Lafcadio Hearn and Jazz?

[Sam Clements]

A challenge for researchers.

I was using Newspaper archive today, searching not for antedates, but later stories which might hold clues to the origins of the musical term.

10 November, 1917.  An article from the Oshkosh(WI) _Daily Northwestern_

>>Not long since The Northwestern printed a little poem, entitled "Jazz," and frequently the question arose, "What is Jazz?"  Adelaide King, editor and publisher of The Waupun Democrat, who was among the questioners, finally decided to answer the question herself and her research makes her an authority on the Jazz question.  She says:  "Having got in line with Jazz orchestras and Jazzy looking bills, Waupun is up to date on that point.  The word is of African origin and is variously spelled Jas, Jass, Jaz, Jazz, Jasz and Jasez.  It is common on the gold coast of Africa and in the hinterland of Cape Codcastle.  In his studies of the Creole patois and idiom in New Orleans, Lafcadio Hearn reported that the word 'Jaz,' meaning to speed things up, to make excitement, was common among the blacks of the south, and had been adopted by the Creoles as a term to be applied to music of a rudumentary syncopated type.  In the old plantation days when the slaves were having one of their holidays and the fun languished, some west coast African would cry out, 'Jas her up,' and this would be the cue for fun, fast and furious.  No doubt the witch doctors and medicine men on the Congo used the same term and those jungle 'parties,' when the tom-toms throbbed and the sturdy warriors gave their pep, and added kick, with rich brews of Gohimbin? bark--that precious concoction fo the Cameroons.  Curiously enough the phrase, 'Jas her up' is a common one today in vaudeville and on the circus lot.  When a vaudeville act needs ginger the cry from advisers in the wings is, 'put in jaz,' meaning, add low comedy, go to high speed and accelerate the comedy spark.  'Jasbo,' is a form of the word common in the varieties, meaning the same as 'hokum,' or low comedy, verging on vulgarity.  Jazz music is the delirium tremens of syncopation.  It is strict rythm, without melody.  Today the jazz bands take popular tunes and rag them to death to make jazz, beats being added as often as the delicacy of the player's ear will permit.  In one-two time, a third beat is interpolated.  There are many half notes, or less and many long drawn, wavering tones.  It is an attempt to reproduce the marvelous syncopation of the African jungle.  For years jazz has ruled in the under world resorts of New Orleans.  There, in those wonderful refuges of basic folk lore and primeval passion, wild men and wild women have danced to jazz for generations.  Ragtime and the new dances came from there, and long after, jazz crept slowly up the Mississippi frolm resort to resort until it landed all over the United States."  <<

My question is--where can one find in the writings of Lafcadio Hearn the term 'jaz'?   The author of this piece probably didn't make it up out of whole cloth.  

Since Hearn died in 1904, his use of the term, however spelled, would be a great find, I would think.

Hearn lived in N.O. from 1877-88.  He was the literary editor of the Times Democrat in that city from 1877-81.  

Just saying...

Sam Clements