Zur Funktion des Mythos im Jazz der 70er Jahre
Soziokulturelle Aspekte eines musikalischen Phänomens, dargestellt an der ästhetischen Konzeption des "Art Ensemble of Chicago"
The inter-disciplinarily motivated analysis shows how in the "Great Black Music" of the "Art Ensemble of Chicago", a rationality of new Jazz has established itself. This rationality is newly determined by a theory of cognition and cultural-philosophical aspects. These cognitive principles are also at work in daily life experiences and reveal themselves in new forms of Jazz productions and presentations, as well as in a continuous socialization of the cultural domain, and in altered reception behaviour. The "Great Black Music" has developed, in its aesthetic quality, a ritual of sound – a new picture language. In the symbolism of non-alienated musical behaviour, a new type of engaged cognition is realized, and this new type aims towards the insoluable merging of experience and sensory events. The cognitive theory's grid system of modern mythical concepts provides a new level of interpretation, which further makes possible an ideological criticism of a technocratic estranged perception in Jazz. The ritual of improvisational sound creation is in its physical gesturing for the "Art Ensemble of Chicago" not only an application of myth (compare mythic time structure, pictorialness of myths) but, at the same time, a relevant, meaningful continuum, in which the consistency of event-oriented practice and the perception of social complexity, with emotional connotations, express themselves. Along with the musical concepts, is also shown how the"Great Black Music" is directed against an atrophy of aesthetic perception, and calls for a critical cultural awarenes, in order to experience Art through archaic sound patterns. Jazz is, therefore, understandable as a means of social phantasy, which struggles against the blind fate of sensuousness.