jazzed by jazz (teas) from san francisco irish american scoop gleeson-

[Michael Cassidy]

I've been asked to forward this:


----- Forwarded by Michael Cassidy/CNTraveler/CNP on 03/27/03 02:02 PM -----
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|        |          DanCas1 at aol.co|
|        |          m             |
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|        |          03/27/03 12:58|
|        |          PM            |
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  |                                                                            |
  |      To:     Michael Cassidy/CNTraveler/CNP at CNP                            |
  |      cc:                                                                   |
  |      Subject:     jazzed by jazz (teas) from san francisco irish american  |
  |       scoop gleeson-                                                       |
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3-27-03
 San Francisco



 On the Etymology of Jazz... from G. Cohen. Notes to follow from D. Cassidy.


 I'm grateful to George Thompson for drawing attention to _The
 Cambridge Companion to Jazz_ (edited by Mervyn Cooke and David Horn),
 Cambridge U Press, 2002. I assume the book will receive very
 favorable reviews, but I'm interested only in its etymological
 treatment of "jazz," and this aspect of the book is troubling.

     The main problem is that Krin Gabbard, author of the chapter "The
 Word Jazz," is not involved in word studies and evidently made no
 attempt to contact those of us who do work in the field.  A call to
 the American Dialect Society or perhaps specifically to any of the
 fine lexicographers on our list would have quickly led him to recent
 research into the term. Several of us could have helped him avoid the
 pitfalls he repeatedly lands in.

      For example (p.3), Gabbard writes: "The word jazz almost surely
 began in African-American slang,..."  No. The first attestations are
 in a baseball context, possibly deriving from a crap-shooting
 incantation.  And there is nothing in the crap-shooting story to
 indicate the race of the person who uttered the incantation "Come on,
 the old jazz".

     Still on p. 3: "The shift from 'jass' to 'jazz' is also impossible
 to explain with certainty."  There's nothing to explain.  The term is
 first attested as "jazz."

     Page 3: "According to several researchers, the earliest appearance
 of the word jazz in written form was probably in San Francisco
 newspapers. In 1913, Ernest J. Hopkins offered this definition:
 'something like life, vigor, energy,...' When the word began showing
 up on the sports pages of the _San Francisco Bulletin, also in 1913,
 the term regularly appeared in the column by 'Scoop' Gleeson. ..."
 ---   The word didn't *also* start appearing on the  sports pages of
 the S.F. Bulletin; it *first* appeared there (March 3 and 6, 1913).
 Hopkins' article came a month later (April 5, 1913).

     Meanwhile, p.xiii, "A brief chronology of jazz" says:
 "1908...--Freddie Keppard takes his New Orleans jazz on tour."  Then
 in 1913: "The word 'jazz' appears for the first time."  If Keppard
 took his New Orleans jazz on tour in 1908, why does the term turn up
 in print only in 1913?  Wouldn't some written evidence of the term
 have appeared in connection with the tour?

     Note the subtitle of "Hopkins' April 5, 1913 article: "In Praise
 of 'Jazz," a Futurist Word Which Has Just Joined the Language." --
 Just joined the language.
 That means 1913,  specifically in Scoop Gleeson's articles (where it
 meant "pep, vim, vigor, fighting spirit).






    Today I obtained a copy of a book that actually gets the "jazz"
 etymology right: _Jazz: A Century of Change_, by Lewis Porter. NY:
 Schirmer, 1997. His first chapter, entitled "Where Did the Word
 'Jazz' Come From?" (pp. 1-12) justifiably follows Dick Holbrook's
 1974 article very closely, including the
 credit Holbrook gives to the late (1985) word-researcher Peter Tamony.

    As an example of the accuracy--on page 8 Porter says: "Although New
 Orleans musicians traveled quite a bit...the fact that the word
 'jazz' first came to light in San Francisco, as far as we know, makes
 one question whether it is a New Orleans word, or even a black
 American or African-derived word.  Lawrence Gushee, music professor
 at the University of Illinois and probably the leading researcher on
 early jazz, notes that most New Orleans musicians say they first
 heard the word 'jazz' in the North after the first original Dixieland
 Jazz Band recordings in 1917."

 G. COHEN



 PROPOSED ETYMOLOGY OF JAZZ AND JAZZY

 by Daniel Cassidy



 Jazz
 Teas    (pronounced chass or jass)

 Teas, g. -a, teais and teas, pl. -a, m. heat, warmth, sultriness;
excitement, zeal, vigor; anger, pain. (Dineen, p. 1194, Irish-English
Dictionary, Dublin, 1927)

 Teas - Heat, hotness, warmth; Degree of hotness; ardor, passion; fervor;
feverishness.  (O'Donaill p. 1221, Irish-English Dictionary, 1991)

 Jazzy
 Teasa?           (Pron. chassy or jassy)

 Teasa?,   indec. adj.  Warm, hot; hot of temper (O'D, p. 1221).



 The latest candidiate for  earliest first published instance of the word
jazz (to date) adds weight to an Irish etymology for jazz, from the Irish
head word teas (see below). It appears in a newspaper article by San
Francisco Irish American journalist, Scoop Gleason (1913).

 San Francisco has had a sizable native Irish-speaking population since the
1850s -- and still does all throughout the Bay Area.

 Like so many other so- "mysterious" slang terms Jazz and Jazzy are merely
the English phonetic rendering of an Irish word or words, first written
down in English phonetics by an Irish Americans or others, who first heard
these terms in their families and in the multiethnic and Irish working
class neighborhoods of San Francisco like old South O' the Slot and the old
Mission District, where Peter Tamony himself was born and raised, a few
blocks from where I now live.


 In my own formerly Irish-speaking north Brooklyn Irish American family,
"jazzy,"
 and jazzed meant exciting, hot, passionate...as in "I was really jazzed by
that gal,
 or that's a jazzy dress, or "enough of that jazz," as in enough of that
anger, excess passion.

 A jazzy joint would not necessarily be a jazz club, but could simply be an
exciting place.

 Joint, of course, literally  means a warm shelter in Irish from d?on te
(Pronounced jynt). A  teasai d?on te, means literally an exciting, warm
dwelling of some kind.  Like a jazzy juke joint.

 Add d?uga, (pronounced jooka), which means to "drink to the dregs" and you
get a jazzy juke joint that is hot and full of passion and may or may not
play jazz.

 I am really jazzed by the confirmation of Irish American source.

 Jazzed in San Francisco,

 Daniel Cassidy
 Director
 The Irish Studies Program
 New College of California
 777 Valencia Street
 San Francisco, Ca. 94110
 415-437-3402
 irishstudies at newcollege.edu