Hep Cats Jive Talk Dictionary

[Stompin at the Savoy]

https://archive.org/details/hepcats-jive-talk-dictionary-1945.-t.-w.-o.-charles-d-m-ia/mode/2up

[Big Beat Steve]

A nice one! 

Bought an original through eBay sometime in the early 2000s and then made several photocopied and staspled sets (with color cover and all) and passed them on to cats in today's hepcats scene around here. All copies were snapped up in no time at all. 

Sometime ago (while searching for Down Besats, I think) I noticed it's now online and dowmloaded the file "just in case". 

I wonder when someone is going to put Dan Burley's Jive dictionary online (not just the bare contents - they are somewhere out there, as is the one by Cab Calloway) but the exact facsimile. 

Here's a more recent publication for recommended reading on the same subject: 

https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Fridge-Dad-Dictionary-Hipster/dp/0767908406

 

[Stompin at the Savoy]

1 hour ago, Big Beat Steve said:

A nice one! 

Bought an original through eBay sometime in the early 2000s and then made several photocopied and staspled sets (with color cover and all) and passed them on to cats in today's hepcats scene around here. All copies were snapped up in no time at all. 

Sometime ago (while searching for Down Besats, I think) I noticed it's now online and dowmloaded the file "just in case". 

I wonder when someone is going to put Dan Burley's Jive dictionary online (not just the bare contents - they are somewhere out there, as is the one by Cab Calloway) but the exact facsimile. 

Here's a more recent publication for recommended reading on the same subject: 

https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Fridge-Dad-Dictionary-Hipster/dp/0767908406

 

Thanks Steve, I will check that out!  Another fun source is the glossary in Bernard Wolfe's bio of Mezz Mezzrow, Really the Blues.    ( https://archive.org/details/reallyblues0000mezz/page/370/mode/2up )

[ghost of miles]

Here’s an article about the 1944 Burley handbook of jive. I have a paperback reprint that includes it and Burley’s 1959 book Diggeth Thou?:

Dan Burley’s Jive

I have a friend here in town, also a Burley fan, who happened upon one of the original Calloway jive volumes that were sold at Cab’s shows in the 1940s. It was a flea-market score iirc.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by ghost of miles

[Big Beat Steve]

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! 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Big Beat Steve

[Stompin at the Savoy]

5 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

Here’s an article about the 1944 Burley handbook of jive. I have a paperback reprint that includes it and Burley’s 1959 book Diggeth Thou?:

Dan Burley’s Jive

I have a friend here in town, also a Burley fan, who happened upon one of the original Calloway jive volumes that were sold at Cab’s shows in the 1940s. It was a flea-market score iirc.

 

Thanks for mentioning Dan Burley's Jive.  I managed to find a copy just now that wasn't too dear.  Also thank you Steve for the link to the Calloway pdf.  Fun!

[Big Beat Steve]

On a slightly more somber subject, some time ago I noticed a "miscellaneous news" item in a 50s jazz magazine that showed the following tongue-in-cheek practical use of this jive lingo:

A recently-deceased cool cat had had the following words engraved on his gravesite marker prior to his passing:

"DON'T DIG ME, CATS - I'M GONE!" 

Edited 5 minutes ago by Big Beat Steve