Artwork: Gnoberio

For this edition of Selected, we’ve got Batavia Collective to select some tracks. “Jazz is rarely pure, never simple. Eubie Blake, a ragtime composer who was interviewed by a woman for Yale’s Oral History of American Music project, refused to use the word “jazz” because he thought it was uncouth. It derives from jasm, an obsolete slang term meaning spirit, energy, vigor, and also semen or sperm, making it a taboo word back in the days. When Louis Armstrong was asked what jazz is he answered, ‘you’ll never know’.”