Earliest "jazz" composition? (May 18, 1916)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 5:13 AM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Dec 06, 2009 at 11:50:42PM -0500, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>
>> I wonder if, despite the copyright date, "When I Hear That Jaz Band
>> Play" really didn't get released until later in the year after the
>> boom in "jazz" titles began in November and December. That might
>> justify Jasen's chronology. But as things stand, this composition from
>> May 18 appears to be the earliest known use in musical composition --
>> and (excluding the ambiguous "jazbo"/"jasbo" cites) the second
>> earliest from any source, after the July 11, 1915 Chicago Tribune
>> article, "Blues Is Jazz and Jazz Is Blues." I believe the next known
>> appearance in print is a May 22, 1916 mention in the Tribune of a "Jaz
>> band". Or am I missing something?
>
> What is the exact question here? The "Jaz band" in the Tribune
> is about an actual jazz band, it's not about a
> composition. And OED does have a May 1 1916 of "Jass band", so
> that's three weeks earlier.

Right, I was checking to see if this song is the second-earliest known
appearance of "jazz" (or a variant) that's explicitly about music. I
forgot about the May 1 cite for "jazz band". From the OED:

1916 Chicago Herald 1 May 4/4 The shriek of women's drunken laughter
rivaled the blatant scream of the imported New Orleans *Jass Band,
which never seemed to stop playing.

(Seems like May 1916 was a big month for Chicago jazz.)

--Ben Zimmer

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