Coming up on Word Matters, the etymology of an art form.
I'm Emily Brewster and Word Matters is produced by Mary and Webster in collaboration with New England Public Media.
On each episode, Mary and Webster editors Neil Servin, Amin Shea,
Peter Sokolowski and I explore some aspect of the English language from the dictionary's vantage point.
During the first half of the 20th century,
the world of jazz had an immensely productive run of introducing slang terms to the language.
Even the term jazz itself has a fascinating at times contentious history.
Here are Amon Shea and Peter Sakalowski,
our in-house experts, to define the lexical history of jazz.
Peter and I may be editors at Miriam Webster,
and we have been for many years involved with dictionaries,
but I think it's safe to say that for both of us,
our real passion in life lies elsewhere, and that is with the great American art form known as jazz.
We can happily spend hours and hours listening to this music and talking about it.
asking questions.
Who is the most underrated mid-century piano player from Detroit?
Was it Alice Coltrane or Terry Pollard?
Why don't more people listen to Blue Mitchell and Tony Friskella and a thousand other topics like that?
And when we're recording these podcasts with Neil and Emily,
we do try to tone it down a bit so it's not unduly alienate our co-workers,