Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record Industry by Gareth Murphy Page A

journalist, Scoop Gleeson, used the word jass to describe the spirit and pep of baseball players. The word was already on the street; Gleeson’s newspaper, the San Francisco Bulletin, ran a piece in April 1913 entitled “In Praise of Jazz, a Futurist Word Which Has Just Joined the Language.” Its author, Ernest J. Hopkins, explained that “a new word, like a new muscle, only comes into being when it has long been needed. This remarkable and satisfactory-sounding word … means something like life, vigor, energy, effervescence of spirit, joy, pep, magnetism, verve, virility ebullience, courage, happiness—oh, what’s the use?—Jazz. Nothing else can express it.”
    In Chicago, the popular new word was pinned onto an older yet increasingly popular flavor of Southern brass band music. The Chicago Daily Tribune ’s editor, Fred Shapiro, wrote an excited piece in the summer of 1915 explaining, “Blues is jazz and jazz is blues … The blues are never written into music, but are interpolated by the piano player or other players. They aren’t new. They are just reborn into popularity. They started in the South half a century ago and are the interpolations of darkies originally. The trade name for them is jazz .”
    Ironically, the word arrived in the South last. In November 1916, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, previewing a parade, noted, “Theatrical journals have taken cognizance of the jas bands and at first these organizations of syncopation were credited with having originated in Chicago, but anyone ever having frequented the tango belt of New Orleans knows that the real home of the jas bands is right here … Just where and when these bands, until this winter known only to New Orleans, originated, is a disputed question. 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.”
    The first jazz record “Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixie Jass Band One Step,” was released on Victor in February 1917. The performers were a white group called the Original Dixieland Jass Band—Southern musicians playing in the Chicago dance halls. Three months later, Columbia invited them to record two more tunes, “Darktown Strutters Ball” and “Back Home Again in Indiana.” Even Edison jumped on the bandwagon with “Everybody Loves a Jass Band” by Arthur Fields. By the end of 1917, there appeared to be a consensus that the spelling “ jazz ” carried a nicer ring.
    In 1919, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band took London by storm and was commissioned by Columbia’s British company to record no less than thirty sides. In a private concert at Buckingham Palace, the bandleader recalled Marshal Philippe Pétain peered ominously through his opera glasses, “as though there were bugs on us.” When King George V began clapping excitedly, his motionless guests let go and began enjoying themselves. After four rapturous months, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band was forced to leave England abruptly. According to rumors, they were chased to the Southampton docks by a furious Lord Harrington. One of the musicians had romanced his daughter.
    Feeling the generational chasms opening up between youngsters and their Victorian parents, Victor’s senior managers were urgently rethinking their entire image and product line. Highbrow values were becoming unfashionable, which meant unprofitable. Victor’s contract man, Calvin Child, was assigned the delicate task of convincing all the company’s operatic and classical artists to accept new terms whereby, instead of exorbitant flat fees, they would receive a percentage of net profits, with a guaranteed minimum annual income. Caruso, of course, obtained the most generous deal, with a minimum guarantee of $100,000 per year for a term of ten years. Less lucrative names obtained minimum guarantees of