early "jazz" in Variety

Fri May 3 17:16:38 UTC 2013

Ben, thanks for sharing information about your valuable search
strategy for the recalcitrant Old Fulton database.

The etymological research area of Jazz-Jass-Jas appears to me to be
very complicated.So I examined a sub-problem. The Wikipedia entry for
the word Jazz says the following (which may be inaccurate or
obsolete):

[Begin excerpt]
The first known use in New Orleans, discovered by lexicographer
Benjamin Zimmer in 2009, appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune on
Nov. 14, 1916
[End excerpt]

One of your columns is cited:
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/jazz-a-tale-of-three-cities/

In an effort to contribute I used the direct query interface of the
Old Fulton database. Selecting "Boolean" allows the following query.
The date restriction does not really work properly. The search engine
will match any number between 1900 and 1916 in the data item.

Query: 1900~~1916 AND "Jazz Band" AND "New Orleans"

There were 41 matches including the following. Of course, it is
possible that the New Orleans Jass Band did not originate in New
Orleans. In fact, it may never have visited New Orleans. But the cite
does provide evidence of a connection in September 1916. (Maybe this
is already known.)

[ref] 1916 September 23, New York Dramatic Mirror, REPORTS FROM MIRROR
CORRESPONDENTS: "STATE FAIR WEEK, MILWAUKEE", Quote Page 14, New York.
(Old Fulton)[/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
STATE FAIR WEEK, MILWAUKEE
...
The New Orleans "Jass Band." with the Dancing Dales, are the double
headliners at the Orpheum.
[End excerpt]

http://www.fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2010/New%20York%20NY%20Dramatic%20Mirror/New%20York%20NY%20Dramatic%20Mirror%201916%20Sep-Nov%201917%20Grayscale/New%20York%20NY%20Dramatic%20Mirror%201916%20Sep-Nov%201917%20Grayscale%20-%200132.pdf

Garson

On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 5:53 PM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      early "jazz" in Variety
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> As Barry has informed us, the quirky fultonhistory.com site has
> archived early issues of _Variety_ -- a top-level index shows that the
> coverage is from 1906 to 1922:
>
> http://fultonhistory.com/my%20photo%20albums/All%20Newspapers/Variety/index.html
>
> The best way to use the archive, I've found, is by doing a Google site
> search, constructing a query like so: <http://goo.gl/Bs5Lk>
> (site:fultonhistory.com inurl:variety inurl:1916 jass|jazz|jaz). That
> turns up a mention of a "jass band" in the Sept. 1, 1916 issue, in a
> review of entertainment at McVicker's Theatre in Chicago (see first
> cite below). According to Laurence Gushee in _Pioneers of Jazz_, this
> would have been the Original Dixieland Jass Band (then accompanying
> Fogarty's Dancing Revue), though their rivals the Creole Band also
> played the same venue:
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=M8Zw7lmvLvAC&pg=PT324
>
> As Garson noted, most page images in the archive don't have dates on
> them, so you need to navigate back to the first page of the issue to
> find the date. Here are a couple of antedatings:
>
> * jazz/jass, v. 'play jazz music' (OED3 28 June 1917)
>
> 1916 _Variety_ 1 Sept. 28/1 The dancing was no doubt appreciated and
> the audience entertained with the Texas Tommy dance brought more
> up-to-date but the real interest was centered in the coatless but
> whiteshirted white musicians who "jassed" away at the raggedy,
> foxtrotty numbers. The music may not spell class but it does spell
> "jass" and what more would anyone at McVicker's want?
>
> p. 1: http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2015/Variety/Variety%201916/Variety%201916%20-%201143.pdf
> p. 28: http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2015/Variety/Variety%201916/Variety%201916%20-%201170.pdf
>
> * jazzist (OED3 1921)
>
> 1917 _Variety_ 21 Sept. 26/1 Miss Seeley has assembled the greatest
> aggregation of "Jazzists" in America (the Benny Fields combination
> from Chicago's South Side).
>
> p. 1: http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2015/Variety/Variety%201917/Variety%201917%20-%202757.pdf
> p. 26: http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2015/Variety/Variety%201917/Variety%201917%20-%202780.pdf
>
> --bgz
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 6:00 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>>
>> Thanks Barry and Jerry: There is no date on the page, but there is a
>> strategy to access adjacent pages. Admittedly, the Old Fulton Post
>> Card database is difficult to use. The date of the issue of Variety
>> that contains the passage is:  June 14, 1918
>> The date is shown on page 1 and page 3 of the issue.
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:04 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>> >
>> > Barry Popik sent me the message below, and I now forward it to ads-l.  Can
>> > anyone perhaps add to it?
>> >
>> > ________________________________________
>> > From: Barry Popik [bapopik at aol.com]
>> > Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 9:04 AM
>> > To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard
>> > Subject: Paul Asch, leader of the original San Francisco jazz orchestra?
>> >
>> > FWIW, I was in the very comprehensive but I-can't sort-by-date Old
>> > Fulton NY Post Cards database, now at over 21 millions pages. This
>> > might be interesting for the origins of "jazz" music in San Francisco:
>> > ...
>> > http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html
>> > 1918 (no date on page), Variety, pg. 8, col. 2:
>> > Paul Asch, leader of the original San Francisco "jazz orchestra,"
>> > enlisted in the Marines last week and joined the band at Mare Island.
>> > ...
>> > There's not much on Paul Asch except for this, from GenealogyBank.com:
>> > ...
>> > Date: Tuesday, June 18, 1918
>> > Paper: Evening News (San Jose, CA)
>> > Volume: 168
>> > Issue: 437
>> > Page: Three
>> > U. S. MARINE CORPS BAND
>> > (...)
>> > PAUL ASCH, Pianist
>> > ...
>> > Barry Popik
>> > Austin, TX
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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