Minstrel \Min"strel\, n. [OE. minstrel, menestral, OF. menestrel, fr. LL. ministerialis servant, workman (cf. ministrellus harpist), fr. L. ministerium service. See {Ministry}, and cf. {Ministerial}.] In the Middle Ages, one of an order of men who subsisted by the arts of poetry and music, and sang verses to the accompaniment of a harp or other instrument; in modern times, a poet; a bard; a singer and harper; a musician. --Chaucer.
One way of looking at Jackson's transmogrification is to see it as the continuation of an old American tradition: the 19th-century minstrel show.