Ragged but Right, pt 4 (jam)

[Jonathan Lighter]

And your moment of retromythoacronymery:

"I was taught in school [n.b. - ed.] that it originated as 'Jazz and Musicians."

[http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=8598&messages=6]

JL

On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 8:22 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Ragged but Right, pt 4 (jam)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 11:06 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>>     As a rule most side show managers just want noise from a colored band.
>>>> The reason for this is because they don't have a large enough band to do
>>>> anything but jam.
>>>>
>>>>      "Notes from Wolfscale's Band, with Barnum and Bailey", *Indianapolis
>>>> Freeman*, August 8, 1914
>
>
>> In other words, does improvisation equal and explain "noise"?
>
>
> I don't think that it needs to. It's not necessary, IMO, to interpret
> "just wants noise" literally. As presented, I read the quote as
> meaning that side-show managers don't care what it is or how it is
> that the colored band is playing, as long as it's playing something in
> some manner, and not that the managers necessarily regard the
> improvisational playing of those musicians as nothing more than
> "noise," sensu stricto.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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