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In a spoken introduction from a live recoding made in Pasadena, CA, in 1956, on the album Round About Midnight by Miles Davis, the MC Gene Norman is heard saying:

A little bit unlikely that so much fine jazz should happen in Pasadena perhaps — I've heard Pasadena referred to as "utterly McKinley"

The audience laugh at this point, so it was evidently funny at the time/location.

I've tried researching the phrase, but can't find anything reliable. I guess it might rely on some context that I don't have.

You can hear it in context on Spotify.

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    Perhaps Prez McKinley? Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 22:23
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    Pasadena looked dated to the speaker. It actually incorporated the year McKinley was elected President. Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 22:24
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    The jazz musician Ray McKinley, maybe? I have no idea what his reputation was in 1956 —I just found him by Googling — so this suggestion may be completely wrong. Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 22:26
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    @YosefBaskin ahhh, wasn't aware there was a president (I'm from the UK), this seems the most likely! So it's kind of like us describing something as "Victorian" I guess. Commented Oct 20, 2020 at 18:21
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    Let me add that in the 1950s, Pasadena had a definite reputation for being stodgy; in other words, one might have expected that Big Band music would be considerably more popular there than Miles Davis's cool jazz. Commented Oct 20, 2020 at 19:39

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Basically, it's an Irish slur for Travellers, with connotations of being poor and uneducated. Yay 1956!

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    This seems like a decent theory, thanks very much! I'll mark it as accepted if I can corroborate it somewhere a little more reliable, but I fear I might not be able to. BTW, I edited your answer to remove the quote as the source itself is extremely offensive. We probably don't want to print that kind of thing directly on Stack Exchange but I guess the mods will decide! Commented Aug 20, 2021 at 14:53
  • The contents at the link are not particularly substantive (and I think it best that there not be cut and paste). Can you add anything to this answer that says anything about where the term came from? When you say 'an Irish slur' does that mean it is a slur used by the Irish about Travellers or about Travellers who are Irish or what? Commented Aug 20, 2021 at 22:13
  • The source (the entry from slangdefine.org) is obviously bogus. Downvote. Commented Aug 21, 2021 at 1:49

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