These days, when talking San Francisco jazz we likely think of Fillmore’s Jazz District. It’s an official designation rising up from the sad ashes of the old Fillmore. That storied black neighborhood got leveled by the Justin Herman-led Redevelopment Agency in the late 1940’s.
“Negros playing it. Eye shades, sleeves up, cigars in mouth. Gin and liquor and smoke and filth. But music!”
But San Francisco jazz precedes the Fillmore scene. It begins in old San Francisco’s most rowdy, dangerous and licentious district – The Barbary Coast – birthplace of American jazz.
Musical Beginnings
Before jazz came into being the music on “the Coast” could be Spanish ballads or sea shanties; strains of celestial strings or polkas; minstrel tunes, marches, mazurkas, operettas or folk tunes. With gold discovered in 1848 San Francisco mushroomed like no other city in the history of America. Soon music became much in demand. It was played in saloons, dance halls, performance auditoriums, melodeons and “sporting” houses. Many of the earliest performers were women.
Here’s how Herbert Ashbury describes one such pre-jazz performer in his classic book, The Barbary Coast:
The Waddling Duck was a singer, sinfully fat, who was advertised as the only female who could sing in two keys at one and the same time. As a matter of fact, she sang in none; she simply opened her mouth and screeched what she called scales, along which her voice bounded like a frightened mountain goat. She was, perhaps, the first crooner in San Francisco.
Brawling & Bawdy
San Francisco’s Barbary Coast was one tough place. How tough? It’s where the word “hoodlum” originates, for starters. But what would you expect from a neighborhood whose other name was Devil’s Acre?
The Barbary Coast boasted the murderous Battle Row, a Chinese slave girl auction, tong wars, a municipal whorehouse and Ragpicker’s Alley. Two of its better known businesses were The Slaughterhouse and The Morgue. These were set amidst hundreds of deadfalls, opium dens, creep joints, gin mills, blind pigs, wine dumps, dives, bagnios, cow yards, shanghai dens and clip joints. Constantly roaming through the Barbary Coast were plagues of sharp-eyed vermin — thieves, thugs, crimps, Rangers, pickpockets, con men, hoppies, Hounds and hookers who preyed on one and all—and, on each other.
Art Hickman and “Scoop” Gleason
Small wonder San Francisco was called “the wickedest place on earth.” But no matter its gutter breeding the Barbary Coast, deadly playground of the 19th and early 20th centuries, has this boast—it’s the birthplace of American jazz music. Though you might argue that jazz got its start in New Orleans, Tom Stoddard, in his highly recommended romp-of-a-read Jazz on the Barbary Coast, writes:
The first use, in print, of the word “jazz” in connection with music occurred in San Francisco on March 6, 1913. the term “jazz music” was possibly used earlier in the black dives of the Barbary Coast.
Gary Giddens and Scott DeVeaux back up Stoddard in their recently published book, Jazz:
(Art) Hickman (1886-1930), a pianist, drummer, and songwriter, encountered jazz in the honky-tonks of the Barbary Coast, where he believed jazz originated: “Negros playing it. Eye shades, sleeves up, cigars in mouth. Gin and liquor and smoke and filth. But music!”
Tom Stoddard cites journalist E.T. “Scoop” Gleason’s multiple uses of the term jazz, quoting Gleason’s seminal 1913 San Francisco Bulletin article describing his jaunt to Sonoma Valley’s Boyes Hot Springs. Art Hickman’s band had traveled the 50 miles north of The City to hold dances for the San Francisco Seals baseball team. Gleason called Hickman’s group “the jazziest tune tooters in all the Valley of the Moon.”
Stoddard bolsters his case for jazz originating on the Barbary Coast by pointing out that New Orleans ragtime musicians’ first encounter with the word “jazz” came later, in Chicago. Art Hickman’s “Jazz Band” had come to the Windy City to tear the place up. Nailing down his argument for the Barbary Coast Stoddard writes:
From what has been said, several things are clear. One is that a black band from San Francisco’s Barbary Coast called itself a “jazz band” before any other black band…we know know that Art Hickman, whose name was that first to be associated with the term “jazz music,” visited Purcell’s on the Barbary Coast and picked up some musical ideas there. Fourth, on the first occasion that the word “jazz” appears in print in connection with music, we also find a reference to the “Texas Tommy,” a black dance popularized and nominally originated at Purcell’s, a black saloon with black musicians and entertainers on San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. It was then borrowed by white musicians, along with some musical ideas, and thus found its way into print. One of the San Francisco musicians went to Chicago and used the term in his band’s name: Bert Kelly’s Jazz Band. It was such a good word for the music that it was borrowed by Tom Brown to describe his band: Brown’s Dixieland Jass Band. The the Original Dixieland Jass Band adopted “jazz” and spread the name to the world.
Hey you are soooooooooo wrong about Art Hickman in your post here. I guess with the limited info people can gather about him or his sister was very few facts. But we think you should know that maybe soon there will be new facts not just guesses about Art Hickman and his first use of Jazz and it was long before anyone else appled it from several documents in our books made in (1910-1930 )clippings state many facts by many people in our books of his life, things nobody has seen or nobody alive today, or records that were lost in past. Not just use of the word jazz documented but much more document proof of what a huge star he was from west coast to east coast and Cuba and London and Eastern parts of world as well. . Luckly we have found these treasures and right before they were going to be thrown in dumps.
Hi CJ,
Thanks for your post. We heartily welcome critiques and new insights into stories we run here at SF Bay Timeless. Problem is CJ, you don’t back up your assertions with facts, sources, stories or quotes. From what you’ve penned we can’t even tell what it is we say about Art Hickman that we “are sooooooooooo wrong about.” You simply leave everything hanging. Please be specific and tell us precisely what your take on the origins of the word “jazz” is. We look forward to hearing more from you.
Sorry I left you hanging.
I should of taken a moment to choose my words more carefully before posting. For this I appologize. I did not mean to sound critical.
In Summary,
A friend of ours found a few books with all types of photos, papers, ect. In a shed buried
under tons of stuff on the dirty floor. His parents were pack rats and kept everything.
He said the shed hadn’t been gone through in 60 years.
This is what we know about the books, they were made by Art Hickman’s Sister from 1910-1932 about their personal and proffessional lives. I could go into detail but I am going to be handing them over to someone who deals with historical documents as well as the history of jazz.
After reading all the documents in these books .
I can’t help but feel something for the Hickman’s and how they were buried in the past its just sad. Art was a huge deal everywhere not just here but in cuba, london and the east.
Its not so much about the word jazz that I have a problem with, its the correct recognition we desire of Art and Pearl’s careers. Its only right. I would post some photos but Im not sure how. Email me and I will attach some back to you
Thanks CJ
PS How is it someone so famous back than,forgotten
today. Just food for thought.
Hello CJ,
Good to hear from you again. My readings indicate that Art Hickman was a big star here in San Francisco, too. I’d love to know more about him, particularly in regards to his work and experiences in California — and particularly in the clubs on SF’s old Barbary Coast. Any stories, photos and/or recollections you can send are most welcome.
Thanks again,
p