[Dixielandjazz] Origin of the word-- jazz-- Mike Vax

[Gary Lawrence Murphy]

well, I hate to be the odd-man out, no wait, I love being the odd-man out,
but nonetheless, if 'jazz' were a dirty word, would it still appear in a
newspaper in 1912?  And if it was a New Orleans rooted word, why would it
appear first in San Francisco, from an Irish-American's prose, and why then
would it first appear as associated to music in Chicago?  And why *first*
associated with a band playing Irish traditional music (by some accounts)
and only *later* applied to a band of white performers from New Orleans
who, by their leader's own testimony, had no clue what it meant, he just
liked the *sound* of it.  And why then would the Louis Armstrong film "New
Orleans" reconstruct almost completely Nick LaRocca's own story of the
white (likely Irish) man shouting out "Jazz'er up boys!"?

if this was about sexual matters, or even prostitute annointments, why then
does it not appear first in the context of New Orleans brothels?  Duke said
he didn't like the word, but admitted he didn't know where it came from.
 Louis said the word "just appeared" -- if it was street slang, you can bet
Little Louis would have picked it up in his (ahem) travels!

So what gives?  The best yarn I've heard not only threads the facts
plausibly, but, to me at least, it gives the word a proper meaning I can
use: 'jazz' is phonetically the same as the Irish word for the fiery energy
of Life, spelt 'teas' but pronounces very much like ''chass" with a jumpin'
Ch and a zithering ss.  The spelling therefore, is arbitrary, and the jass
probably was re-rendered to avoid kids erasing the J.

On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 2:36 AM, domitype <domitype at gmail.com> wrote:

> If you can believe the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation, the word
> "Jass" was a baseball term first coined in the early 1900s that was later
> applied to "Hot Music" and that association later moved to New Orleans and
> beyond. This may or may not be a true fact, but read it here:
>
> http://www.sftradjazz.org/Cricket/FC31_Spring_2006.pdf
>
>
>
>
>
> Dave Richoux
>
> > On Sep 6, 2014, at 4:08 PM, "Norman Vickers" <NVickers1 at cox.net> wrote:
> >
> > To:  Musicians and Jazzfans list  & DJML
> >
> > From: Norman Vickers, Jazz Society of Pensacola
> >
> >
> >
> > Mike Vax-( everybody on this list   should know who he is-if you don't,
> then
> > look It up) writes about the possible origin of the word "jazz."
> >
> >
> >
> > Norman's comments below:
> >
> >
> >
> > From: vaxtrpts at aol.com [mailto:vaxtrpts at aol.com]
> > Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2014 5:08 PM
> > To: NVickers1 at cox.net
> > Subject: Re: : Buddy Bolden Day, courtesy of Bob Cook
> >
> >
> >
> > I don't know if you have ever heard this story, but it was told to me by
> > more than one of the "older musicians" when I lived in New Orleans back
> in
> > the 70's, who were there pretty much towards the beginning.
> > There was a classical music reviewer for the Times-Piccayune Newspaper
> who
> > hated the music of Buddy Bolden.  At that time, there was no real name
> for
> > the music.  This reviewer said that "Buddy Bolden's music sounds like the
> > braying of a Jack Ass."  The musicians took that and made a contraction
> of
> > it and started calling the music "Jass."  Of course "Jazz" was a verb to
> > describe what you did in the sporting houses.  It came from two sources
> > "jizz" and the Jasmine scented perfume that the whore's wore.  The one
> thing
> > I have never been able to find out is exactly when Jass officially became
> > Jazz.  I wonder if anyone on the list knows that?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Mike Vax
> > Friends of Big Band Jazz, Prescott Jazz Summit,
> > Stan Kenton Alumni Band
> > www.mikevax.net
> > www.bigbandjazz.net
> > www.prescottjazz.com
> > www.getzen.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Norman writes:
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks, Mike.  Yes, my impression that "jass" was  a word connoting
> sexual
> > intercourse.  I recall Eubie Blake on TV in his latter years saying, " I
> > never call it jazz, I say ragtime."  But he never explained it.
> >
> >
> >
> > I had heard that it was a newspaperman ( not sure where, probably New
> York)
> > who wouldn't use jass in print, so he added the double "z" and that was
> > first use of  word "jazz" in print.
> >
> >
> >
> > Good discussion topic.;  Hope it will produce more light than heat.  Can
> > anyone clarify!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --end--
> >
> >
> >
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