The Truth About Tuxedos

For all contemporary musical life is dominated by the commodity form; the last pre-capitalist residues have been eliminated.  Music, with all the attributes of the etheral and sublime which are generously accorded it, serves in America today as an advertisement for commodities which one must acquire in order to be able to hear music.  If the advertising function is carefully dimmed in the case of serious music, it always breaks through in the case of light music.  The whole jazz business, with its free distribution of scores to bands, has abandoned the idea that actual performance promotes the sale of piano scores and phonograph records.  Countless hit song texts praise the hit songs themselves, repeating their titles in capital letters.  What makes it appearance, like an idol, out of such masses of type is the exchange-value in which the quantum of possible enjoyment has disappeared.  Marx defines the fetish character of the commodity as the veneration of the thing made by oneself which, as exchange-value, simultaneously alienates itself from producer to consumer--"human beings."  "A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men's labor appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labor; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labor is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labor."  This is the real secret of success.  It is the mere reflection of what one pays in the market for the product.  The consumer is really worshipping the money that he himself has paid for the ticket to the Toscanini concert.  He has literally "made" the success which he reifies and accepts as an object criterion, without recognizing himself in it.  But he has not "made" it by liking the concert, but rather by buying the ticket.  To be sure, exchange-value exerts its power in a special way in the realm of cultural goods.

Theodore Adorno, On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening.

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"pre-capitalist residues"...what must those have been like?  This is where Adorno moves a little too quickly for a mental sloth like myself.  Is he talking about conditions related to the creation of the music?  That residue?  Is he talking about the actual sound of the music itself?  Is he talking about how the music was disseminated into the world? 

If the advertising function is carefully dimmed in the case of serious music, 

lol!  You mean like this?  It's as of the advertising function has taken on a life of its own.  It's like wild yeast--its in the air, touching everything.  Once the conditions are right (like someone wants to pay for the music) the yeast explode like a bad case of Candida.  So long as no one gives a shit (money wise), said advertising function can remains comfortably in the dim-to-off position.

The whole jazz business, with its free distribution of scores to bands, has abandoned the idea that actual performance promotes the sale of piano scores and phonograph records.

Mind you, this was written in 1938.  Oh how I would love to exhume Adorno's body and visit him during office hours to see what he makes of Jazz today.  Assuming of course there still such a thing as a "jazz business", taking into account the myriad of difficulties and issues peppering the word "jazz", is it fair to say that "it" has abandoned the idea that actual performance promotes the sale of CD's?  Or has the live jazz inc. reality octapussed out into a far more diabolical merchandising menace?  This is one of those I'm really asking times...have things changed since Adorno's time, or have they only gotten worse? 

The consumer is really worshipping the money that he himself has paid for the ticket to the Toscanini concert.

 Gotta love that.  Adorno at his best.  Here's another I'm really asking question:  who else in contemporary cultural criticism is using such pointed hurt words?  Is anyone out there in PhD land shining their light of darkness on ticket prices to see Abba on Broadway or U-2 in Space or whatever?  Or does that qualify as "light music" and as such, is privy to an entirely different kind of invective?

Is there an equivalent in Jazz?  I remember seeing Mal Waldron at Sweet Basil way back when and coming away with $0.00 after the experience was done.  20 some years later, at those prices, I still can't afford to be a regular participant in seeing "Jazz" at the big money clubs.  Not that big money clubs are the be-all and end-all of seeing "Jazz"--and verily I've seen a lot of great "Jazz" at the William Patterson College Jazz Room Series, and at the same time, there has been a lot of great Jazz that happened at the Blue Note when I was living in New York that I didn't see.  Win some, lose some.

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At the top you see at gentleman in a Darth Vader outfit "busking."  He is doing so about 2 blocks away from the parliament building.  At the time, Cattle Ranchers were at parliament expressing their concerns and sharing their joys and sorrows in hopes that the boot of policy and funding and market realities might be lifted ever so slightly to promote a more amicable business climate, particularly for the "little guy."

While I support cattle ranchers 100% and while I believe 100% that we as a civilization undervalue the epically important contribution the farmer makes to our very existence, I did find myself wondering when the last time was a cattle rancher had to do their thing for donations on the street corner dressed like Darth Vader?  I also wondered (aloud) when musicians were going to get to speak (as a bloc) to parliament about what it's like to be a musician, and how "unfair" it is that we have to do something other than music to make our economic way in the world. 

Darth Vader had some insights.  Here is where I wish I had a hand held digital recorder.  I am misquoting him here:

"Why even bother?  We live in a conservative regime.  There is no money for music and arts.  They took that all away.  Besides, I'd rather be here making connection with people like you and doing this than on the stage in a tuxedo like some kind of egomaniac attention pig asshole."

I did get the "attention pig asshole" part correct though.  I remember that to the word.

Billions of people live a happy life never eating beef ever.  How many people live a happy life never listening to music?