JAZZ <-- JASS

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>... I will write a check of $100 to the first person who can provide me
>clear evidence that "jazz" (or any variant spelling) was used prior to
>1913 in a musical or sexual sense.

It's shameful what an otherwise marginally respectable person will do for
1000 zanes.

I reviewed MoA for "jazz" and "jass". Got eyestrain and a lesson in the
limitations of optical character recognition.

I consulted Richard Sudhalter's recent book "Lost Chords" (1999). Early in
the book the author reports that somebody said that somebody else had
claimed to have heard "jazz" in about 1908. I guess this isn't good enough
to get me even a flip, let alone a gasmeter.

But wait! On the same page, a citation (baseball, not exactly music or sex,
but maybe worth a look!): "very much to the jazz": "San Francisco
Bulletin", 3 March 1906!

Unfortunately this reads too much like Gerald Cohen's citation from the
"San Francisco Bulletin", 3 March 1913.

Why do these boo-boos occur so often? Must be Spode's Law or Sod's Law or
something.

-- Doug Wilson