> When I first joined the list people mentioned Adorno a lot
> so I thought I should read him. I decided to start with his jazz writings
> since I love jazz and felt I could ease my way into Adorno.
Oh, those pieces are the absolute worst things Adorno ever wrote. Adorno knew nothing about jazz - he heard a few Tin Pan Alley tunes, and jumped to conclusions. He didn't understand cinema, either -- unlike Benjamin, who had interesting things to say about film. But Adorno was one of the great musicologists of European tonality and atonality, and could play the music he analyzed. He was quite an accomplished amateur musician. And his theoretical and philosophical innovations -- the culture industry, the constellation, non-identity, and the total system -- remain indispensable.
> issue than just "liking what he likes"). I got the impression that he
> could only understand pleasure in a very limited, caustic way.
Adorno considered pleasure something fundamental and revolutionary in human beings. Start with "Minima Moralia" -- the official translation is fine, or try my own version:
http://www.efn.org/~dredmond/MinimaMoralia.html
-- DRR