jazz

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   Check the "Jazz" entry in the RHHDAS.  Gerald Cohen (gcohen at umr.edu) has
been working on the term in COMMENTS ON ETYMOLOGY, publishing a few 1913
sports citations from the SAN FRANCISCO BULLETIN.
   Ken Burns is doing a documentary on "Jazz," but as far as I know, he
hasn't spoken to Cohen, or David Shulman (who debunked the OED 1909 entry),
or Jesse Sheidlower.
   That ADS-L posting of mine was made around Memorial Day 1999, when I was
attending a Dictionary Society of North America meeting at Cal-Berkeley.
President Wheeler definitely used the word "jazz" there in 1916--and,
possibly, even earlier.
   I had to fly home, but I contacted the Cal-Berkeley library (university
archives) and asked them if there was any scholar on President Wheeler who
can help me on when Wheeler used the word "jazz."
   Cal-Berkeley never wrote back.