The U.S. government’s so-called “War on Drugs” predates Richard Nixon’s coinage of the term in 1971 by many decades, though it is under his administration that it assumed its current scope and character. Before Woodstock and Vietnam, before the creation of the DEA in 1973, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics—headed by “America’s first drug czar,” Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger, from 1930 to 1962—waged its own war, at first primarily on marijuana, and, to a great degree, on jazz musicians and jazz culture. Anslinger came to power in the era of Reefer Madness, the title of a rather ridiculous 1938 anti-drug film that has come to stand in for hyperbolic anti-pot paranoia of the ’30s and ’40s more generally. Much of that madness was the Commissioner’s special creation.
Like so much of the post-Nixon drug war, Anslinger staged his campaign as a moral crusade against certain kinds of users: dissidents, the counterculture, and especially immigrants and blacks. According to Alexander Cockburn’s Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press, Anslinger’s “first major campaign was to criminalize the drug commonly known as hemp. But Anslinger renamed it ‘marijuana’ to associate it with Mexican laborers,” and claimed that the drug “can arouse in blacks and Hispanics a state of menacing fury or homicidal attack.” Anslinger “became the prime shaper of American attitudes to drug addiction.” And like later despisers of rock ‘n’ roll and hip-hop, Anslinger’s hatred of jazz motivated many of his targeted attacks.
Ansligner linked marijuana with jazz and persecuted many black musicians, including Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. Louis Armstrong was also arrested on drug charges, and Anslinger made sure his name was smeared in the press. In Congress he testified that “[c]oloreds with big lips lure white women with jazz and marijuana.”
“Marijuana is taken by… musicians,” he told Congress in 1937, “And I’m not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type.” Although the La Guardia Committee would refute almost everything Anslinger testified to about the effects of smoking pot, the damage was already done. (Anslinger’s prosecution of jazz musicians, particularly Louis Armstrong—paralleled that of another power-mad, paranoid bureaucrat, J. Edgar Hoover.)
Anslinger did not simply dislike jazz. He feared it. “It sounded,” he wrote, “like the jungles in the dead of night.” In jazz, “unbelievably ancient indecent rites of the East Indies are resurrected.” And the lives of jazz musicians “reek of filth.” And yet, writes Johann Hari in his book Chasing the Scream (excerpted in Politico), his campaign largely failed because of the jazz world’s “absolute solidarity” in opposition to it. “In the end,” writes Hari, “the Treasury Department told Anslinger he was wasting his time.” And so, “he scaled down his focus until it settled like a laser on one single target—perhaps the greatest female jazz vocalist there ever was,” Billie Holiday.
Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge about Holiday knows she had a drug problem in desperate need of treatment. And, of course, Holiday wasn’t addicted to a relatively harmless substance like marijuana, but to heroin, which—along with alcohol abuse—eventually lead to her death. Yet, as Cockburn writes, Anslinger had “hammer[ed] home his view that [drug addiction] was not… treatable,” but “could only be suppressed by harsh criminal sanctions.” Accordingly, he “hunted” Holiday—in Hari’s apt description—sending agents after her when he heard “whispers that she was using heroin, and—after she flatly refused to be silent about racism.”
Recruiting a black agent, Jimmy Fletcher, for the job, Anslinger began his attacks on Holiday in 1939. Fletcher shadowed Holiday for years, and became protective, eventually, “it seems,” writes Hari, “fall[ing] in love with her.” But Anslinger broke the case through Holliday’s viciously abusive husband, Louis McKay, who agreed to inform on her—something no fellow musician would do. In May of 1947, Holiday was arrested and put on trial for possession of narcotics. “Sick and alone,” writes Hettie Jones in Big Star Fallin’ Mama: Five Women in Black Music, “she signed away her right to a lawyer and no one advised her to do otherwise.” Promised a “hospital cure in return for a plea of guilty,” she was instead “convicted as a ‘criminal defendant,’ and a ‘wrongdoer,’ and sentenced to a year and a day in the Federal Women’s Reformatory at Alderson, West Virginia.”
After her release, Holiday was stripped of her cabaret license, restricted from singing in “all the jazz clubs in the United States… on the grounds,” writes Hari, “that listening to her might harm the morals of the public.” Two years after her first conviction, Anslinger recruited another agent, a sadist named George White, who was all too happy take Holiday down. He did so in 1949 at the Mark Twain Hotel in San Francisco—“one of the few places she could still perform”—arresting her without a warrant and with what were very likely planted drugs. White apparently “had a long history of planting drugs on women” and “may well have been high when he busted Billie for getting high.” (See the declassified case against her here. Her manager John Levy is erroneously referred to as her “husband” and called “Joseph Levy.”)
A jury refused to convict, but Anslinger gloried in the toll his campaign had taken. “She had slipped from the peak of her fame,” he wrote, “her voice was cracking.” After her death in 1959, he wrote callously, “for her, there would be no more ‘Good Morning Heartache.’” For her part, though Holiday “didn’t blame Anslinger’s agents as individuals; she blamed the drug war,” writing in her autobiography, “Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market… then sent them to jail…. We do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs.”
Many jazz musicians, but especially Holiday, paid dearly for Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ “war on drugs.” Hari documents the “race panic” that underlay most of Anslinger’s actions and the egregious double standard he applied, including a “friendly chat” he had with Judy Garland over her heroin addiction and kid gloves treatment of a “Washington society hostess,” in contrast to his relentless prosecution of Holiday. His persecution of Holliday and others was accompanied by a propaganda campaign that demonized “the Negro population” as dangerous addicts. As Hari points out, Anslinger “did not create these underlying trends,” but he promoted racist fictions and manipulated them to his advantage. And his singling out of cultures and groups he personally disliked and feared as special targets for vigorous, prejudicial prosecution helped set the agenda for anti-drug legislation and cultural attitudes in every decade since he decided to go after jazz and Billie Holiday.
You know Steve Albini as the pioneering founder and frontman of such disturbing post-hardcore punk bands as Big Black, Rapeman, and Shellac. You also know him as the in-demand producer of albums by such excellent artists as the Pixies, Nirvana, Cheap Trick, Mogwai, The Dirty Three, The Breeders, P.J. Harvey… the list goes ever on… Albini’s role as a producer—of bands both high profile and totally obscure—is legendary in rock circles, as is his curmudgeonliness, exacting personal standards, highly opinionated commentary, and exceptional musical taste.
You may not know, however, about Albini’s exceptional culinary tastes, as documented on his food blog, “Mariobatalivoice: What I made Heather for dinner.” Maintained between 2011 and 2013, the running commentary chronicles Albini’s attempts at dishes such as “Li-hing-rubbed torpedo with weird huauzontle and diced peppers” and “aged short ribs with fennel on saffron potato puree.” From the looks of things, Albini is a fine cook, as well as decent food photographer—if those are his photos. His blog description suggests they may be the work of Heather (that is, his wife, Heather Whinna).
A photo of Saffron Potato Cashew Pancakes from mariobatalivoice.
Albini’s also a very entertaining writer. No surprise there, “as anyone who’s seen his back-in-the-day fanzine rants can attest,” wrote Tom Breihan at Pitchfork in 2011. Typically understated and idiosyncratic, Albini writes, “I don’t give quantities or exact recipes because I eyeball and taste everything like anybody who cooks a lot…. We’re not ninjas. Also, some of this food may not turn out that great, so replicating it would be pointless. I have also successfully cooked for our cats.” Nonetheless, even without proportions and exact steps spelled out, “if you cook, you should be able to figure out how to make any of these meals.”
The name, he tells us, “comes from the way I bring [Heather] food in bed and present it to her using an imitation of Mario Batali’s voice from TV.” You’ll probably find your own brand of presentation, but all of the dishes look both challenging and totally worth the effort. To read about Albini’s adventures in the culinary exotic, check out the archives of his now-dormant food blog here.
Charlie Watts’s first love has always been jazz. While his Rolling Stones band mates spent their youth listening to the Blues, Watts listened to Miles Davis and John Coltrane. And something about that seems to have stuck. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards defined what a rock star should look like in the late 60s – disheveled and flamboyant. Watts always seemed to carry himself with a jazzman’s sense of cool.
Back in 1960, when he was working as a graphic designer and doing drumming gigs on the side, Watts found another way to show off his love for jazz. He wrote a children’s book. Ode to a Highflying Bird is about alt sax legend Charlie Parker, rendered in doodle-like fashion as a bird in shades. The hand-drawn text details Parker’s life story: “Frustrated with what life had to offer him in his hometown, he packed his whistle, pecked his ma goodbye and flew from his nest in Kansas City bound for New York.”
The book was originally done as a portfolio piece but, in 1964, after Watts became a member of the Stones, the book was published. As Watts recalled, “This guy who published ‘Rolling Stones Monthly’ saw my book and said ‘Ah, there’s a few bob in this!’”
This wasn’t the only ode to Bird that Watts made over his long career. In 1992, his jazz band, The Charlie Watts Quintet, released an album called From One Charlie… which, as the title suggests, pays homage to Parker and his other bee-bop gods. “I don’t really love rock & roll,” as he toldRolling Stone magazine. “I love jazz. But I love playing rock & roll with the Stones.”
A few old copies of Ode to a Highflying Bird can be found on Amazon and on Abe Books.
Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veeptopus, featuring lots of pictures of badgers and even more pictures of vice presidents with octopuses on their heads. The Veeptopus store is here.
Yes, it’s been over 20 years now since Nirvana played their last show, and if you’re old enough to have been there, go ahead and take a moment of silence to mourn your lost youth. Given the relative paucity of raw, authentic-sounding guitar rock these days, it’s tempting to romanticize the nineties as halcyon days, but that kind of nostalgia should be tempered by an honest accounting of the tedious flood of grunge-like also-rans the corporate labels released upon us after Nirvana’s mainstream success. In a certain sense, the demise of that band and death of its leader marks the end of so-called “alternative” rock (whatever that meant) as a genuine alternative. After Nirvana, a deluge of growly, angsty, and not especially listenable bands took over the airwaves and festival circuits. Before them—well, if you don’t know, ask your once-hip aunts and uncles.
And yet, there is another narrative—one that holds up the band as rock redeemers who broke through the corporate mold and, like the Stooges or the Ramones twenty years earlier, brought back authentic anger, danger, and intensity to rock ‘n’ roll. That Nirvana became the corporate mold is not necessarily their doing, and not a turn of events that sat at all well with the band. Their last show, in Munich, 1994 (see it in part above), “was anything but immaculate,” writes Consequence of Sound, a fact “almost tragically fitting.” As if presaging its leader’s decline, Nirvana’s final concert went from strained to worse, as Cobain’s voice faltered due to bronchitis, and the venue temporarily lost power. “Undeterred, they continued acoustically, but ended up cutting what would’ve been the seventh song, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’” the track that launched a million grunge garage bands three years earlier. With tongues in cheeks, they open—at the top—with The Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl” (and a few bars of their “Moving in Stereo”). Surely both an homage to a great ‘80s band and a punk deconstruction of major label radio rock of the previous decade.
In a foreboding remark after the power went out, bassist Krist Noveselic quips, “We’re not playing the Munich Enormodome tonight. ‘Cos our careers are on the wane. We’re on the way out. Grunge is dead. Nirvana’s over.” The remainder of the tour was canceled, and Cobain went to Rome, where he overdosed on Rohypnol and champagne and temporarily fell into a coma. One month later, after a failed rehab stint, he was dead. Almost immediately afterward, a cult of Cobain sprung up around his memory—as much a triumph of marketing as an act of mourning. T‑shirts, posters, tribute albums… the usual mass culture wake when a rock star dies young. What saddened me as a child of the era is not that the band’s last tour petered out, or even that Cobain fell apart under the familiar pressures of fame and addiction, but that in death he was turned into what he hated most—an idol. But if the worshipful merch of twenty years ago seemed tacky, it was nothing compared to t‑shirts selling just weeks ago with Cobain’s suicide note printed on them. (These have since been pulled due to complaints.) And while we may someday hear the demos of Cobain’s planned solo record, we might also have been treated to something else—“our next record’s going to be a hip-hop record,” joked Noveselic. Now that would have been a novelty. Instead we got these guys.
The lists are in. By overwhelming consensus, the buzzword of 2014 was “vape.” Apparently, that’s the verb that enables you to smoke an e‑cig. Left to its own devices, my computer will still autocorrect 2014’s biggest word to “cape,” but that could change.
Hopefully not.
Hopefully, 2015 will yield a buzzword more piquant than “vape.”
With luck, a razor-witted teen is already on the case, but just in case, let’s hedge our bets. Let’s go spelunking in an era when buzzwords were cool, but adult…insouciant, yet substantive.
If only every amateur lexicographer were foxy enough to set his or her definitions to music, and creep them out like the shadow, as Calloway does above. The complete list is below.
What a blip!
By my calculation, we’ve got eleven months to identify a choice candidate, resurrect it, and integrate it into everyday speech. With luck some fine dinner whose star is on the rise will beef our word in public, preferably during a scandalous, much analyzed performance.
It’s immaterial which one we pick. Gammin’? Jeff? Hincty? Fruiting? Whatever you choose, I’m in. Let’s blow their wigs.
Bust your conks in the comments section. I’m ready.
HEPSTER’S DICTIONARY
A hummer (n.) — exceptionally good. Ex., “Man, that boy is a hummer.”
Ain’t coming on that tab (v.) — won’t accept the proposition. Usually abbr. to “I ain’t coming.”
Alligator (n.) — jitterbug.
Apple (n.) — the big town, the main stem, Harlem.
Armstrongs (n.) — musical notes in the upper register, high trumpet notes.
Barbecue (n.) — the girl friend, a beauty
Barrelhouse (adj.) — free and easy.
Battle (n.) — a very homely girl, a crone.
Beat (adj.) — (1) tired, exhausted. Ex., “You look beat” or “I feel beat.” (2) lacking anything. Ex, “I am beat for my cash”, “I am beat to my socks” (lacking everything).
Beat it out (v.) — play it hot, emphasize the rhythym.
Beat up (adj.) — sad, uncomplimentary, tired.
Beat up the chops (or the gums) (v.) — to talk, converse, be loquacious.
Beef (v.) — to say, to state. Ex., “He beefed to me that, etc.”
Bible (n.) — the gospel truth. Ex., “It’s the bible!”
Black (n.) — night.
Black and tan (n.) — dark and light colored folks. Not colored and white folks as erroneously assumed.
Blew their wigs (adj.) — excited with enthusiasm, gone crazy.
Blip (n.) — something very good. Ex., “That’s a blip”; “She’s a blip.”
Blow the top (v.) — to be overcome with emotion (delight). Ex., “You’ll blow your top when you hear this one.”
Boogie-woogie (n.) — harmony with accented bass.
Boot (v.) — to give. Ex., “Boot me that glove.”
Break it up (v.) — to win applause, to stop the show.
Bree (n.) — girl.
Bright (n.) — day.
Brightnin’ (n.) — daybreak.
Bring down ((1) n. (2) v.) — (1) something depressing. Ex., “That’s a bring down.” (2) Ex., “That brings me down.”
Buddy ghee (n.) — fellow.
Bust your conk (v.) — apply yourself diligently, break your neck.
Canary (n.) — girl vocalist.
Capped (v.) — outdone, surpassed.
Cat (n.) — musician in swing band.
Chick (n.) — girl.
Chime (n.) — hour. Ex., “I got in at six chimes.”
Clambake (n.) — ad lib session, every man for himself, a jam session not in the groove.
Chirp (n.) — female singer.
Cogs (n.) — sun glasses.
Collar (v.) — to get, to obtain, to comprehend. Ex., “I gotta collar me some food”; “Do you collar this jive?”
Come again (v.) — try it over, do better than you are doing, I don’t understand you.
Comes on like gangbusters (or like test pilot) (v.) — plays, sings, or dances in a terrific manner, par excellence in any department. Sometimes abbr. to “That singer really comes on!”
Cop (v.) — to get, to obtain (see collar; knock).
Corny (adj.) — old-fashioned, stale.
Creeps out like the shadow (v.) — “comes on,” but in smooth, suave, sophisticated manner.
Crumb crushers (n.) — teeth.
Cubby (n.) — room, flat, home.
Cups (n.) — sleep. Ex., “I gotta catch some cups.”
Cut out (v.) — to leave, to depart. Ex., “It’s time to cut out”; “I cut out from the joint in early bright.”
Cut rate (n.) — a low, cheap person. Ex., “Don’t play me cut rate, Jack!”
Dicty (adj.) — high-class, nifty, smart.
Dig (v.) — (1) meet. Ex., “I’ll plant you now and dig you later.” (2) look, see. Ex., “Dig the chick on your left duke.” (3) comprehend, understand. Ex., “Do you dig this jive?”
Dim (n.) — evening.
Dime note (n.) — ten-dollar bill.
Doghouse (n.) — bass fiddle.
Domi (n.) — ordinary place to live in. Ex., “I live in a righteous dome.”
Doss (n.) — sleep. Ex., “I’m a little beat for my doss.”
Down with it (adj.) — through with it.
Drape (n.) — suit of clothes, dress, costume.
Dreamers (n.) — bed covers, blankets.
Dry-goods (n.) — same as drape.
Duke (n.) — hand, mitt.
Dutchess (n.) — girl.
Early black (n.) — evening
Early bright (n.) — morning.
Evil (adj.) — in ill humor, in a nasty temper.
Fall out (v.) — to be overcome with emotion. Ex., “The cats fell out when he took that solo.”
Fews and two (n.) — money or cash in small quatity.
Final (v.) — to leave, to go home. Ex., “I finaled to my pad” (went to bed); “We copped a final” (went home).
Fine dinner (n.) — a good-looking girl.
Focus (v.) — to look, to see.
Foxy (v.) — shrewd.
Frame (n.) — the body.
Fraughty issue (n.) — a very sad message, a deplorable state of affairs.
Freeby (n.) — no charge, gratis. Ex., “The meal was a freeby.”
Frisking the whiskers (v.) — what the cats do when they are warming up for a swing session.
Frolic pad (n.) — place of entertainment, theater, nightclub.
Fromby (adj.) — a frompy queen is a battle or faust.
Front (n.) — a suit of clothes.
Fruiting (v.) — fickle, fooling around with no particular object.
Fry (v.) — to go to get hair straightened.
Gabriels (n.) — trumpet players.
Gammin’ (adj.) — showing off, flirtatious.
Gasser (n, adj.) — sensational. Ex., “When it comes to dancing, she’s a gasser.”
Gate (n.) — a male person (a salutation), abbr. for “gate-mouth.”
Get in there (exclamation.) — go to work, get busy, make it hot, give all you’ve got.
Gimme some skin (v.) — shake hands.
Glims (n.) — the eyes.
Got your boots on — you know what it is all about, you are a hep cat, you are wise.
Got your glasses on — you are ritzy or snooty, you fail to recognize your friends, you are up-stage.
Gravy (n.) — profits.
Grease (v.) — to eat.
Groovy (adj.) — fine. Ex., “I feel groovy.”
Ground grippers (n.) — new shoes.
Growl (n.) — vibrant notes from a trumpet.
Gut-bucket (adj.) — low-down music.
Guzzlin’ foam (v.) — drinking beer.
Hard (adj.) — fine, good. Ex., “That’s a hard tie you’re wearing.”
Hard spiel (n.) — interesting line of talk.
Have a ball (v.) — to enjoy yourself, stage a celebration. Ex., “I had myself a ball last night.”
Hep cat (n.) — a guy who knows all the answers, understands jive.
Hide-beater (n.) — a drummer (see skin-beater).
Hincty (adj.) — conceited, snooty.
Hip (adj.) — wise, sophisticated, anyone with boots on. Ex., “She’s a hip chick.”
Home-cooking (n.) — something very dinner (see fine dinner).
Hot (adj.) — musically torrid; before swing, tunes were hot or bands were hot.
Hype (n, v.) — build up for a loan, wooing a girl, persuasive talk.
Icky (n.) — one who is not hip, a stupid person, can’t collar the jive.
Igg (v.) — to ignore someone. Ex., “Don’t igg me!)
In the groove (adj.) — perfect, no deviation, down the alley.
Jack (n.) — name for all male friends (see gate; pops).
Jam ((1)n, (2)v.) — (1) improvised swing music. Ex., “That’s swell jam.” (2) to play such music. Ex., “That cat surely can jam.”
Jeff (n.) — a pest, a bore, an icky.
Jelly (n.) — anything free, on the house.
Jitterbug (n.) — a swing fan.
Jive (n.) — Harlemese speech.
Joint is jumping — the place is lively, the club is leaping with fun.
Jumped in port (v.) — arrived in town.
Kick (n.) — a pocket. Ex., “I’ve got five bucks in my kick.”
Kill me (v.) — show me a good time, send me.
Killer-diller (n.) — a great thrill.
Knock (v.) — give. Ex., “Knock me a kiss.”
Kopasetic (adj.) — absolutely okay, the tops.
Lamp (v.) — to see, to look at.
Land o’darkness (n.) — Harlem.
Lane (n.) — a male, usually a nonprofessional.
Latch on (v.) — grab, take hold, get wise to.
Lay some iron (v.) — to tap dance. Ex., “Jack, you really laid some iron that last show!”
Lay your racket (v.) — to jive, to sell an idea, to promote a proposition.
Lead sheet (n.) — a topcoat.
Left raise (n.) — left side. Ex., “Dig the chick on your left raise.”
Licking the chops (v.) — see frisking the whiskers.
Licks (n.) — hot musical phrases.
Lily whites (n.) — bed sheets.
Line (n.) — cost, price, money. Ex., “What is the line on this drape” (how much does this suit cost)? “Have you got the line in the mouse” (do you have the cash in your pocket)? Also, in replying, all figures are doubled. Ex., “This drape is line forty” (this suit costs twenty dollars).
Lock up — to acquire something exclusively. Ex., “He’s got that chick locked up”; “I’m gonna lock up that deal.”
Main kick (n.) — the stage.
Main on the hitch (n.) — husband.
Main queen (n.) — favorite girl friend, sweetheart.
Man in gray (n.) — the postman.
Mash me a fin (command.) — Give me $5.
Mellow (adj.) — all right, fine. Ex., “That’s mellow, Jack.”
Melted out (adj.) — broke.
Mess (n.) — something good. Ex., “That last drink was a mess.”
Meter (n.) — quarter, twenty-five cents.
Mezz (n.) — anything supreme, genuine. Ex., “this is really the mezz.”
Mitt pounding (n.) — applause.
Moo juice (n.) — milk.
Mouse (n.) — pocket. Ex., “I’ve got a meter in the mouse.”
Muggin’ (v.) — making ‘em laugh, putting on the jive. “Muggin’ lightly,” light staccato swing; “muggin’ heavy,” heavy staccato swing.
Nicklette (n.) — automatic phonograph, music box.
Nickel note (n.) — five-dollar bill.
Nix out (v.) — to eliminate, get rid of. Ex., “I nixed that chick out last week”; “I nixed my garments” (undressed).
Nod (n.) — sleep. Ex., “I think I’l cop a nod.”
Ofay (n.) — white person.
Off the cob (adj.) — corny, out of date.
Off-time jive (n.) — a sorry excuse, saying the wrong thing.
Orchestration (n.) — an overcoat.
Out of the world (adj.) — perfect rendition. Ex., “That sax chorus was out of the world.”
Ow! — an exclamation with varied meaning. When a beautiful chick passes by, it’s “Ow!”; and when someone pulls an awful pun, it’s also “Ow!”
Pad (n.) — bed.
Pecking (n.) — a dance introduced at the Cotton Club in 1937.
Peola (n.) — a light person, almost white.
Pigeon (n.) — a young girl.
Pops (n.) — salutation for all males (see gate; Jack).
Pounders (n.) — policemen.
Queen (n.) — a beautiful girl.
Rank (v.) — to lower.
Ready (adj.) — 100 per cent in every way. Ex., “That fried chicken was ready.”
Ride (v.) — to swing, to keep perfect tempo in playing or singing.
Riff (n.) — hot lick, musical phrase.
Righteous (adj.) — splendid, okay. Ex., “That was a righteous queen I dug you with last black.”
Rock me (v.) — send me, kill me, move me with rhythym.
Ruff (n.) — quarter, twenty-five cents.
Rug cutter (n.) — a very good dancer, an active jitterbug.
Sad (adj.) — very bad. Ex., “That was the saddest meal I ever collared.”
Sadder than a map (adj.) — terrible. Ex., “That man is sadder than a map.”
Salty (adj.) — angry, ill-tempered.
Sam got you — you’ve been drafted into the army.
Send (v.) — to arouse the emotions. (joyful). Ex., “That sends me!”
Set of seven brights (n.) — one week.
Sharp (adj.) — neat, smart, tricky. Ex., “That hat is sharp as a tack.”
Signify (v.) — to declare yourself, to brag, to boast.
Skins (n.) — drums.
Skin-beater (n.) — drummer (see hide-beater).
Sky piece (n.) — hat.
Slave (v.) — to work, whether arduous labor or not.
Slide your jib (v.) — to talk freely.
Snatcher (n.) — detective.
So help me — it’s the truth, that’s a fact.
Solid (adj.) — great, swell, okay.
Sounded off (v.) — began a program or conversation.
Spoutin’ (v.) — talking too much.
Square (n.) — an unhep person (see icky; Jeff).
Stache (v.) — to file, to hide away, to secrete.
Stand one up (v.) — to play one cheap, to assume one is a cut-rate.
To be stashed (v.) — to stand or remain.
Susie‑Q (n.) — a dance introduced at the Cotton Club in 1936.
Take it slow (v.) — be careful.
Take off (v.) — play a solo.
The man (n.) — the law.
Threads (n.) — suit, dress or costuem (see drape; dry-goods).
Tick (n.) — minute, moment. Ex., “I’ll dig you in a few ticks.” Also, ticks are doubled in accounting time, just as money isdoubled in giving “line.” Ex., “I finaled to the pad this early bright at tick twenty” (I got to bed this morning at ten o’clock).
Timber (n.) — toothipick.
To dribble (v.) — to stutter. Ex., “He talked in dribbles.”
Togged to the bricks — dressed to kill, from head to toe.
Too much (adj.) — term of highest praise. Ex., “You are too much!”
Trickeration (n.) — struttin’ your stuff, muggin’ lightly and politely.
Trilly (v.) — to leave, to depart. Ex., “Well, I guess I’ll trilly.”
Truck (v.) — to go somewhere. Ex., “I think I’ll truck on down to the ginmill (bar).”
Trucking (n.) — a dance introduced at the Cotton Club in 1933.
Twister to the slammer (n.) — the key to the door.
Two cents (n.) — two dollars.
Unhep (adj.) — not wise to the jive, said of an icky, a Jeff, a square.
Vine (n.) — a suit of clothes.
V‑8 (n.) — a chick who spurns company, is independent, is not amenable.
What’s your story? — What do you want? What have you got to say for yourself? How are tricks? What excuse can you offer? Ex., “I don’t know what his story is.”
Whipped up (adj.) — worn out, exhausted, beat for your everything.
Wren (n.) — a chick, a queen.
Wrong riff — the wrong thing said or done. Ex., “You’re coming up on the wrong riff.”
Yarddog (n.) — uncouth, badly attired, unattractive male or female.
Yeah, man — an exclamation of assent.
Zoot (adj.) — exaggerated
Zoot suit (n.) — the ultimate in clothes. The only totally and truly American civilian suit.
From 1963 to 1967, folk singer Oscar Brand hosted “Let’s Sing Out” on Canadian television. Filmed on university campuses across Canada, the show launched the careers of important folk singers — singers like Gordon Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell, to name just two. In the compilation above, all shot in black and white, you can watch Joni Mitchell’s career come into bloom. In the first clip, recorded at The University of Manitoba in 1965, Joni Anderson — as she was named before her marriage to Chuck Mitchell in ’66 — sings “Born To Take The Highway.” On the same episode, Dave Van Ronk appeared along with The Chapins (Harry included).
We also find Joni in 1966, taking on a different look and a different last name and performing for students at Laurentian University. The next year, the Canadian singer-songwriter moved to New York, then onto LA where, with the help of David Crosby, her career got off the ground. Find more early Joni Mitchell performances in the section right down below.
If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, and Venmo (@openculture). Thanks!
There was once a time, if you can believe it, when Allen Ginsberg could take the poetry of William Blake, sing it in a recording studio, and then MGM Records would release it as a long-playing album. I refer to the time, of course, of “the sixties,” that half-mythical era that seems to have run from around 1966 to 1972. Smack in the middle of the sixties, thus defined, came this distinctive release, Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake, tuned by Allen Ginsberg, recorded in December 1969 and released in 1970.
Every reader familiar with Blake, of course, knows Songs of Innocence and of Experience as a book, an illustrated collection of poems first self-published in 1789 and in 1794 re-issued and expanded as Songs of Innocence and of Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. This work of an 18th-century poet captured the imagination of the 20th-century poet Ginsberg, and not just as reading material; he came to believe that not only did Blake intend his words to be sung, but that he himself could render them faithfully in song — as well as play the piano and harmonium in accompaniment.
You can hear hear the fruit of Ginsberg’s musical-poetic reconstructive labors at the top of the post, at the Internet Archive, or at PennSound, which not only offers each track individually but also its lyrics and sometimes even links to the corresponding page from the original book at the William Blake Archive. When we think of sixties-defining albums, we think of Blonde on Blonde,AreYou Experienced?, Sgt, Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, that sort of thing, and rightly so, but a project like Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake, tuned by Allen Ginsberg speaks just as much to what became possible in that artistic Cambrian explosion of an era.
Last summer we time traveled back to 1964 and showed you the very first TV appearance of David Bowie. Here, we found Bowie, only 17 years old, presenting himself as the spokesman for “The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men.” Long hair wasn’t widely accepted in the England of 1964, and, with a touch of humor, Bowie was taking a stand. “I think we’re all fairly tolerant, but for the last two years we’ve had comments like ‘Darling!’ and ‘Can I carry your handbag?’ thrown at us, and I think it just has to stop now.”
Bowie’s obsession with hair never went away. Creative hairstyles would come and go throughout the years. And they’re all on display in an animated gif, which Helen Green published on her Tumblr last week to celebrate the musician’s 68th birthday.
If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, and Venmo (@openculture). Thanks!
We're hoping to rely on loyal readers, rather than erratic ads. Please click the Donate button and support Open Culture. You can use Paypal, Venmo, Patreon, even Crypto! We thank you!
Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.
