[Ads-l] Further Antedating of "Scat" (Music)

[Shapiro, Fred]

Actually, I see from the Wikipedia article that scat singing was around even before Armstrong.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2026 9:27 AM
To: American Dialect Society <ads-l at listserv.uga.edu>
Subject: Further Antedating of "Scat" (Music)

scat (OED, n6, 1929)

1927 New Orleans Item 25 Feb. 4/2 (Newspapers.com)  Skid-Dat-De-Dat — Fox Trot — Scat Chorus by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five.

NOTE: The citations I have found for "scat" seem to indicate that scat was originated not by Cab Calloway as is widely believed, but rather by an even more famous jazz musician: Louis Armstrong.

Fred Shapiro



------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org