On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Jasper Cook <
jazcook@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello list
>
> As a 15 year old jazz trumpeter on the road with seasoned, grown-up jazz
> "blowers" in 1959, I remember LMAO at one blower saying about another (sax
> player) "he sucks", probably because he had a very small sound, or perhaps
> nothing to "say" through his horn. I think those musicians probably enjoyed
> feeling its "sexual breeze", but, if they did, it didn't show on their
> worldly, but often inscrutable, laugh-lined faces. It may well have been in
> use in jazz circles before 1959, but I didn't see it in jazz books from
> before. It might have occurred in "Miles", I can't remember. Miles Davis
> played in the 40s thru 90s, but the book itself was published mid 90s, if I
> remember correctly.
>
> After about when I heard it in 1959, the saying "he sucks" became very
> common in jazz circles. By the 70s, it started to emerge more generally, by
> the 90s, it was about things, too: "that sucks" could just as easily by then
> have been said about a slow motor cycle.
>
> regards
> Jasper Cook
