Sunday, October 25, 2015

USA/Papers: John Coltrane and the Development of a Radical Black Aesthetic

Thomas Barker Thomas Barker Durham UniversityMusic, Graduate Student
The purpose of this article is to consider the ways that Coltrane’s music might be said to have taken on the character of what Adorno called the ‘autonomous work of art’ in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Building upon the 1999 essay by Nick Nesbit entitled ‘Sounding Autonomy: Adorno, Coltrane, and Jazz,’ this article aims to provide a critical theory of Coltrane’s aesthetics, examining the ways that dominant socio-political tendencies became objectified within Coltrane’s music through his interaction with the historically formed musical material. Unlike Nesbit, however, this study...
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