early "jazz" in Variety

[Ben Zimmer]

If I understand Laurence Gushee correctly, "The New Orleans Jass/Jazz Band" was
one of the names used by The Creole Band while touring in 1916. But despite
hailing from New Orleans, neither they nor the ODJB used "jass"/"jazz" in their
band names prior to coming to Chicago.

There was also a white group that called themselves "The New Orleans Jazz Band"
in 1917-18 after the jazz craze hit:

http://www.mainspringpress.com/jazz-1917.html


On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 1:16 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
>
> 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 wrote:
> >
> > 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


--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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