THE ACTUAL ORIGIN of JAZZ

I often get people accosting me in the street with the question: Where and when did Jazz actually begin? The plantation - late 1700’s? New Orleans - late 1800’s? Chicago - early 20th century? My bedroom?

No, in fact recent archeological evidence has settled the matter once and for all: Jazz began with a guy called Al and his one mad creative outburst in Nebuchadnezzar’s Orchestra in the 6th Century B.C. (Before Coltrane)

O.K., his name was actually Aristoxenus, but his friends called him Al because, let’s face it, ‘Aristoxenus’ is quite a mouthful! Anyway, Al played an instrument called the quarna in a band so famous it was mentioned in the Bible, which at that time was not so much a holy scripture but more like an Aramaic version of Time Out; entertainment and gossip for the greater Babylon area.

Nebuchadnezzar formed an enormous band, mostly because it helped him get girls. That’s why his place was called the “Hanging Gardens”; girls would ‘hang’ out there to hear the music and dance around their zorstashs (Aramaic for handbag). The Book of Daniel says the band consisted of “horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music”.

Well, not exactly every kind. One day, (apparently a Sunday afternoon gig), Al was complaning to a friend in the masroquita (pipe) section that it was boring playing those “same tired-ass Nebuchadnezzar charts” day after day, girls or no girls! His friend Bubba said, “We play ‘every kind of music’! We’re even advertised that way in the Bible! What else is there?” By this time, Al had drunk one too many glasses of soss (a kind of fermented prune drink) and he stood up (none too steadily by all accounts) and yelled, “I’ll show you: Hit it, Ashurbanipal!” (Ashurbanipal was the main percussionist of the zmara or ‘rhythm section’).

Accompanied by the driving beat, Al blew his way into history with an improvisation which drove the crowd wild. They really dug his use of Mesopotamian scales and the Euphrates Chromatic System.  But his hitherto unheard of use of syncopation led to his solo being transcribed and called ‘Sync Street’. Over the years this became ‘Sink Street’, and in later mis-translations, ‘Basin Street’.

Some may doubt my veracity, but I assure you I am not a lyre.