LANGUAGE OF SWING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 140, 16 June 1939, Page 17

LANGUAGE OF SWING

ALLIGATORS AND SCREWBALL

Are you a "jitterbug" or an "alligator"—or have you just got "tin ears"? These words are part of the strange neAv vocabulary that has grown round American swing music, says the "Manchester Guardian." A "jitterbug" is a person keen on swing, an "alligator" a non-professional sAving enthusiast. If you cannot appreciate swing then you have "tin ears." The swing musicians called "cats" play on "agony pipes" (clarinets), "doghouses" (bass fiddles), "iron harps" (vibraphones), "trams" (trombones), "horns" (trumpets), "skins" (drums), and "Avoodpiles" (xylophones). Accompanying them is a "canary" (girl crooner). Sometimes they play "boogie-woogie" (on the heavy bass instruments), sometimes "gut bucket" (unrefined). Sometimes they play "schmaltz" or "salon" (ordinary jazz), but more often they blaze away at a real "clambake" (free style swing playing). This playing gets more complex as it gets hotter. It may start "barrelhouse" (free improvisation), blending into "screwball" (fast free improvisation), merging into "whackey" (uncontrolled swing). Many swing players arc "killerdillers" (first-rate players). Some are "inugglers" (Marijuana addicts), but very few are "long-hairs" (people avlio like classical music). : And ,sd the tongue that Shakespeare spake receives yet another and considerable .transatlantic kick'in the na'nts.