"jazzer", 1896

[George Thompson]

Just So with Everybody.  From the Roxbury Gazette.
Gozlin – Do you know there are times when I don’t like to go up in the elevator in our building?
Jazzer – No, when?
Gozlin – Why, when I am going down in it, of course.
        The Washington Post, April 12, 1896. p. 28, col. 7.  From the Proquest Historical Newspapers file.

The joke is certainly mirth-provoking, but does it help obfuscate the history of the word "jazz"?

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.