Antedating of "Pazzazz"(1915) and an interesting cite for "jazz"

Sam Clements sclements at NEO.RR.COM
Wed Aug 13 23:24:10 UTC 2003


I shared this with Gerald Cohen last night and he suggested posting it to
the ADS list.

While searching ancestry.com for "jazz", I found this from the August 19,
1915 edition of the Wichita Daily Times(Wichita Falls, TX).

      ITS NIX ON THE SLANG
        STUFF FOR GEORGE ADE
___________________________-
Main Pazazz of Quick and Ready Chat-
    ter Holds up Wind and War
         bles Never Again.
______________________________
     (From San Francisco Bulletin)
   "How do you do, Mr. Ade.  How are all the Little Fables in Slang?"
   George Ade regarded his questioner gravely, almost severely.  Something
very like a shudder passed over his classic Indianan features and up to the
roots of his iron gray hair.  He moioned rather sternly toward a chair.
   "You are having beautiful weather out here," he observed in pure
Shakespearean English.
   Rebuffed, but not squelched, the interviewer began to rack his brains for
quotations from Ade's masterpieces in the vernacular.

              Interviewer Boldly Plunges.
   "Could you Spiel me a few Stanzas about out Little Side Show out where
the Bronze Plaques and the Silk Hats fourish?" was the next courageous
query.
    Again that expression of suppressed anguish, and once more the
Elizabethian diction.
   "I have only had a glimpse of the Exposition, but it is very wonderful,"
he said.
   Still the questioner was not to be discouraged.
    "Tear of a Yard or So of your Old-time Stuff about the Expo, you know.
Something with a Dish of the Old Jazz in it to catch the Wise Guys."
   This time Ade merely looked pityingly and said nothing.

       Quits Beating Around Bush
_______________________________
   It was time to "get down to cases."
   "The Bulletin would like to get an interview in slang about the
Exposition?"
   There was more of sorrow than of anger in the tome of his weary reply.
   "I want to get away from the slang", he said.
   At last the interviewer was "wised up."  George Ade had reformed.  He
refused to talk except according to Webster.  The realization was stunning.
   "But you still write it, don't you?" the questioner pleaded, hoping that
Ade might scribble out the interview if he wouldn't speak it.  The answer
came clear and incisive:
   "No never, if I can help it.  I am tired of it all."

                      "Let Sunday do it."
                       ________________
   "But how are we going to learn to speak slang after this? Who will teach
us our fly chatter?"
   "Let Billy Sunday do it," said Ade.
   "What do you write now?"
   "Nothing much," he said.  You know I was very ill a couple of years ago,
after I had covered the Republican and Progressive conventions of 1912 for a
string of newspapers and worked myself to a collapse.
   "Since I recovered I have been spending most of my time on my ranch near
Chicago, finishing up my golf links.  Anybody who has ever built a golf
links knows that it is a life(?) job.
     "MIne is in shape to play on, though , so I get a lot of fun out of
it."

Thus endeth the article as it appears in the Wichita paper.  I don't know if
there was more in the SF Bulletin.

I also wonder whether the headlines I show here were also the headlines in
the original SFB article?   We need someone to track down the original
article.  It would be interesting to know WHO wrote the original article.

So, what do you make of the "jazz" use?

Sam Clements

*If there are apparent errors in the typing, some are mine, some are truly
in the article.  I'd be glad to respond to questions.



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