Now You Know It All

Whether we listen to music, take guitar lessons, attend concerts, or watch performances on television; we sometimes notice someone who will use the expression, “let’s jam” every so often. This week let’s take a look at the meaning behind “jam”, music-wise that is … and perhaps in other senses as well!

Jam Session Photography by Doublep1

Q: Why do jazz musicians call a spontaneous collaboration a “jam”?

A: All musicians refer to an informal and exhilarating musical session as “jamming,” but it first surfaced in the jazz world during the 1920s. “Jam” in jazz is a short, free, improvised passage performed by the whole band. It means pushing or jamming all the players and notes into a defined free-flowing session.

Preserved fruit was first called jam during the 1730s because it was crushed then “jammed” into a jar. To be “in a jam” has the same origin and means to be pressed into a tight or confining predicament.  Jamming radio signals is a term from the First World War and means to force so much extra sound through a defined enemy channel that the original intended message is incoherent. All this is from “jam”, a little seventeenth-century word of unknown origin that meant to press tightly.