"Jazz (Interlude)" lyrics - GIL SCOTT-HERON

Jazz music was dance music
It came out of the brothels and the cat-houses of New Orleans
The piano player and the, the upright bass player used to
Used to play for these people to to dance around the rooms
While they were waiting for their turns
I guess, I guess this was so like taking a number
Like you do nowadays when you go to the wel-, to welfare
And the numbers are flashing on the wall...
"Number forty six", okay...

Like, this was a combination of, of jasm
What they used to call jasm, in, in, in the brothels
And ass music, the reason they called it ass music
Was because there was a, a shitload of brass instruments
That were stolen of one of those ships
And also everybody in the ghetto had a trumpet or a sax
And certainly they were playing
But they had no formal training
So they called them ass musicians
So the combination of jasm and ass
Was what you came up with when you came up with, with Jazz
This is what you call it
And naturally when, when, when Benny Goodman
And and Glenn Miller and them got into it
They had to clean it up a little bit, so they, they called it Jazz
But, your mom would tell you "Stay away from them Jazz musicians"
'Cause they come from them low-down circumstances

What I'm saying is, is that somehow the, the
The description of Jazz who should have been passed on
To people like Elvis Presley and to, to, to James Brown
And to the people who played dance music later on
Got perverted and, and pushed into something that's altogether
And the people who had "graduated" from those "Jazz bands"
Who were confined to the smaller clubs and to, to non-moving circumstances
After The Depression when you couldn't get no gasoline
And you couldn't get around to much
Those became the people that they concerned
That they said carried on the Jazz tradition but what they were playing was
What Frank Foster used to call "black classical music"
The "Jazz music" itself, the music to dance by, was still dance music
It still was carried on, but it was carried on by, by, by
Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard and, and, and Elvis Presley
And and, Chuck Berry and later on by James Brown and The Temptations
And then that's what Jazz music is
So when, when the question "Is that Jazz?" came up
I started to describe it in terms of what I knew it to be
Dance music; Dance music from its earliest beginnings to where it is now
Prince maybe was one of the greatest jazz musicians in the world
Like those are the people who play jazz music
They play jazz, they play the, they play music for you to dance by
For you to jump on down on
And, and the people who play other music
Music that's more thoughtful, music that's more atmosphere-creating
In, in, in the clubs and in, in the night clubs where
Where you sit down and pun to your yesterdays and your tomorrows over a drink
Those are the people who have inherited the, the Jazz name
But actually, the black classical attitude
"So, so, so is that Jazz?" was a playful sort of a
Song but, but with a serious sort of question in terms like
When is, when is it gonna be that we start to define our own art
And start to describe what we do, in terms that we know
And that we can follow and continue at
That's what "Is that Jazz?" was concerned about