Ian in Jacksonville, Florida, wonders about why musicians use the word clam to mean “a mistake” or “an egregious musical error,” as in There are a lot of clams in there or We need to practice where the clams are regarding a musical passage that...
John from San Diego, California, likes to use the word be-bopping to mean “meandering,” “going about aimlessly.” As Robert S. Gold explains in his dictionary of jazz terms, Jazz Talk (Amazon), be-bopping and its shortened form, bopping, likely come...