Art Hickman, Boyes Springs & Jazz -- long note

[Benjamin Zimmer]

A couple of belated notes...

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 6:06 PM, George Thompson
<george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
>
>        It's believed that Hickman was also tickled by the word "jazz", and began to use it to
> describe the sort of vigorous, energetic dance music his bands played.  The SFChronicle
> file doesn't help to confirm that thought, though it remains very likely.

Are there any quotes from Hickman where he speaks approvingly of the
word "jazz" (other than the June 15, 1919 cite below)?

> The ads in the Chronicle for the Rose Room never identify Hickman's band as a "jazz" band.
> Oddly, there was a "Jazz Orchestra" playing on Powell street a few blocks way:
>        TECHAU TAVERN.
>        San Francisco's Leading High-Class Family Cafe on the Ground Floor, Corner of
> Eddy and Powell Streets.
>        Entire change of repertoire by our Show Girl Revue, but retaining by popular
> request the singing from the electric swings in midair.
>        The Jazz Orchestra, under the leadership of Mr. George Gould, San Francisco's newest
> and most sensational find, for the dance lovers.  Mr. Gould renders a number of his own
> creations with that Jazz syncopation rarely ever heard above the Mason and Dixon line.
>        ***
>        San Francisco Chronicle, August 28, 1916, p. 2, col. ?

George Gould played piano with Hickman and Bert Kelly at the St.
Francis in 1914, according to Tim Gracyk:
http://www.gracyk.com/hickman.shtml

>        Hickman described his band as playing jazz in 1919:
>        "Jazz music was always a success.  The St. Francis was brave enough to install it in its
> principal ballroom, and the society matron found she didn't have to go slumming in order to
>  hear bright and snappy melodies.  It has been refined.  ***  [A Symphony orchestra] plays
> but twenty weeks in a year.  My orchestra entertains people for fifty-two weeks.  A legitimate
> musician must play according to his music.  He can't improvise.  that's where we jazz
> musicians have the advantage.  ***  When liquor goes, jazz will be the only thing with a kick.
> Instead of making people weep, we will give them an enjoyable pill of jazz."
>        San Francisco Chronicle, June 15, 1919.  p. S16, col. ?

This is a very interesting find, since the quotes I've seen from
Hickman around this time were more disparaging of "jazz". Lawrence
Gushee, in _Pioneers of Jazz_, suggests that Hickman might have had
reason to distance himself from "jazz" after moving on from Boyes
Springs to high-class venues like the St. Francis.

---
_San Francisco Examiner_, Oct. 12, 1919, p. W16:4 (cited by Gracyk)
"Hickman does not like the use of the word 'jazz' in relation to
music. 'It has no association with music,' he said. 'It means
something effervescent. The word was born in the first training camp
of the San Francisco Seals at Boyes Springs, many years ago. The boys,
not being allowed to drink, would ask for the bubbling water of the
springs, calling it "jazz water." Gradually, the word was carried to
the ball ground, and when action was wanted, the boys would call out,
"come on, let's jazz it up." That is how an orchestra with life came
to be known as a "Jazz orchestra." But none of us like the word,'
added Hickman."
---
_Talking Machine World_, July 15, 1920, p. 6 (cited by Gushee)
"Jazz is merely noise, a product of the honky-tonks, and has no place
in a refined atmosphere. We have tried to develop an orchestra that
charges every pulse with energy, without stooping to the skillet
beating, sleigh bell ringing contraptions and physical gyrations of a
padded cell."
---

--Ben Zimmer

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