitschrift 5. Reprintedin Gesammelte
fiirSozialforschung,
Schriften,XVII (1982), pp. 70-100
1937b. 'OxforderNachtrige' [1937], Gesammelte Schriften,XVII (1982), pp. 100-8
1941. Reviews of AmericanJazzMusic by WilderHobson [1939] and Jazz:Hot and Hybridby Winthrop
Sergeant [1938] in Studiesin Philosophy and Social Science,9, pp. 167-78. German originalin Gesam-
melteSchriften, XIX (1984), pp. 382-99
1946. 'Jazz' [1942], in EncyclopediaoftheArts,ed. D. Runes and H. Shrikel(New York), pp. 511-13.
Original German in Gesammelte Schriften,XVIII (1984), pp. 70-3
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Howard S. Becker, Michal M. McCall Symbolic Interaction and Cultural Studies 1990

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Howard S. Becker, Michal M. McCall Symbolic Interaction and Cultural Studies 1990

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The Jazz Essays of Theodor Adorno: Some Thoughts on Jazz Reception in Weimar Germany

Author(s): J. Bradford Robinson

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The jazz essays of Theodor

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I: Overviewof Adorno'swritingson jazz

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II: Styles and currentsof the German 'Jazz Age'

Fora wholeyeartheyazz [sic]band was morethanmerelya fashion.Thisstateofaffairs,

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mine Germany: the militaryband, the salon orchestra,and the Radaukapelleor

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Berlinin 1925-6,theyremained unknown to expertsand the mass public alike. In

III: Adorno's jazz terminology

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Style Years Features and social distribution

Militaryrags 1905-1920 Orchestralragtimeand cake walks played by German

Style Adorno's term

a termadopted fromDebussy's piano piece GeneralLavine,eccentric (1937a, p. 97).

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IV: Adorno on jazz technique

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as instances of Excentric.Later, afterencounteringlegitimatejazz in the USA, he

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when speaking ofjazz, Adorno clung to the technicalvocabularyhe had developed

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The amateuris notthefreshand unencumbered musicianwhoseoriginality liftshimabove

At the most,hot music could aspire to the statusofKunstgewerbe, a slightlyderogat-

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commercialmusic that occasionally betrayedechoes of instrumentaljazz, but the

Yet no matterhow inventivethe jazz arrangement,it was fatedto followthe strict

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Krenek and Weill were merely 'nimble art composers' ('fixeKunst-Komponisten',

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arranger'sorchestra,symphonicjazz and the Radaukapelle,Adorno was leftwith

Socialdancing[i.e. thenewdanceformsfromAmerica]is heldtobe an affair oftheso-called

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the-night;becauseeveryday theywalkpast salons,winelocalesand hotelloungeswhich

Even so, theimpactofjazz remainsno morebound to theuppercrustthanthemindsof

The fartherjazz movesdowntherungsofsociety,themorereactionary traitsitadopts,the

At this point we mightpause to note with some astonishmentthat Adorno

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of imitationand aggressive marketing,on the lower strataof society.If legitimate

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The presenceofthemarchprinciplein jazz is patentlyobvious.The underlying rhythm of

Jazz, in its finaltransformation,

VI: Conclusion: Adorno and the jazz opera

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