Slang Word-Coiners (Mezzrow: jam session)

[Gerald Cohen]

At 10:53 AM -0500 3/21/02, Fred Shapiro wrote:
>We have had much discussion on this list of individuals who coined or
>popularized slang terms, such as John J. Fitz Gerald (Big Apple).  Herb
>Caen (beatnik) is another good example.  I am compiling a list of
>individuals who coined or popularized major slang terms.  Can anyone
>suggest to me names of such people?


Here's a likely possibility: "jam session," apparently coined by jazz
musician Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow. I wrote about this in: "Jam
session--coined by Mezz Mezzrow in 1927?" in: Gerald Leonard Cohen:
_Studies in Slang, part 3_, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1993,
pp.129-131. By the way, I completely missed the sexual reference in
Mezzrow's comment: "I always wanted to play
Clarence Williams' classic Jelly Roll [I did get this reference] --
and almost every time I'd cap them with 'Jelly's gonna jam some now'
[this is the double entendre I missed]. We used the word 'session' a
lot, 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."
(quoted from Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, _Really the
Blues, NY: Random House, 1946, p.147f.)

--Gerald Cohen