ADORNO AND THE BLUES

Music presents itself as an enigma,not always, but often. In other words,music manifests a certain power that is not immediately obvious but is "is"immediately felt. It is both multidimensional and overdetermined. On the one hand, its power operates on the affective level. Its effects are on and in the body. Our bodies pulsate with its rhythm to the point of frenzy. On the other hand, music is an intellectual endeavor from both the performer and the listener's perspective. In this regard, music is part of our rational heritage. The enigma of music is that it turns a rundown shack into a juke joint on Saturday night and another building into an experience of the holy on Sunday morning. In a sense, the enigma of music situates itself at the crossroads of the rational and the irrational. In this regard it can be seen as a reflection of life itself. Life also presents itself as an enigma -- a mystery to be solved.

The 19th century German father of sociology referred to the development of Western Civilization as a process of rationalization. And the is generally what is referred to as modernization or modernity. Music was a part of this rational process in Weber's view. Weber also referred to this process as a process of "disenchantment". The human world becomes "modern" as it successfully liberates itself from magical and mythical dependence. Traditionally, social organization and our sense of self relied on a mythical or magical form of storytelling or rituals. To disenchant the world, in Weber's view, is the mark of progress. However, the flipside is that disenchanted world is devoid of meaning. It is the modern world of bureaucracy. This is the point of departure for Franz Kafka's stories. Into this void art and aesthetic experience have become all the more crucial as a way of trying to reclaim a sense of significance or meaning.

All of the above is a type of introduction to my own form of storytelling. I will begin with a personal story. Currently, I am making my living as a professional musician playing guitar with a band called Creole Stomp.But this has not always been the case. My life has been tossed around between two important passions; music and philosophy. This leads me to tell about to personal experiences that have been very significant for me. In the early 1990s I was studying in Frankfurt Germany working on a dissertation on a German philosopher named Theodor Adorno. Adorno was a brilliant philosopher and musicologist associated with a group of thinkers that came to be known as the Frankfurt School. They were attempting to develop a critical theory of society. In short, they were trying to understand the enigma of the first part of the 20th century. One day as I was walking around Frankfurt I was very aware of walking on, what was for me, sacred ground, I thought about the young Adorno and his early intellectual efforts and about the stimulating intellectual atmosphere that he found himself in. A few years later I was in the Mississippi Delta for the first time. Delta blues is one of my major passions. As I was driving around the backroads the same experience struck me that had struck me in Frankfurt. I was on the ground that Charley Patton, Robert Johnson and numerous others had occupied.

Now there is perhaps nothing remarkable about having two similar experiences. However, what I found interesting was in realizing that Adorno was working in Frankfurt in the early 1930s at the same time as Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson and others were traversing the Delta. And obviously these are two separate worlds. However, both in their own ways were trying to contribute something towards our understanding of life's enigmas. Adorno, a German Jew, was living in the shadow of Hitler's rise to power.The Mississippi blues men and women were living in the violent atmosphere of White Mississippi. That afternoon as I walked along the river in Friar's Point Mississippi I tried to imagine Adorno mistakenly finding himself in juke joint as Charlie Patton sang and banged on the guitar. I would like to think that Adorno would have danced.