ABSTRACT
Michel Leiris's well-known description, in L'Age d'homme, of the frenetic Parisian jazz scene displays all of the factors that drew Leiris to this musical sign of modernity. The new processes of decolonization and globalization, combined with technological advances, began to accelerate the availability and absorption of hitherto uncommon music, and through this the self-critique of ethnomusicology. If jazz is for Leiris the expression of an aesthetic and moral challenge, then l'image d'une Josephine Baker se dechainant dans le Charleston' is none the less for him the icon of its Parisian relocation. There is nothing new or vaguely scandalous about the musical facilitation of transcendence: perhaps the founding characteristic of all music, it remains a key element of its power. If the complex process of critical rereading can be none the less already evident in Leiris's appreciation of music, then it is even more evident in Leiris's engagement with literature and its criticism.
