Bert Kelly's I Invented Jazz

[George Thompson]

Jerry writes

>   Btw, we must be cautious about saying that Hickman was the
> first to apply the word "jazz" to music.  The transfer very
> possibly occurred in connection with his band, but in an interview
> (S.F. Examiner, Oct. 12, 1919, p. W16/4) Hickman made clear that
> he did not like the use of the word "jazz" in relation to music.
>

I suspect that this was his attitude in retrospect.  It Hickman and his
band played dance music, along the lines of Paul Whteman, Lawrence Welk
and Lester Lanin.  It seems that he took up the word Jazz from the
lively, sparkling water at the mineral spring where the San Francisco
Seals trained in 1913 -- I forget the name right now -- Hickman was
entertainment director there that spring.  (This seems to me to
parallel Welk's "Champagne Music".)  The ODJB's original hit, Livery
Stable Blues, featured imitations of barnyard noises -- neighs,
whinneys, squawks -- and after jazz became a fad, it looks like
vaudeville acts that might earlier have called themselves "novelty"
acts or "nut" acts billed themselves as "jazz" bands, made a show of
cavorting about the stage and boasted in interviews that they knew
nothing about music, everybody played whatever they felt like playing,
and their music was supposed to be discordant.  Some time ago I posted
a very funny diatribe against jazz in vaudeville from a newspaper in
the heartland somewhere, which said that the jazz band featured a
drummer whose right hand knew not what his left hand was doing and a
saxophone player who could dance the Bear Cat, and concluded "Until the
jazz band is reached on the vaudeville bill, the worst is yet to come."

I think that by 1919 Hickman was thinking that he had lost control of
the word jazz and that what dancers and listeners associated with the
word was not the carefully arranged and well played music he offered.
His trademark had been compromised.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 9:38 pm
Subject: Re: Bert Kelly's I Invented Jazz

>   Such a manuscript would be extremely interesting and valuable.
> George, if you can somehow get ahold of it, that would be great. .
>
>   Meanwhile, as is well known, Bert Kelly already staked out his
> claim to bringing the term "jazz" from San Francisco to Chicago in
> a letter he sent to _Variety_, Oct. 2, 1957, p. 64/1-2.
>
>   Btw, we must be cautious about saying that Hickman was the
> first to apply the word "jazz" to music.  The transfer very
> possibly occurred in connection with his band, but in an interview
> (S.F. Examiner, Oct. 12, 1919, p. W16/4) Hickman made clear that
> he did not like the use of the word "jazz" in relation to music.
>
> Gerald Cohen
>
> > ----------
> >
>        Original message from  George Thompson, Aug. 31, 2005:
> > Bert Kelly was a San Francisco musician associated with Art
> Hickman. It seems that Hickman was the first to apply the word
> Jazz to music,and that Kelly brought the word to Chicago in 1915
> or so, where it was
> > taken up by the Original Dixieland Jazz Bnad, which made the
> first recordings of a jazz band.
> >
> > It was reported in 1960 that Kelly had written an autobiography
> called I Invented Jazz, which was to be published by Vantage
> Press, a vanity publishing company.  You folks will recall a
> posting or several
> > postings -- you all do remember every posting made here, don't
> you? -- regarding this book; they came to the conclusion that it
> must never have been published.
> >
> > It seems that the manuscript of the book was at least recently
> still in the hands of Kelly's son, Albert R. Kelly Jr.  It is
> cited in Lawrence Gushee, Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the
> Creole Band, N. Y., &c:
> > Oxford U. Pr., 2005, p. 333, fn. 21.  I have what I hope is a
> current email address of Prof. Gushee and will try to contact the son.
> >
> > GAT
> >
> > George A. Thompson
> >
> >
> >
>