I suspect that's the answer but is that the term for all of this music from the 1920s to present day? I'm trying to find out whether there's a snappier term for the era that "pre-salsa musica tropicale in conjunto or big band format that isn't from New York or Cuba". It is so clearly a historical/aesthetic singular moment.
Thanks for the link to the article on Dan Burley.
I knew about the reprint of the Dan Burley Jive handbook but for some reason never bought it. Maybe it was because I regretted they had needlessly changed the cover (not for the better). Does your reprint at least look like the "inside" is an actual reprint that reproduces the 40s layout?
The contents of the Cab Calloway "Cat-ologue" dictionaries must be online out there. About 20 years ago I found (on two different websites) and printed out lists of the Calloway dictionary that were described as the "Revised 1939 Edition" and a somewhat expanded list that seems to correspond to his "New Hepster's Dictionary" of 1944.
The introduction to the "Revised 1939 edition" describes the glossary taken from the original booklet as "containing about two hundred words and expressions employed by the hep cats when they talk their jive, as Harlemese is called on Lenox Avenune. This is nearly twice the number of words included in the original glossary." So this is an indicator of the scope of the dictionary.
I have no idea if these are still online on the same sites.
But there are others. I just found this one that reproduces the 1944 version of the Hepster's Dictionary:
https://dancesafari.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/The-Hepster’s-Dictionary.pdf
This article (that I just discovered after googling) also is interesting as it provides a peek into the actual booklet and shows what the 1939 edition really looks like:
https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2021/03/04/a-hepsters-dictionary/
I wonder what they paid for their "acquisition" that they describe there. Googling shows there are couple of original copies for sale on various bookseller platforms. But the prices range from $1,000+ to some $3,000!
Yes, worth watching and listening to any time. Particularly since she has also been graced with excellent reissues (and in some cases first-time discoveries) in recent years.