Ragged but Right, pt 4 (jam)

Fri Feb 3 16:06:03 UTC 2012

Does the current meaning of "jam" really make sense here?

In other words, does improvisation equal and explain "noise"?  It's
also surprising that if the modern sense were intended, the paper
wouldn't have put "jam" in quotes; and it was, presumably, so uncommon
that a definition might also have been in order.

It could be real.... Certainly I have no other suggestion....

JL

On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 10:46 AM, George Thompson
<george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Ragged but Right, pt 4 (jam)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> GC: "If "jam" in a jazz sense really was used already in 1914, that would
>> be startling.  The date should be double-checked."
>>
>
> Unless the cittion by Abbott & Seroff is entirely wrong, down to the name
> of the newspaper, then the passage quoted can't be after 1927, because that
> is when the Freeman ceased publication.  The Schomburg Library of the NYPL
> has the Freeman up to the end of 1916.  I didn't notice when reading Abbott
> & Seroff whether they had citations from the Freeman after 1916.   I would
> think that the Schomburg would try to get everything available of that
> paper, so I wonder whether there is a surviving file, 1917-1927.
>
> In any event, in a month or so I will request the Freeman for August, 1914
> and look it over.  If any of you-uns beat me to it, so much the better.
>
> I think I usually see the Freeman cited as the *Indianapolis Freeman* --
> as Abbott & Seroff do -- but it seems that the title on the masthead was
> simply the Freeman.
>
> By the way: "Jam" came from an article headed "Notes from Wolfscale's Band,
> with Barnum and Bailey".  It seems that for a while Barnum and Bailey
> travelled with 2 bands: a white band that played during the performance,
> and a colored band that was used for the parade and the ballyhoo outside
> the tent.
>
> GAT
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 9:55 AM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu>wrote:
>
>> If "jam" in a jazz sense really was used already in 1914, that would be
>> startling.  The date should be double-checked.
>>
>> Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow (with Bernard Wolfe), _Really the Blues_, 1946, pp.
>> 148-149,. takes credit for plaing a key role in the origin of "jam session"
>> (and "jam" too?) and that was in 1927: "...Down in that basement concert
>> hall someone was always yelling over to me, 'Hey Jelly, what you gonna do'
>>  -- they gave me that nickname or sometimes called me Roll, because I
>> always wanted to play Clarence Williams' classic, Jelly Roll  -- and almost
>> every time I'd cap them with, 'Jelly's gonna jam some now,' just as a play
>> on words.  We always used the word 'session' and I think the expression
>> 'jam' session' grew up out of this playful yelling back and forth.  At
>> least I don't rightly remember ever hearing it before those sessions at the
>> Deuces.'
>>
>> See also my item "_Jam Session_ -- Coined By Mezz Mezzrow in 1927?", in
>> _Studies in Slang, vol. 3 (edited by Gerald Leonard Cohen), Frankfurt am
>> Main: Peter Lang, 1993, pp. 129-131.
>> Gerald Cohen
>> P.S. The play on words Mezzrow refers to was of course sexual.
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> Original message from: George Thompson, Thu 2/2/2012 9:34 PM:
>>
>>     As a rule most side show managers just want noise from a colored band.
>> The reason for this is because they don't have a large enough band to do
>> anything but jam.
>>
>>      "Notes from Wolfscale's Band, with Barnum and Bailey", *Indianapolis
>> Freeman*, August 8, 1914
>>
>> Lynn Abbott & Doug Seroff. * Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, "Coon
>> Songs," and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz*.  University Press of
>> Mississippi, 2007, p. 168;  & fn 54, p. 400
>>
>> OED: "Jam", verb, 1st, sense 6.
>>
>> *intr.* To play in a jam or =91jam session (see jam *n.**1*
>> 3<http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:32445/view/Entry/100679#eid40570613>);
>> to extemporize. Also *trans.*, to improvise (a tune, etc.). *colloq.*(orig.
>> *U.S.*).
>>
>> 1935    *Stage* Sept. 46/2   *Jam*, to improvise hot music, usually in
>> groups.
>>
>> 1936    *Delineator* Nov. 11/2   He just comes on in here once in a while
>> because he likes to jam.
>>
>>
>> HDAS also has quotations from th 1930s.
>>
>> GAT
>>
>> George A. Thompson
>> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
>> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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