Jazz

Jazz (pronounced jaz)

(1) A style of music of African-American origin, said to have emerged in New Orleans early in the twentieth century.

(2) A style of dance music, popular especially in the 1920s, arranged for a large band and marked by some of the features of jazz.

(3) Dancing or a dance performed to such music, as with jerky bodily motions and gestures.

(4) In slang (1) liveliness; spirit; excitement, (2) insincere, exaggerated, or pretentious talk & (3) similar or related but unspecified things or activities (often in the form “…and all that jazz”) which can be used negatively if referring to rigmarole, red-tape etc.

(5) Of or relating to or characteristic of jazz; to play (music) in the manner of jazz.

(6) To excite or enliven; to accelerate (often in the form “jazz up”).

(7) In vulgar slang, copulation.

1912: An invention of US English of uncertain origin.  Until around the end of the World War I, the alternative spellings jaz, jas, jass & jasz were used.  The first documented use of the word jazz was in 1912 in the context of writing about baseball baseball, the use extending to the musical form in 1915 when it was used in reference to Tom Brown's all-white band out of New Orleans (although there are sources which date it either from a 1917 advertisement in a Chicago newspaper for Bert Kelly's Jaz Band).

Lindsay Lohan watching NBA game between Utah Jazz and LA Lakers, Los Angeles November, 2006.

The etymology has attracted much research but the findings have been inconclusive, the most popular theory being jazz was a variant of jism & jasm (from 1842 & 1860 respectively), archaic nineteenth century US slang meaning “zest for accomplishment; drive; dynamism”, the qualities apparently most often ascribed to women), also words of unknown origin.  That evolutionary path is tangled up with the sexual connotations once associated with the word jazz and etymologists stress the sequence is important.  At the turn of the twentieth century, "gism" certainly meant "vitality" but also "virility" and this (by 1899) led to the slang use for "semen" but, the etymologists caution, while a similar evolution happened to the word "jazz" (which became slang for the act of sex), that use was unknown prior to 1918 so any sexual connotation wasn’t attached at the point of origin but acquired later.  The use in reference to baseball is thought to have been among white Americans and this may also have been the case in the earliest uses with the musical form.  Overlaying all this, nor is it known whether the evolution to jazz was organic, an invention or an imperfect echoic.

Duke Ellington, Ellington At Newport (1956).

While ethno-musicologists note the way the form has evolved over a century as diverse influences have variously been absorbed, assimilated or interpolated, the profession regards the core of Jazz to be a form rooted in West African cultural and musical expression which borrowed from the unique African American blues tradition.  Technically, the most distinct characteristics are blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms and, most celebrated of all, improvisation.  As jazz was influenced, so jazz influenced and there was no musical form so associated with the “fusion movement” (better understood as a number movements) which was a feature of the experimental (and increasingly commercial) output of the decades after the World War II, a trend which produced an array of labels including acid jazz, cool jazz, jazzbo, jazz-funk, jazz fusion, trad-jazz, jazz-rock and more.

Count Basie And His Orchestra, April In Paris (1957).

In idiomatic use context matters much because to jazz something can mean “to destroy” whereas to “jazz up” is to enliven, brighten up, make more colorful etc but this can be good or bad, the familiar phrase “don’t jazz it up to much” a caution against excessive bling or needless complication.  The use in vulgar slang is now listed by most dictionaries as either archaic or obsolete but when it use it covered a wide range from (1) the act of copulation, (2) to prostitute oneself for money & (3) semen.  As an intransitive verb it meant to move about in a lively or frivolous manner or “to fool around”, the origin of this assumed to be the uninhibited style of dancing sometimes associated with the genre.  To jazz someone can also be to distract or pester them or provide misleading or incorrect information (which can be referred to using the noun “the jazz”).  As applied simply to music, it can mean either to play jazz music (in some set form or in a jam) or to dance to jazz music

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (1959).

The meaning "rubbish, unnecessary talk or ornamentation" dates from 1918, a use reflecting the snobby attitude many had towards a form of music which sometimes didn’t observe the usual conventions of structure.  The term “all that jazz” (sometimes cited as a synonym for “et cetera” but actually extending to ”similar or related but unspecified things or activities" was first recorded in 1939 although the extent of its history in oral use is unknown.  The verb jazz in the sense of “to speed or liven up” dates from 1917 and was used often as “jazzed” or “jazzing”.  The “jazz age” was first described in 1921 and soon popularized in the writings of F Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) and the era is usually regarded as the years between the end of World War I (1918) and the Wall Street crash of 1929.  The phrase captures both what was seen as the accelerating pace of life in 1920s America and the popularity of the music.

Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um (1959).

The noun razzmatazz was interesting because it was used in the late nineteenth century to mean various things (most often something fanciful and showy) and thus obviously pre-dated jazz but, presumably because of the rhyming quality it picked up early associations with jazz which by the 1930s had become a disparaging critique ("old-fashioned jazz" especially in contrast to the newer “swing”).  Dating from 1917, the noun jazzbo (low, vulgar jazz) was a disparaging term to describe both the music and musicians; later in the twentieth century it was applied as derogatory term for African-Americans (and others with dark skins) but use soon died out.  The adjective jazzy (resembling jazz music) dates from 1918 and was often used in the forms “jazzily” & “jazziness”, use quickly extending from music to a general term suggesting “spirited, lively; exciting”.  The noun jazzetry (poetry reading accompanied by jazz music) came into use in 1959 and was part of the cultural ephemera of the beat generation.  The noun Jazzercise (the construct being jazz + (ex)ercise) was originally a proprietary name from the commercial fitness industry which, despite the implications, was used to describe routines using just about any form of music.

Lotus Jazz, 1985.

So unsuccessful was the marketing strategy used for Lotus Jazz that it’s said to rate with Ford’s Edsel and Coca-Cola's New Coke among the most popular case studies chosen by students of the discipline to illustrate corporate ineptitude.  Jazz was designed to run only on Apple’s Macintosh 512K and was an integrated suite which included a word processor, spreadsheet, database, graphics, and communication software.  It was a corporate companion of Lotus Symphony which was a suite which ran on IBM compatible PCs under PC/MS-DOS but not too much should be read into the musical nomenclature; both were integrated suites which ran under different operating systems on different hardware.  Lotus 1-2-3 wasn’t the first spreadsheet but it was the one which became the so-called “killer app” which legitimized the IBM PC for business use and, noting the small-scale successes being enjoyed by some of the early suites, Symphony was concocted as something which would rely on the reputation of 1-2-3 for its success.  Although never a big seller on the scale of 1-2-3, Symphony in the 1980s found a niche.

Jazz was supplied on four 400K floppy diskettes and Lotus thoughtfully supplied a sticky label users could use for their data diskette (which wasn’t included).

Jazz, introduced in 1985 was an attempt to replicate on the Mac the company’s success on the IBM-PC though why the decision was taken to introduce a suite instead of a version of 1-2-3 puzzled observers at the time given the Symphony name had nothing like the name-recognition of the Lotus spreadsheet.  Added to that, Jazz was expensive, limited in functionality by the memory constraint of the Mac 512 and clumsy in operation, users forced frequently to swap floppy diskettes (start-up, program & data) with the additional drawback that only a single floppy drive could be used with Jazz, neither dual floppy or hard-drives supported.  A critical and commercial failure, so toxic did the Jazz brand quickly become that plans to release an improved version in 1988 (called Modern Jazz) were abandoned and development resources were shifted to a version of 1-2-3 for the Mac.  That was of course what should have been done from the start and 1-2-3 for the Mac, released in 1991, was well received but months later Microsoft released Windows 3.1 and the universe shifted, Excel and the companion MS-Office becoming a juggernaut; Symphony and 1-2-3 were just two of the many victims.

Sketch

Sketch (pronounced skech)

(1) A simply or hastily executed drawing or painting, especially a preliminary one, giving the essential features without the details, later to be elaborated.

(2) A rough design, plan, or draft, as of a book.

(3) A brief or hasty outline of facts, occurrences etc.

(4) As thumbnail sketch, a piece of text which summaries someone or something.

(5) A short, usually descriptive, essay, history, or story.

(6) A short play or slight dramatic performance, as one forming part of a variety or vaudeville program; a short comedy routine (a skit).

(7) To make a sketch.

(8) To summarize, to set forth in a brief or general account.

(9) In metallurgy, to mark a piece of metal for cutting.

(10) In music, a short evocative instrumental piece, used especially with compositions for the piano.

(11) In the slang of the Irish criminal class, as “to keep (a) sketch), to maintain a lookout; to be vigilant; watch for something.

(12) In journalism, as parliamentary sketch, a newspaper article summarizing political events which attempts to make serious points in a lest than obviously serious manner (mostly UK).

(13) In category theory, a formal specification of a mathematical structure or a data type described in terms of a graph and diagrams (and cones (and cocones)) on it. It can be implemented by means of “models” (functors) which are graph homomorphisms from the formal specification to categories such that the diagrams become commutative, the cones become limiting (ie products) and the cocones become colimiting (ie sums).

1660–1670: From the Dutch schets (noun), from the Italian schizzo, from the Latin schedium (extemporaneous poem), noun use of neuter of schedius (extempore; hastily made), from the Ancient Greek σχέδιος (skhédios) (made suddenly, off-hand, unprepared), from σχεδόν (skhedón) (near, nearby), from ἔχω (ékhō) (I hold).  The German Skizze, the French esquisse & the Spanish esquicio are also from the Italian schizzo.  Sketch,  sketcher, sketchist & sketchiness are nouns, verb & adjective, sketching is a noun & verb, sketched is a verb, sketchlike, sketchy, sketchier, sketchiest & sketchable are adjectives, and sketchily & sketchingly are adverbs; the noun plural is sketches.  When a sketcher (or sketchist) sketches their sketches, they appear often in a sketchbook.  

Sketch became a verb in the 1660s in the sense of “present the essential facts of" and was derived from the earlier noun. This idea of a sketch as a “brief account” by 1789 had enlarged to a "short play or performance, usually comic", still maintaining the connection from art as something less than full-scale, the reference to comedy suggesting something slight rather than a serious work.  The sketch-book was first recorded in 1820.  That sense extended beyond text to art and design from 1725 when it came also to mean "draw, portray in outline and partial shading", firstly to describe simple drawings, referring later to preparatory work for more elaborate creations.  The adjective sketchy is noted from 1805, describing art “having the form or character of a sketch".  The colloquial sense of "unsubstantial, imperfect, flimsy" is from 1878, possibly to convey the sense of something "unfinished".  Adumbrate (faint sketch, imperfect representation), actually pre-dates sketch, noted first in the 1550s.  It was from the Latin adumbrationem (nominative adumbratio) (a sketch in shadow, sketch, outline).  The meaning "to overshadow" is from the 1660s at which time emerged the derived forms adumbrated and adumbrating and related forms are adumbration (noun), adumbrative (adjective) and adumbratively (adverb).

Sketches of Spain

Although not yet regarded as the landmark in jazz it would come to be in the decades which followed its release in 1959, even in 1960 Miles Davis’ (1926-1991) Kind of Blue had already created among some aficionados an expectation; realising it was something special, this was what they hoped would be the definitive Davis style and they were anxious for more.  The next release however, wasn’t indicative of what was to come, Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1960 Cat# Prestige P-7166) was the third of four albums assembled from sessions recorded long before the Kind of Blue sessions and released to fulfil contractual obligations to the independent label Prestige.  Although some purists were pleased, after Kind of Blue, the music seemed old-fashioned.

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, (1959, Columbia, Cat# CS 8163).

Davis had enjoyed considerable success in the 1950s but, needing the distribution and promotional network of a major label to reach a wider audience, he’d signed with Colombia (CBS internationally).  The early Colombia releases had been well received but it was the sixth, Kind of Blue, which made him a star beyond the world of jazz, the album selling in volumes unprecedented in the genre; to date, over four million copies are said to have been shipped.  Davis had been innovative before, his performance at the 1954 Newport Jazz Festival defining what had come to be called “hard bop” (a flavor of jazz influenced by other forms, especially rhythm and blues) but the appeal extended little beyond already established audiences.  What made Kind of Blue so significant was that Davis essentially created modal jazz which shifted the technique from one where the players worked within a set chord progression to soloists creating melodies using modes which could be deployed alone or in multiples.  Musicians explain the significance of this as a movement to the horizontal (the scale) rather than the traditional vertical (the chord).  In the somewhat insular world of jazz, that would anyway have been interesting but the sound captivated those beyond and was a landmark in what would come to be known as musical fusion, the cross-fertilisation of sound and technique.  Among composers, fusion was nothing new but Kind of Blue realised its implications in a tight, seductive package.

Six photographs of Lindsay Lohan, rendered in software as pencil sketches.

Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain, (1959, Columbia, Cat# CS 8271).

Sketches of Spain too was a fusion but it was different to what had come before and no attempt to be Kind of Blue II.  For one thing, the sound was big, recorded in the famously cavernous converted church in Manhattan which for decades was Colombia’s recording studio.  Lined with old timber and with a ceiling which stretched 100 feet (30 m) high, technicians called it the “temple of sound” because of the extraordinary acoustic properties.  The ensemble too was big, a necessity because this time the fusion was with the orchestral, the long opening track an arrangement by Davis and Gil Evans (1912-1988) of the adagio movement of Joaquín Rodrigo’s (1901-1999) guitar concerto, Concierto de Aranjuez.  Such was the extent of the fusion there were traditionalists who doubted Sketches of Spain could still be called jazz; they saluted the virtuosity but seemed to miss the sometimes arcane complexities in construction inaccessible except to the knowing few.

Miles Davis, Bitches Brew (1970, CBS, Cat# S 66236).

A wider world however was entranced and technical progress needs also to be noted.  Colombia had recorded Davis before in the then still novel stereo but even fans acknowledged the mono pressings remained superior and it wasn’t until 1960, after extensive testing and the refinement of equipment that the technique had been perfected.  Sketches of Spain was lush or austere as the moment demanded, listeners new to stereo especially enchanted at being able to hear the sounds hanging in a three-dimensional space, each instrument a distinct object in time and place.  Nobody asked for mono after that.  Influential as it was, to Davis, Sketches of Spain was just another phase.  Ten years later, noting the increasing sparse audiences in jazz clubs and aware a new generation had different sensibilities, Davis would fuse with other, more recent traditions and Bitches Brew would cast his shadow over a new decade.

Groovy

Groovy (pronounced groo-vee)

(1) Of, pertaining to, or having grooves.

(2) Set in one's ways (obsolete).

(3) Inclined to follow a fixed routine (obsolete).

(4) Cool, neat, interesting, fashionable, highly stimulating or attractive; excellent. (used in the 1940s and then more frequently in the 1960s and 1970s; now dated but often used ironically or to suggest an association with the 1960s counter-culture (hippies, psychedelia and all that).

(5) A programming language for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), now under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation.

(6) In music (jazz), as a professional compliment with the meaning "performing well (without grandstanding)”.

(7) In music, melodious, danceable; particularly of a riff or bassline.

1853:  The construct was groove + -y.  Groove was from the Middle English grov, grove, groof & grofe (cave; pit; mining shaft), from the Old English grōf (trench, furrow, something dug), from the Proto-Germanic grōbō (groove, furrow”, from the primitive Indo-European ghrebh- (to dig, scrape, bury).  It was cognate with the Dutch groef & groeve (groove; pit, grave), the German Grube (ditch, pit), the Norwegian grov (brook, riverbed) & the Serbo-Croatian grèbati (scratch, dig).  The earlier form in Old English was grafan (to dig) and from here there’s a lineal descent to groove and, at some point, a fork led to “grave”.  The –y suffix was from the Middle English –y & -i, from the Old English -iġ (-y, & -ic”, suffix), from the Proto-Germanic -īgaz (-y, -ic), from the primitive Indo-European -kos, -ikos & -iḱos (-y, -ic).  It was cognate with the Scots -ie (-y), the West Frisian -ich (-y), the Dutch -ig (-y), the Low German -ig (-y), the German -ig (-y), the Swedish -ig (-y), the Latin -icus (-y, -ic) and the Ancient Greek -ικός (-ikós); doublet of -ic.  Groovy is a noun & adjective, grooving is a noun & verb, groovier & grooviest are adjective, groover & grooviness are nouns and groovily is an adverb; the noun plural is groovies (though groovers is more common).  The standard comparative is groovier and the superlative grooviest but constructs like supergroovy, ultragroovy and hypergroovy have been seen and the The alternative spelling groovey is extinct.

Groovy was first noted in 1853 in the metal working trades as a literal descriptor of the surface texture of metals and evolved into the general sense of “of or pertaining to a groove” and oral (either a dialectic form or specific to metal working) use may pre-date 1853.   One colloquial figurative sense was "having a tendency to routine, inclined to a specialized and narrow way of life or thought", attested from 1882 and linked to the idea of a grove being “something permanent, static and unchanging”.  That sense died out and the next figurative use was something of the opposite.  The reason English never created ungroovy or nongroovy is there were already number of words adequately to convey the idea, the one most associated with the 1960s counter-culture being "square" which used to convey the quality of "someone honorable & upright".  It's possible the purloining of "square" was developed from the familiar "straightlaced" although the eighteenth century "squaretoe" was an epithet applied to disparage the "prim & proper"; this later form is thought unrelated to the hippies' use of "square".

Groovers in the groove: Lindsay Lohan (right) DJing with former special friend, DJ Samantha Ronson (left).

The slang sense in the context of jazz music is from circa 1926 and was used by musicians to convey a professional compliment: "performing well (without grandstanding)”.  This seems to have migrated to adopt its modern sense to describe something wonderful in the late 1930s although it even then tended to be confined to the young and, outside of parts of some US cities, doesn’t appear to have enjoyed wide use.  It became widely popular in 1960s youth culture which spread world-wide, including beyond the English-speaking word.  Despite falling from favor after hippiedom passed its peak, it’s never actually gone extinct and occasional spikes are noted, triggered usually by some use in pop-culture.  Generally though, it’s been out of currency since the 1970s although still used ironically.

Groovy.  1970 Plymouth Hemi Cuda with Mod Top.  This is the only Hemi Cuda with the Mod Top option.

The psychedelic Mod Top was a Plymouth factory option in 1969-1970.  Ordered mostly in yellow, the flower power themed material was supplied by the plastics division of Stauffer Corporation, chosen for their expertise in the manufacture of durable, brightly patterned tablecloths and shower curtains.  The company, dating from 1907, remains in family ownership and still operates but it’s not known if it's one of the Stauffer families which are branches of the Staufer Dynasty (known also as the Hohenstaufen) which provided a number of medieval German kings who were crowned also as Holy Roman Emperors.

1969 Plymouth advertising: Barracuda (left) & Satellite (right).  The copy called the motif a "pop print", an allusion to "pop art" which recently had emerged as a trend in the art market.

In the curious way Chrysler allowed its divisions to operate in the era, Dodge, Plymouth’s corporate stable-mate, offered a similar option called the Floral Top, the material for which was supplied by another company.  The companion to the Mod Top roof was matching vinyl paisley upholstery and floor mats which could be mixed and matched, some cars built with one but not the other although, despite it being possible, no convertible buyers (who by definition couldn’t tick the vinyl roof box) opted for the hippie interior.  Technically, Stauffer used exactly the same design technique used when applying flowers to tablecloths and shower curtains: endlessly repetitive patterns which repeat every 3-4 feet (900 mm-1.2 m), the same model used with most fake finishes for surfaces which emulate natural substances (granite, marble, timber etc).

1969 Dodge Daytona with Floral Top.

Few finds attract collectors like factory one-offs, genuine rarities produced by a manufacturer despite officially not being available in that configuration.  The 503 1969 Dodge Daytonas (produced only because the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) imposed a minimum build number in their homologation rules) included some extreme aerodynamic modifications and have long been sought-after, trading these days well into six figures.  It does seem Dodge may have made one with the Floral Top, despite it not being a Daytona option although the evidence for it being a genuine factory product is undocumented, based instead on oral testimony.  Many experts do seem convinced and, during the era, such "unicorns" did exist.

One's three choices to display one's grooviness.

1970 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda with Mod Top, the logo's groovy lettering part of the vibe.  Almost all this vinyl was glued on during the administration of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) who, although a competent pianist, was not at all groovy.

It’s not known how many survive, many a vinyl roof being removed or replaced with a solid color after the hippie vibe became unfashionable but some with the option have become collectables and reproduction vinyl is now available for those wanting the vibe back; the closer to the original condition a car can be rendered, the higher the value.  The nature of the unfortunate accessory is such that it’s never going to influence the price to the extent a rare or desirable engine or transmission might but, for the originality (or at least the replication) police, these things are an end in themselves.  Available in yellow or blue and with matching interior trim, 2792 freaks ordered these in 1969 but by 1970, only 84 repeated the mistake.  Altmont had prevailed over Woodstock; the 1960s were over.

Mod Top (Plymouth) & Floral Top (Dodge) production count, 1969-1970.

There however the patterned roof didn't die although the grooviness did.  Despite it being the intermediate-sized Satellite which in 1969 which attracted the most mod-toppers, Plymouth the next year restricted availability to the pony cars and demand proved embarrassingly modest.  Not discouraged, the factory in mid-year offered a somewhat subdued variation on their full-sized line, the Fury, a flourish perhaps surprising given the evolution of the market segment.  Until the 1960 model year, the “big three” (General Motors (GM), Ford & Chrysler) had each produced essentially one mainstream line (low-volume specialties such as the Thunderbird and Corvette just lucrative niche players).  Beginning in the 1960 model-year, that would change, increasing prosperity encouraging and the growing success of smaller imports compelling Detroit’s big three to introduce first compact, then intermediate and later sub-compact ranges, what came to be called the full-sized cars having grown just too big, heavy and thirsty for many.

1969 Plymouth Barracuda with Mod Top (one of 937).  Given it was 1969, one unappreciated thing about a Mod Top was that upon first looking into one, even if one had not dropped some acid, one might assume one had.

The market spoke and the full-sized ranges, while remaining big sellers, gradually abandoned the high-performance versions which had once been the flagships, the smaller, lighter intermediates, pony cars and even the compacts much more convincing in the role.  By 1970, the big cars ran a gamut from stripper taxi-cabs to elaborately blinged-up luxury cars (which grew so big they cam later to be called "land yachts") but attempts to maintain a full-sized finger in the sporty pie was nearly over.  By 1970, only Ford still had a four-speed manual gearbox on the option list for the big XL and Chrysler, although the lusty triple-carburetor 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) V8 could be had in some Fury models, it was available only with the TorqueFlite automatic.  All of General Motors' (GM) full-size machines were by then definitely heavy cruisers.

But Plymouth clearly believed the Fury still offered some scope in other stylistic directions; it was after all a big canvas.  Mid-season, quietly slipped into the range was the "Gran Coupe", based on the Fury II two-door sedan but bundled with a number of otherwise extra-cost options including air conditioning and the then fashionable concealed headlights.  What was most obvious however, was the paisley theme, a patterned vinyl roof with matching upholstery, most Gran Coupes finished in a newly created copper tone paint although other colors were available.

1971 Rover P5B 3.5 Coupé.

The Gran Coupe was retained for 1971 but the coachwork was the more elegant pillarless hardtop in both two and four-door versions, the latter still known as a coupe.  That attracted criticism from those who had come to associate the word exclusively with two-door bodywork but in the UK Rover had since 1962 offered a four-door “Coupé” although they did cut the P5’s roof-line a little, a nod to the history of the word coupé (from the French coupé, an elliptical form of carosse coupé (cut carriage), past participle of couper (to cut)).  Shamelessly, Plymouth ignored the etymology and invented the un-cut coupe, clearly believing gluing on some paisley vinyl vested sufficient distinction.  The factory also imposed some restraint on buyers: although the Gran Coupe was available in a variety of colors, only if the standard interior trim (tan) was chosen would the paisley patterned upholstery be available and, befitting the likely ownership of the full-sized line, the vinyl roof was subdued rather than the swirling psychedelia of the groovy Mod Top’s swirls.  In the twenty-first century the “four door coupe” became a thing but although Rover seems to have been the first to apply a “Coupé” badge, the now familiar motifs were seen in some coach-built four-doors during the inter-war years, the big Duesenbergs and Buccialis among the most memorable.

Following Rover: 1971 Plymouth Fury III Gran Coupe (four-door hardtop).  There are four door coupes because Plymouth said so.

It was for years the end for any exuberance in the full-sized lines.  Although the option of a four-speed manual transmission appeared in the early catalogues for the 1970 Ford XL, none were built and Chevrolet had already removed the SS option for the Impala; big engines would remain, indeed, they would grow larger but power would drop, the full-sized lines of both now hunting those wanting cut-price Lincolns and Cadillacs rather than something in the spirit of the old "letter series" Chrysler 300s.  Plymouth had already abandoned the Mod Top after lackluster sales in 1970 and the more dour paisley vinyl lasted only another year, consigned to history with the triple-carburetor 440.  Happily, decades later, big-power engines would make a comeback but fortunately, the paisley vinyl roof remained forgotten.

"Rich Burgundy", before & after UV exposure.

Chrysler's use of the term "paisley" was actually a bit misleading; only some of the groovy vinyl was a true paisley but the marketing people liked it so applied it liberally, even to fabric with big yellow sunflowers.  Customers didn't however share the enthusiasm felt by the sales department and by mid-1970, Chrysler realized they had a lot of bolts of un-wanted paisley vinyl in the warehouse; this was some time before just-in-time (JIT) supply chains.  The inspired suggestion was to dye the vinyl a dark purple and offer it only with the "Sparkling Burgundy Metallic" paint which was exclusive to the Imperial line, the theory being the same as used with hair-dyes: dark can always cover light.  Some testing verified the theory and in September the 1971 models began to be shipped to dealers, some cars parked outside... in direct sunlight.  Almost immediately, the now burgundy vinyl began to fade.  If nothing else, the incident illustrated the point made by Austrian–British philosopher Sir Karl Popper (1902–1994): What is critical in theories is not proof but disproof; it matters not how how many bolts of vinyl satisfactorily can be dyed purple, if just one fades in the sunlight then it's a bad idea.  Chrysler replaced the tops with either black or white vinyl and this time the paisley option was killed for good.  A handful actually were sold with the purple fabric still attached, later to fade, at which point most owners took up the offer for the white or black re-cover, depending on the interior trim chosen but at least one (which must have spent the decades protected from the ultra-violet) still exists as it left the factory.

Prototype 1967 Chevrolet Camaros.

Chrysler wasn’t the only US manufacturer to offer the patterned vinyl roof, Mercury for a single season in 1970 having houndstooth available for the Cougar and even GM flirted with the idea before thinking better of it.  Hidden away in GM’s vast historical archive before being published early in the twenty-first century were photographs of the patterned vinyl being contemplated for the 1967 Chevrolet Camaro’s debut in late 1966.  Chevrolet seems to have produced prototypes with both paisley and houndstooth vinyl and intriguingly, also pictured were (presumably functional) side mounted exhaust pipes, exiting under the rear of the door.  Like the Camaro’s triple carburetor option (cancelled late in the planning process), neither the patterned vinyl roofs nor the side pipes reached production, the latter remaining exclusive to the Corvette.

Fake & Faux

Fake (pronounced feyk)

(1) To prepare or make something specious, deceptive, or fraudulent.

(2) To conceal the defects of or make appear more attractive, interesting, valuable etc, usually in an attempt to deceive.

(3) To pretend; simulate; emulate.

(4) To accomplish by trial and error or by improvising:

(5) To trick or deceive.

(6) In jazz music, to improvise (non pejorative).

(7) To play music without reading from a score (usually non pejorative).

(8) Anything made to appear otherwise than it actually is; counterfeit.

(9) A person who fakes; faker.

(10) To lay (a rope) in a coil or series of long loops so as to allow to run freely without fouling or kinking (often followed by down).

(11) Any complete turn of a rope that has been faked down; any of the various ways in which a rope may be faked down.

(12) In German, a male given name.

1350–1400: From the Middle English faken (to coil a rope) of unknown origin.  The nautical adoption fake (one of the windings of a cable or hawser in a coil) was from the Swedish veck (a fold) and probably entered English from exchanges between English and Scandinavian sailors.  The more familiar modern meaning is documented from 1775 as an adjective meaning “to counterfeit”.  It’s attested from 1812 as vagrants' slang meaning “to do for, rob or kill someone” but was also, in an echo of the earlier form, used to mean “shape something”.  It’s thought to have been either (1) a variant of the obsolete feak & feague (to beat), akin to Dutch veeg (a slap) & vegen (to sweep, wipe) or (2), a part of the Lingua Franca via Polari from the Italian facciare (to make or do).

It’s documented from 1851 as a noun (a swindle) and from 1888 was applied to a person (a swindler), but most etymologists assume the oral use was older.  The most likely source is thought to have been feague (to spruce up by artificial means), from the German fegen (polish, sweep) which, in colloquial use was used to mean "to clear out, to plunder".  In English, much of the early slang of thieves is from German or Dutch sources, dating from that great linguistic melting pot, the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and until the nineteenth century, was largely un-documented although the fragmentary evidence available does suggest use was constantly shifting.

Fake news (journalism deliberately misleading), although popularized in the 2016 US presidential campaign (and subsequently applied quite incorrectly), was actually first attested in 1894 although, as a device, fake news is probably about as old as news itself.  Faker as an agent noun from faker the verb is from 1846 and the noun fakement (forgery) is from 1811.  To “fake (someone) out” is a description of applied gamesmanship in sport and noted from 1941.  To jazz musicians, “to fake” was merely oral slang for improvising and the “fake book” is attested from 1951.  Interestingly, the adjective "jivey" was sometimes used as a pejorative (phony, fake) unlike "jive" which, in a musical context, was always purely descriptive.

Fake is a noun & verb, faker & fakery are nouns and the verbs (used with object) are faked, faking; the noun plural is fakes.  Synonyms include ersatz, fake, false, imitation, imitative, unreal, counterfeit, fabricated, factitious, spurious, substitute, affected, contrived, feigned, insincere, plastic, synthetic, unnatural, bogus, affected, forged, fraudulent, mock, phony, spurious, deception, forgery, hoax, scam, sham, trick, put on, assumed, fraud, impostor, quack, charlatan, deceiver, substitute, contrived, feigned, insincere, plastic, unnatural

Faux (pronounced foh)

Artificial or imitation.

1676: from the twelfth century French faux (feminine singular fausse, masculine plural faux, feminine plural fausses), from the Old French fals, from the Latin falsus (false), perfect passive participle from fallō (deceive, trick; mistake).  The origin of fallō is uncertain.  It’s thought either from the Proto-Italic falsō, from the primitive Indo-European (s)whzel (to stumble) or from the primitive Indo-European ǵhwel- (to lie, deceive) but etymologists note structural problems with the latter.  A doublet of false.

The word fake almost always carries negative connotations, the idea of something that is not real, an imitation designed to trick someone into thinking it is real or original.  A fake might be a forgery or copy which is (certainly with many digital fakes) indistinguishable from whatever is the real or original thing it imitates, indeed it might even be an improvement but it remains fake.

Lindsay Lohan in faux fur, amfAR gala, New York City, 2013.

Faux has since the 1980s been used in English (with French pronunciation) to describe anything which is imitative without attempting to deceive.  Prior to this, the only frequent use in English was the faux pas (breach of good manners, any act that compromises one's reputation (literally "false step")), noted since the 1670s.  Faux tends not to convey the negative association of fake because it so blatantly an alternative rather than an attempt to deceive, indeed, it can have positive connotations, such as when it’s fur.  Faux fur is now respectable and, among some circles, there’s long been a micro-industry devoted to turning into social pariahs anyone wearing the real thing.  Sometimes, supporters of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) use direct action, the flinging of red paint onto the offending coast or stole a favorite.

Pamela Anderson, mostly real.

People do however seem unforgiving of fake boobs which, even if advertised as fake (which really should make them faux), seem forever doomed to be called fake.  The preferred form seem to be "fake tits". 

Faux also blends well; there are fauxmosexuals & fauxtatoes.  Donald Trump dubbed Elizabeth Warren (b 1949; United States senator (Democrat) for Massachusetts since 2013) Pocahontas because of her claim to Native American ancestry which proved dubious but allies of her predecessor Scott Brown (b 1959; United States senator (Republican) for Massachusetts 2010–2013), referred to her as Fauxcahontas.  That was actually an incorrect use necessitated by the need of rhyme and word formation; technically she was a Fakecahontas but as a word it doesn’t work as well.  People anyway seemed to get the point: as a Native American, she was fake, bogus, phoney.

Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery by Han van Meegeren (1889–1947) following Vermeer (1632-1675).

In May 1945, immediately after the liberation from Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the authorities arrested Dutch national Han van Meegeren (1889–1947) and charged him with collaborating with the enemy, a capital crime.  Evidence had emerged that van Meegeren had during World War II sold Vermeer's Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery to Hermann Göring (1893–1946; prominent Nazi 1922-1945, Reichsmarschall 1940-1945).  His defense was as novel as it was unexpected: He claimed the painting was not a Vermeer but rather a forgery by his own hand, pointing out that as he had traded the fake for over a hundred other Dutch paintings seized earlier by the Reich Marshal and he was thus a national hero rather than a Nazi collaborator.  With a practical demonstration of his skill, added to his admission of having forged five other fake "Vermeers" during the 1930s, as well as two "Pieter de Hoochs" all of which had shown up on European art markets since 1937, he convinced the court and was acquitted but was then, as he expected, charged with forgery for which he received a one year sentence, half the maximum available to the court.  He died in prison of heart failure, brought on by years of drug and alcohol abuse. 

His skills with brush and paint aside, Van Meegeren was able successfully to pass off his 1930s fakes as those of the seventeenth century painter of the Dutch baroque, Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), because of the four years he spent meticulously testing the techniques by which as a new painting could be made to look centuries old.  The breakthrough was getting the oil-based paints thoroughly to harden, a process which naturally occurs over fifty-odd years.  His solution was to mix the pigments with the synthetic resin Bakelite, instead of oil.  For his canvas, he used a genuine but worthless seventeenth-century painting and removed as much of the picture as possible, scrubbing carefully with pumice and water, taking the utmost care not to lose the network of cracks, the existence of which would play a role in convincing many expert appraisers they were authentic Vermeers.  Once dry, he baked the canvas and rubbed a carefully concocted mix of ink and dust into the edges of the cracks, emulating the dirt which would, over centuries, accumulate.

Guilty as sin: A slimmed-down Hermann Göring in the dock, Nuremberg, 1946.

Modern x-ray techniques and chemical analysis mean such tricks can no longer succeed but, at the time, so convincing were his fakes that no doubts were expressed and the dubious Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery became Göring's most prized acquisition, quite something given the literally thousands of pieces of art he looted from Europe.  One of the Allied officers who interrogated Göring in Nuremberg prison prior to his trial (1945-1946) recorded that the expression on his face when told "his Vermeer" was a fake suggested that "...for the first time Göring realized there really was evil in this world".  For his crimes, Göring was sentenced to be hanged, a fate he probably believed the forger should have shared.

2013 Mercedes-AMG G 63 6×6.

Aimed at the Middle East market and manufactured between 2013-2015, a run of one-hundred units was planned for the Mercedes-AMG G 63 6×6 and it was advertised on that basis, exclusivity part of the attraction.  Such was the demand that dealers prevailed on behalf of a few influential customers so some additional units were built but not many and within months, used models were selling for well above the US$550,000 (€379,000) list price.  That encouraged imitations and probably not since the DEMAG Sd.Kfz half-tracks of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's (1891–1944) Africa Corps ranged across Cyrenaica in 1941-1942 has there been a vehicle so suited to the open desert. 

2014 Brabus B63S.

The tuning house Brabus, noted for catering to the small but lucrative market of those who like the AMG cars but think they need more power, released the B63S, its 700 horsepower quite a chunk above the 536 offered by AMG.  Something imitative certainly but nobody calls the B63S a faux or a fake.  Being in some sense a manufacturer lends validity so what Brabus does can be imitative but what ends up as their part-number is not an imitation, let alone a fake.  Real, faux or fake, Greta Thunberg (b 2003) will not be impressed.

2017 Mercedes-AMG G63 6×6 Conversion.

This was said to have been a “conversion” of a 2017 G63 by G Wagon Car Technology GmbH (Austria).  Very well done and said to have been completed with mostly factory part-numbers, most would regard it as a clone, replica or recreation.  Curiously (though perhaps predictably), whether a Mercedes-Benz, Chevrolet, Ford or Ram, the three-axle pickups, although ideal suited to certain tasks in certain non-urban environments, seem usually resident in cities where their sheer size renders them difficult to use.  They have an appeal to those who value the image they believe is projected and in a sense that's a sort of functionality.  In the post-MAGA US, such machines have become personal and political statements.

1938 Mercedes-Benz G4 (W31).

The G63 6x6 may anyway have had its own hint of the imitative.  Although Mercedes-Benz prefers not too much to dwell on the details of its activities between 1933-1945, one of the remarkable vehicles it built during the era was the G4 (W31).  The factory developed three-axle cross-country vehicles for military use during the 1920s but after testing a number of the prototype G1s, the army declined to place an order, finding them too big, too expensive and too heavy for their intended purpose.  Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) however, as drawn to big, impressive machines as he was to huge, representational architecture, ordered them adopted as parade vehicles and the army soon acquired a fleet of the updated G4, used eventually not only on ceremonial occasions but also as staff and command vehicles, two even specially configured, one as a baggage car and the other a mobile communications centre, packed with radio-telephony.

Eventually, between 1934-1939, 57 were built, originally exclusively for the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command)) and OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command)) but one was gift from Hitler to Generalissimo Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975).  The Spanish G4, one of few which still exists, was restored and remains in the royal garage in Madrid.  According to factory records, all were built with 5.0, 5.3 & 5.4 litre straight-eight engines but there is an unverified report of interview with Hitler’s long-time chauffeur, Erich Kempka (1910-1975), suggesting one for the Führer’s exclusive use was built with the 7.7 litre straight-eight used in the 770K Grosser (W07 (1930–1938) & W150 (1938–1943)).  Some of the 770s were supercharged so, if true, it's a tantalizing prospect but the story is widely thought apocryphal, no evidence of such a one-off ever having been sighted.

There are however fake cars and they're considered bogus if represented as a factory original (a modified version of something else).  Even if an exact copy of what the factory did, that’s fake yet exactly the same machine modified in the same way is instead a “clone” a “recreation” or a “replica” if represented as such.  Clone, recreation & replica do imply a exact copy but some leeway does seem to be granted given mechanical exactitude is sometimes simply not possible.  A vehicle which is substantially a replica of something but includes modifications to improve safety, performance or some other aspect of the dynamics is usually styled a “tribute” or restomod (a portmanteau word, the construct being resto(red) + mod(ified)).  The improvements can be transformative and, in certain cases, increase value but in others, might actually detract.  Whether a clone, a replica or a tribute, if what’s being referenced is something rare and desirable, the difference in value can be a factor of more than fifty times.  Originality can trump all.

1962 Ferrari 250 GTO recreation by Tempero of New Zealand.

As an extreme example there is the Ferrari 250 GTO, of which it’s usually accepted 36 were built although there were actually 41 (2 x (1961) prototypes; 32 x (1962–63) Series I 250 GTO; 3 x (1962–1963) “330 GTO”; 1 x (1963) 250 GTO with LM Berlinetta-style body & 3 x (1964) Series II 250 GTO).  The GTOs in the hands of collectors command extraordinary prices, chassis 4153GT in June 2018 realizing US$70 million in a private sale whereas an immaculately crafted replica of a 1962 version by Tempero (New Zealand) was listed for sale at US$1.3 million (no NFT required).  The Tempero cars are acknowledged to be better built than any original GTO although that is damning with faint praise, those who restore pre-modern Ferraris wryly noting that while the drive-trains were built with exquisite care, the assembly of the coachwork could be shoddy indeed.  Indeed, when the head of one restoration company was asked if a vintage Ferrari exactly could be replicated the answer was it was doubtful: "...because none of our staff can weld that badly.",   Even less exalted machinery, though actually more rare still, like the 1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda convertible (only 12 of which were built) also illustrate the difference for there are now considerably more clones / replicas / recreations etc than ever there were originals and the price difference is typically a factor of ten or more.

Ferrari GTO production numbers 1961-1964.