Word Origin: Jazz

Origin: 1913

The jazziest American contribution to the vocabulary of English is jazz itself. From obscure origins among African Americans in New Orleans a century ago, the music and the word we use for it have become familiar the world over. Jazz has been called "the most significant form of musical expression of American black culture and America's outstanding contribution to the art of music," blending elements of African music, work songs, hymns, dances, marches, and Creole music, and developing through the blues and ragtime into a new syncopated improvisational style. Jazz flourished in New Orleans before World War I, in Chicago in the 1920s, and in New York and throughout the country after that. White performers learned it from African Americans and added to the variety of jazz styles.
The music hardly needs an introduction. But what about the word? Unfortunately, its beginnings are especially obscure. It may have come from an African word, or from a performer's name, among other possibilities. But nobody would have dared include jazz in a respectable book or article a century ago because it was decidedly obscene, referring to sexual activity. Gradually, though, jazz came to mean any vigorous, enthusiastic activity, and eventually it became reputable enough to mention.
Curiously, the earliest evidence of jazz so far discovered is in a San Francisco newspaper of 1913, referring to a baseball team back from spring training "full of the old 'jazz.'" As the story goes, the name was next used to advertise a local dance band as "the jazziest tune tooters in all the Valley of the Moon." It appears that bandleader Bert Kelly then brought the word to Chicago in 1914. Meanwhile, the music that we now know as jazz had long been developing in New Orleans. It was known as ragtime (1897) until jazz arrived and took over in 1917. From then on, jazz has jazzed up our lives.
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