And thank you doubly, Lighter, for the two quotes using the term "blue note" in 1895 and 1908! Neither of them appears to have anything to do with blues music. You and Phil have shown that Mudcat is a haven for true scholars, and not just a place for people to trade insults over their views on gay marriage. And thank you, Joseph Scott, for starting these fascinating threads and for keeping them high-brow with your very rigorous research on the subjects.

Lighter's 1908 quote is posted at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10508/pg10508.txt
And this is the full paragraph that it's in:
"I did all a human being could do to bring her to--rubbed her hands and slapped her face; but even then she was in no fit condition to appear. Go on she would, in spite of my prayers, and what does she do when she comes tripping on, blithe and gay as a school girl, but stumble and do a slide on her profile half way across the O.P. side, just as the tenor was starting the chorus to his song, 'Bevey in Little Children.' He being a nervous party springs a blue note that got the musical director hysterical and he forgot to give the bass drum man his cue and the whole thing went to blazes.
(It's interesting that the author passed up the chance to say it went to blue blazes. I wonder if blazes were already thought of as blue back then.)

I couldn't find the 1895 Kansas City Times article. Lighter, do you live in Kansas City? It's a great place to hear both blues and jazz, or at least it was when I was there in the 1970's and 80's. There were terrific local amateur blues bands playing at many little corner bars, and there was Milton's on Main, and the Grand Emporium, and an incredible blues club on the east side whose name I can't recall right now, and they were starting to re-develop 12th/18th and Vine. It was also a great place to dance to reggae and soca music, thanks chiefly to the Blue Riddim Band and SDI, and to hear and play folk music, thanks chiefly to The Foolkiller.