Jazz (word)

The similarity of "jazz" to "jasm", an obsolete slang term meaning spirit, energy, and vigor, and dated to 1860 in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (1979), suggests that "jasm" should be considered the leading candidate for the source of "jazz".

"Jism" or its variant "jizz" (which is not attested in the Historical Dictionary of American Slang until 1941) has also been suggested as a direct source for "jazz".

[5] Dick Holbrook and Peter Tamony found articles written in Boyes Springs, California, where the San Francisco Seals baseball team was in training.

On April 5, 1913, the Bulletin published an article by Ernest J. Hopkins entitled "In Praise of 'Jazz,' a Futurist Word Which Has Just Joined the Language.

"[5][6] The article, which used the spellings "jaz" and "jazz" interchangeably, discussed the term at length and included a positive definition.

These included William Demarest, an actor, saying he heard the word in 1908 as a young musician in San Francisco when the band was encouraged to play more energetically.

[6] Clarinetist Bud Jacobson said the word was used in Chicago to promote the Art Arseth band at the Arsonia Cafe in 1914.

[6] Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, found it applied to music in the Chicago Daily Tribune of July 11, 1915.

The "jazz" had put pep into the legs that had scrambled too long for the 5:15....At the next place a young woman was keeping "Der Wacht Am Rhein" and "Tipperary Mary" apart when the interrogator entered.

It is claimed they are the outgrowth of the so-called "fish bands" of the lake front camps, Saturday and Sunday night affairs...However, the fact remains that their popularity has already reached Chicago, and that New York probably will be invaded next.

A leading contender is Bert Kelly, a musician and bandleader who was familiar with the California slang term from being a banjoist with Art Hickman's orchestra.

According to a November 1937 article in Song Lyrics, "A dance-crazed couple shouted at the end of a dance, 'Jass it up boy, give us some more jass.'

In Volume II of its Supplement (1976) and hence in the 1989 Second Edition, the Oxford English Dictionary provided a 1909 citation for the use of "jazz" on a gramophone record of "Uncle Josh in Society."

Editors acknowledged the error, and the revised entry of "jazz" in OED Online changed the date of this quotation with a note about the mistake.

But many secondary sources continue to show 1909 as the earliest known example of the word based on the OED's original entry.

The Grand Larousse Dictionnaire de la Langue Française and the Über englisches Sprachgut im Französischen cite a 1908 use of jazband, a jazz orchestra, in the Paris newspaper Le Matin.

In an 1831 letter, Lord Palmerston wrote in reference to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, of "old Talley jazzing and telling stories to Lieven and Esterhazy and Wessenberg."

Scholars believe that Palmerston was not using "jazz" in any modern sense but was simply anglicizing French jaser in its standard meaning of chattering or chatting.

"In his studies of the Creole patois and idiom in New Orleans Lafcadio Hearn reported that the word ‘jaz’, meaning to speed things up, to make excitement, was common among the blacks of the South, and had been adopted by the Creoles as a term to be applied to music of a rudimentary syncopated type."

[citation needed] The French brought the perfume industry with them to New Orleans, and the oil of jasmine was a popular ingredient.

The strong scent was popular in the red-light district where a working girl might approach a prospective customer and say, "Is jazz on your mind tonight, young fellow?

"[10] Ward and Burns also suggested "jazz" derives from "jezebel", a nineteenth-century term for[citation needed] prostitute.