"jazz"--the non-existent 1909 attestation

[Jan Ivarsson TransEdit]

I still think that someone should look up these recordings (found on www.glowingdial.com/uncljosh.txt searching for Edison Cylinder 10058) :

UNCLE JOSH IN SOCIETY, CAL STEWART, VICTOR 78 # 16145-A, NOVEMBER 9 1908

 UNCLE JOSH IN SOCIETY, CAL STEWART, VICTOR 78, JULY 31 1919

UNCLE JOSH IN SOCIETY, CAL STEWART, COLUMBIA # 14027,1899 ,# 3 for 3 WEEKS on 8/26/1899 ,

Jan Ivarsson
jan.ivarsson at transedit.st

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerald Cohen" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2001 7:01 PM
Subject: "jazz"--the non-existent 1909 attestation


>    In two messages today Jan Ivarsson makes a good attempt to track
> down a 1909 attestation of "jazz," as attested in OED2. But this OED
> entry is the one that has proven to be a mistake. The subject is
> treated in David Shulman's article "The Earliest Citation of _Jazz_,"
> in _Studies in Slang_, part II (ed.: Gerald Leonard Cohen), Frankfurt
> am Main: Peter Lang, 1989; pp.120-124.
>
>     Shulman here convincingly rejects the OED Supplement's attestation
> of 1909 "jazz". The attestation had been provided in error by Peter
> Tamony who heard it on a later version of a pre-1910 recording
> without double-checking to see if it was on one of the earlier
> records;and Tamony simply assumed that the pre-1910 recording was
> made in 1909. Shulman listened to a 1919 version of the recording
> (which contains the "jazz" quote) but then hedges a bit about whether
> Tamony listened specifically to this version. Tamony might have
> listened to a version from a few years earlier; Shulman did not track
> down every single post-1913 recording of the song.
>
>       Shulman  soon shared his new information with OED editor Robert
> Burchfield and then commented in the conclusion of his article: "In
> the meantime, Robert W. Burchfield advises me that there will be no
> addenda or errata for OED Sup. 2, but the correction will be made in
> later reprints, eliminating 1909 and leaving the 1913 citation as the
> earliest for _jazz_...."
>
> --Gerald Cohen
>
> >
> >Date:         Sat, 31 Mar 2001 17:38
> >From: Jan Ivarsson TransEdit <transedit.h at TELIA.COM>
> >Subject:      Re: jazz
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> >The Cal Stewart recording in question is Edison Cylinder # 10058.
> >It has recently been reedited by Vintage Comedy Recordings (ViCoRec)
> >The text of "Uncle Josh in Society" that figures in Cal Stewarts
> >book "Uncle Josh's Punkin Stories" from 1903 has "One lady asked me
> >if I danced the German...", but he may well have changed the text
> >for the recording in 1909