688: revamp, vamp, and avant-garde Oct 26, 2016

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Though the word has certainly changed, 'revamp', quite intuitively, comes from 'vamp' which for cobblers is the upper from part of a shoe, and as a verb means 'to fix a vamp', but in Jazz is a simplistic short passage which is often repeated. Both of these senses come from the Latin, 'avant pie'. You may recognize 'avant' from 'avant garde', which means 'advanced guard' which has come to denote the way that troop under Napoleon dressed: very lavishly and impractically. The whole phrase together, means "before the foot (pie)", which is reasonable for shoemakers, but for musicians, and later in the word, 'revamp', it took on the meaning of improvisation.

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