Up to the present time, the expression cutting in jazz is sometimes used, sometimes facetiously, to claim a new musician's technical superiority over another.
In the contests, often one pianist began a tune; then others took turns "cutting in", introducing increasingly more complex ideas, changing the key and/or tempo, and otherwise trying to outplay and out-style the previous musician(s).
The great stride pianist James P. Johnson and his "rival", Willie "The Lion" Smith, often participated in cutting contests.
Art Tatum usually won the contests he engaged in, beating out such notable pianists as Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, Count Basie, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Albert Ammons, Harry Gibson, Pete Johnson, Marlowe Morris, Clarence Profit, and Claude Hopkins.
[2] An enduring form of the cutting contest is the "trading" tradition in jazz improvisation, where two or more musicians alternately play parts of solo choruses.