jazzbo n.
1. in vaudeville, slapstick comedy; also attrib.
L.A. Times 17 Aug. III 2/4–5: The Howdy Special which annually makes the run across the desert to Phoenix at the time of the Phoenix road race, promises to be a record-breaking Jasbo party this year [...] Firestone Smith is a sure contender. John Weise has a great record for the Jasbo stuff, but A. T. Smith is out to break all records on the trip to Phoenix. | ||
N.Y. Times X2/5–6: The big laughs for jasbo, hokum, and gravy, as we call broad humor, frequently come from the women patrons in the house where it is performed. | ||
AS I:10 517: Mr. Kingsley ties them together by defining jasbo, as he spells it, as ‘a form of the word (jazz) common in the varieties, meaning the same as “hokum,” or low comedy verging on vulgarity’. | ‘Jazz’ in
2. a black vaudeville performer, esp. in a ‘black and white minstrel’ show.
Kansas City Sun (MO) 13 Nov. 2/3: ‘Hello Jazzbo’ briefly described is a high class colored musical organization of forty people, including a real creole beauty chorus and their own Jazzonian orchestra. | ||
Eve. World (NY) 19 Dec. 15/3: [advt] Jazzbo Jim; clogging toy, 50c. A very black boy who [...] when wound up dances a clog on the roof of a small log cabin. | ||
Young Men in Spats 49: one of those chapters of the Old Testament all about how Abimelech begat Jazzbo and Jazzbo begat Zachariah. | ‘Tried in the Furnace’ in||
Amer. Thes. Sl. §583.18: Jazz-bo, jazzbo, a negro performer, esp. in a minstrel show. | ||
Tattoo of a Naked Lady 133: Like some jazzbo singing through his saxophone or trumpet or whatever. |
3. syncopated music; also attrib.
🎵 ’Cause I’m a jazz baby! / Full of jazzbo harmony! | ‘How Ya Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm?’||
Haunch Paunch and Jowl 150: Sam shouts in glee that he can twist a blareful, stirring Wagnerian fugue into nigger jazbo stuff. |
4. a black person, esp. a man or soldier; also attrib.
Cornhuskers 🌐 Your bony head, Jazbo, O dock walloper, / Those grappling hooks, those wheelbarrow handlers, / The dome and the wings of you, nigger. | ‘Singing Nigger’||
Chicago Defender 7 Dec. 17: The ‘Jazzbows’ had ‘Slick’ Shelby and Willie Jenkins as ace-men. | ||
Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. | ||
AS XIX:3 174: The DAE does not list such vulgar synonyms for Negro as [...] jazzbo. | ‘Designations for Colored Folk’ in||
On The Road (1972) 109: He slowed down the car for all of us to turn and look at the old jazzbo moaning along. | ||
Among Thieves 308: ‘Sure man,’ the nigger said, giving Orninski the big jazz-bo smile. | ||
Balloons in Black Bag 90: If the Major calls him darky, [...] ape, jassbo, jigaboo, eightball, seal, jungle bunny, skunk or Zulu to his face, we’re going to be short of a valuable new comedy act. | ||
Lang. of Ethnic Conflict 49: Other Cultural Allusions: jazzbo [19th century. Uncertain origin]. |
5. (US) a fellow, a man, esp. a fashionable young man.
Edwardsville Intelligencer (IL) 10 Mar. 2/1: [cartoon caption] I knew a jasbo once who read that a chap getting paid $5,000 damages for being struck by an auto and thinking it was easy money he tried it. | ||
L.A. Times 2 Nov. III 42: When cornered on the subject of jazz fortunes ‘Frisco’ the prince of jazzbos, had something to say concerning the origin of the word [...]. | ||
Fighting Blood 272: I merely commence to stutter a apology, when the old jazzbo shuts me off kind of angrily. | ||
Thieves Like Us (1999) 2: This is a stick-up, Jasbo. | ||
Psychotic Reactions (1988) 64: As Ralph Jazzbo Gleason woulda said [...] ‘We made it. We won.’. | in||
City in Sl. (1995) 69: This image is certainly evoked of a flapper dancing the Charleston, usually paired side-by-side with her jellybean, boyfriend, sheik, or jazz bo. |
6. (US/US campus) a fool, an idiot; or something eccentric or crazy-looking [? bozo n.1 (3)].
Yes Man’s Land 309: That large blah [...] is sneering at the old man’s queer-looking jazzbo. ‘If you think I shall make an ass of myself by strutting before that idiotic contraption, you’re crazy!’. | ||
Angels are Painted Fair 78: You and this jazbo are all over the joint and you’re yelling he’s a stick-up guy. | ||
Campus Sl. Mar. 3: jazzbo – a fool or idiot. |