This presents are problem for future scholarship on the subject of Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz.
There’s a similar scholarship problem in the area of contributions of Gaelic to American English for the same reason.
In both cases, the people involved were so busy with the challenges of simply making a living, they didn’t have time to document and archive and mainstream society wasn’t interested in helping.
Bringing the Irish into this may seem like a tangent and in some ways it is, but not really.
Here’s why…
The word “jazz” is Gaelic.
“What?”, you say. “Jazz is an African word that means ‘sex’ or something.”
The truth is the first time that “jazz” ever appeared in print was 1913 in an account in the San Francisco Bulletin about a baseball game written by an Irish-American “Scoop” Gleeson.
Readers didn’t recognize the word so three days later on March 6th, 1913, Gleeson provided an explanation:
“Come on, there Professor, string up the big harp and give us all a tune Everybody has come back to the old town full of the old ‘jazz’ and they promise to knock the fans off their feet with their playing.
“What is the ‘jazz?’ Why, it’s a little of that ‘old life,’ the ‘gin-i-ker,’ the ‘pep,’ otherwise known as the enthusiasalum. A grain of ‘jazz’ and you feel like going out and eating your way through Twin Peaks. It’s that spirit which makes ordinary players step around like Lajoies and (Ty) Cobbs
“‘Hap’ Hogan gave his men a couple of shots of ‘near-jazz’ last season and look what happened — the Tigers became the most ferocious set of tossers in the league. Now the Seals have happened upon great quantities of it in the quiet valley of Sonoma and they’re setting the countryside on fire.”
“Pep” was a very popular word in that era, but what about “gin-i-ker?”
“Gin-i-ker” is the phonetic spelling for the Gaelic phrase “Tine Caor” which means “raging heat and lightening.”
“Tine” is the “fire” part of the phrase and it’s pronounced “Jin-eh” or “chin eh”
The Gaelic word “teas” is related to “tine”. It means “heat of the highest temperature.” In human emotional terms that would mean “hot”, “exciting”, “passionate.”
And in Gaelic the word “teas” is pronounced JASS or CHASS.
The adjective “Teasai” in Gaelic is pronounced “JASSY” and means “hot, warm, passionate, exciting, fervent, enthusiastic, feverish, angry.”
After it’s initial coining, the word “jazz” became a local verbal phenomenon in San Francisco.
In fact, an article was published it in the S.F. Bulletin on April 5, 1913 written by Ernest Hopkins: “In Praise of “Jazz” A Futurist Word Which Has Just Joined the Language.”
“Jazz” jumped the Bay and appeared in The Oakland Tribune on October 4th of that same year.
How did it get to New Orleans and the rest of the country?
That’s easy.
Every port city in the US, New Orleans included, was packed with native Gaelic speakers and first generation Irish-Americans. Many worked the docks. Many went to sea.
Many other “mysterious” slang American words come from Gaelic.
Here’s a very short list:
First the American slang, then the Gaelic root, then the Gaelic meaning.
Slum = ‘s slom e = “It’s bleak”
Cop = ceapaim = “I catch”
Racket = reacaireacht = “dealing, selling”
You dig? = Duigeann tú = “Do you understand?”
Scam = ’S cam é” = “trick or deception”
Scramm = “scaraim” = “I get away.”
“Say uncle!” = “anacal” = mercy
Buddy = “bodach” = a healthy, young man
Geezer = “gaosmhar” = wise person
Dude = “dúid” = a foolish-looking fellow based on his clothing choices
Gimmick = “camag” = trick or deceit, or a hook or crooked stick
Longshoreman = loingseoir = a maritime worker
A lot of otherwise untraceable American slang words related to labor, hardship, crime, gambling, violence and other real world, gritty aspects of life appear to have Gaelic origins.
When he died, Alex Haley of “Roots” fame was working on a book that showed the close relations between early Irish immigrants and Afro-Americans.
They lived in the same neighborhoods, worked together, dated, married, and had kids together.
What were Africans called in Liverpool in old days? “Smoked Irishmen.”
Most of the Irish who came to the US in the 19th century were from rural areas. They spoke their own language and lived a life that was much closer to tribal than modern. They were impoverished and discriminated against.
Signs on stores: “No Irish or dogs” and want ads that stated “No Irish need apply” were a reality.
In his research Haley discovered that Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald had some Irish blood as did Muhammad Ali and Jim Hendrix.
History is a lot more complicated and rich than we know.
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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For those who missed it, Birdland, the shrine of bebop, and the Palladium Ballroom, the shrine of Latin jazz, were just a block away from each other.
The original Birdland opened December 15, 1949 at 1678 Broadway just north of West 52nd Street and closed in 1965.
The Palladium Ballroom opened in 1948 on the corner of 53rd Street and Broadway in New York City and closed May 1, 1966.
Musicians and audience members went back and forth between the two nightspots.
Jazzman Slim Gaillard and Tito Puente reminisce about the heyday – and then get down to a jam.
Note: Don’t got looking for either of these places. They’re gone, but here’s what they looked like.
The original Birdland
The front door
Ella Fitzgerald in the house
A cool spot
Celebrity hangout
The interior
The original Palladium Ballroom
Tito Rodriguez on the bandstand
The Crowd
Tito Puente and Ray Baretto
Dancers
Other famous joints
Cotton Club
Five Spot
Savoy Ballroom
The dance floor at the Savoy
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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Santamaría learned rumba as a kid in the streets of Havana’s Jesús María barrio.
He reminisced: “In the neighborhood where I came from we had all kinds of music, mostly from Africa. We did not leave it alone; we changed it our way. The music we made dealt with religion and conversation. The drum was our tool and we used it for everything.”
Afro Blue (a Mongo Santamaria composition)
Personnel on Afro Blue
Mongo Santamaria, congas
Bobby Sanabria, drums
Sal Santamaria, percussion
E.J. Allen, trumpet
Sam Furnace, tenor saxophone
Tony Hinson, baritone saxophone
Bob Quaranta, piano
Eddie Resto, bass
Afro Blue – The John Coltrane version
More from Mongo
Tracks:
1. Perez Prado – Mambo del 65 – Mongo on congas, first time he was recorded on the instrument
2. Tito Puente – Four Beat Mambo – Mongo with Willie Bobo, and Patato
3. Mongo Santamaria’s Afro-Cuban Drums
4. Cal Djader Quintet – Afro-Blue – Tune with and by Mongo Santamaria
5. Mongo Santamaria – Mazacote – With Willie Bobo, Al McKibbon (Mongo on bongo)
6. Mongo Santamaria – Canta Bajo – Mongo Introduces La Lupe
7. Mongo Santamaria – Canto Abacua – With Justo Betancourt
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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When you talk about Cuban music, you have to talk about Puerto Rico and the Bronx too.
This video is a classic example why.
From a concert recorded in Puerto Rico in 1998.
Andy Gonzalez – bass, The Bronx (Puerto Rico)
Jerry Gonzalez – trumpet, The Bronx (Puerto Rico)
Ivan Renta – tenor sax, Puerto Rico
Luis Perdomo – piano, Venezuela
Pedrito Martinez – congas, Cuba
Jerry Gonzalez founded the The Fort Apache Band, which included his brother Andy, one of the great Latin jazz innovators of all time.
Directed by Bobby Sanabria, the Roberto Ocasio Latin Jazz Camp is a project of the Cleveland-based Roberto Ocasio Foundation.
Bobby Sanabria talks with jazz on the Tube about a one-of-a-kind educational opportunity for young people between Grades 8 and 12.
The camp is chance for aspiring young musicians to be exposed to professional-level training in one of the most sophisticated and influential forms the music on the planet.
The faculty is made of up of seasoned professionals with strong educational chops.
Surprise guest teachers at previous camps have include Eddie Palmieri, Candido and David Amram.
Do you know a young person who might benefit from this training?
Please let them know.
Also, if you’re a member of a local jazz society or a supporter of local jazz education programs for youth, help spread the word about this worthy program.
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
The story of Cuban music is also the story of the Havana-New York connection.
And look, you can’t talk about New York without talking about the beautiful Bronx.
And you can’t talk about the Bronx without talking about the beautiful Puerto Rican community and its incalculable contribution to American music.
Today we leave the bandstand and visit the workshop of a great artisan of Latin musical instruments Jorge Calixto Rivera.
We borrowed this from a 2006 article about Don Cali.
A native of Puerto Rico, Mr. Rivera was a musician “when I was born,” he said. His father was a carpenter and a guitar maker.
“Everybody in my house was playing guitars,” he added. “I made my own drums with pieces of wood I stole from my father.”
Arriving in Highbridge (Bronx) in 1958, he began working as an auto mechanic and performing as a percussionist. “My first bells, I made them in my apartment,” he said.
Mr. Rivera opened the shop soon after, when he was kicked out of his apartment because of the noise late at night. “A jigsaw and brrrm-brrrm, metal tools,” Mr. Rivera said, laughing. “The neighbors, they called the police at least three times on me.”
Before retiring from performing last year (2005), Mr. Rivera had toured the United States and Europe and played in places all over New York, including Carnegie Hall, and had played off and on for more than 40 years with the guitar virtuoso Yomo Toro. He speaks in musical onomatopoeia, replacing nouns, verbs and adjectives with “Bang!” “Boom!” and “A bangiddy-boom!”
Stan Getz