I remember reading something about this at Language Log. I believe they claimed that both jive and jibe in this meaning were corruptions of some other word. I'll dig around in there and see if I can come up with something more conclusive. It also might have been in one of the language related blogs that they provide links to in their sidebar. Click on the [+/-} next to Blogroll.

Edit:

Aha! Got it! The Language Log search function didn't find it but Google did. It's here, in Mark "myl" Liberman's response to the first comment by Cory Lubliner.

Last edited by Faldage; 07/03/2009 2:25 AM. Reason: Further research