Query: "Jazbo on upper lip" (1915)

[George Thompson]

I take this to mean a moustache the writer thought looked particularly
stupid.

Originally, "jasbo" was an ignorant, buffoonish person, or the sort of
thing such a person would fancy.  After jazz music became the pop music of
its time -- the late 1910s -- it was taken to mean a bo (beau?) who liked
jazz.

Someone here, years ago, proposed deriving "jasbo" from the first name
"Jasper", just the sort of name that dumb people would have.  Made sense to
me then, and still does.

     The big laughs for *jasbo*, hokum, and gravy, as we call broad humor,
frequently come from the women patrons in the house where it is performed.
     New York Times, July 4, 1915, section X, p. 2, cols. 5-6 (Walter J.
Kingsley, “How to Sell a One-Act Play”)

The "classy" stuff is pretty to talk about, it furnished inspiration for
the dramatic writer, but it is the hocum, the *jazbo*, what vaudeville
styles "comedy acts," which please an audience.
Missouri Breeze, September 17, 1915, p. 1, col. ?  Quoted in Lawrence
Gushee, *Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band*, N. Y., &c: Oxford
U. Pr., 2005, p. 138 & p. 332, fn. 11
GAT

On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 6:37 PM, Eric Nielsen <ericbarnak at gmail.com> wrote:

> I would guess it is a moustache style. Jazz musicians had their jazz patch,
> and
> this man had his jazbo.
>
> Eric
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Gerald Cohen <gcohen at mst.edu> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Gerald Cohen <gcohen at MST.EDU>
> > Subject:      Query:  "Jazbo on upper lip" (1915)
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Would anyone have an idea what 1915 "jazbo on his upper lip" means?
> > (See query below.)
> >
> > Gerald Cohen
> >
> > From: Barry Popik <bapopik at aol.com>
> > Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:44:33 -0500 (EST)
> > Subject: "Jazbo on upper lip" (1915)
> >
> > I wonder if you (or ADS-L) can help to explain this. <snip>
> >
> > Barry Popik
> > Austin, TX
> > ...
> > GenealogyBank
> > June 14, 1915
> > Abderdeen (SD) Daily News, pg. 2
> > "Bits of Byplay" by Luke McLuke (Cincinnati Enquirer)
> > _Located._
> > Dear Luke -- I have located the old fashioned man who wears brown spats
> > and who has a little jazbo on his upper lip. He travels for a
> > Cincinnati firm. -- Texas.
> >
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> >
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-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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