Ruminations on the chronology of "jazz" -- (was: article on early jazz recordings)

[Sam Clements]

Fred Shapiro found earlier for the musical term, posted to ADS-L on May 15,
2004.



>>The Chicago Tribune unfortunately does not appear (I haven't checked the
classified ad hits!) to have an antedating of the word "jazz."  However, I
did find the following, which I believe is the earliest usage yet found of
"jazz" referring to a type of music:

>>915 _Chicago Daily Tribune_ 11 July E8 (ProQuest)  Blues Is Jazz and Jazz
Is Blues ... The Worm had turned -- turned to fox trotting.  And the
"blues" had done it.  The "jazz" had put pep into the legs that had
scrambled too long for the 5:15. ... At the next place a young woman
was keeping "Der Wacht Am Rhein" and "Tipperary Mary" apart when the
interrogator entered.  "What are the blues?" he asked gently.  "Jazz!"
The young woman's voice rose high to drown the piano. ... The blues are
never written into music, but are interpolated by the piano player or
other players.  They aren't new.  They are just reborn into popularity.
They started in the south half a century ago and are the interpolations of
darkies originally.  The trade name for them is "jazz."  ... Thereupon
"Jazz" Marion sat down and showed the bluest streak of blues ever heard
beneath the blue.  Or, if you like this better: "Blue" Marion sat down and
jazzed the jazziest streak of jazz ever.  Saxophone players since the
advent of the "jazz blues" have taken to wearing "jazz collars," neat
decollate things that give the throat and windpipe full play, so that the
notes that issue from the tubes may not suffer for want of blues -- those
wonderful blues.

***

From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 10:15 PM
Subject: Ruminations on the chronology of "jazz" -- (was: article on early
jazz recordings)


 >>    As for the music use of  the term "jazz," it was in full force in
1917.
>> Tim Gracyk takes it back a bit further,  to 1916, saying: "The earliest
>> recorded song to refer to jazz is 'That Funny Jas Band from Dixieland,'
>> copyrighted November 8, 1916. Meanwhile, Franz Hoffmann's _Jazz
>> Advertised in the Negropress, vol. 4: the Chicago Defender 1910-1934_ (my
>> thanks to NYU librarian George Thompson for drawing Hommann's work to my
>> attention) reproduces (p. 8) an advertisement from Nov. 4, 1916 which
>> includes the words '"Jaz" Singers.' That's the earliest I find the term
>> "jazz" (or its spelling variants) in Hoffmann's compilation for either
>> Chicago (vol. 4) or New York/Baltimore (vols. 1-3).
>>    Also, Norm Cohen (no relation) sent me a copy of a Jan. 9, 1917 letter
>> whch mentions "I might add that there is no Jass Band here in New York,
>> and it looks as if there will be quite a big demand for it." I therefore
>> need to check  Gunther Schuller's 1968 _Early Jazz:..._ p. 250, which
>> reportedly (in Irving Lewis Allen's  _The City in Slang_. p. 71) says:
>> "In 1915 jazz was introduced to New Yorkers in a vaudeville theater by
>> Freddie Keppard's Creole Band, but few took notice."  If  the term "jazz"
>> (however spelled)  is attested in NYC in 1915, this would be a remarkably
>> early musical attestation (a year a long time  in this context).
>>
>>    This all fits into the overall picture of trying to get as clear a
>> picture as possible of the transfer of the term "jazz" from San Francisco
>> baseball to music and then its spread as a music term.
>>
>> Gerald Cohen