MEZZ MEZZROW: GLOSSARY OF JAZZ SLANG
Second Cat: Hey Mezzie, lay some of that hard-cuttin’ mess on me. I’m short of a deuce of blips but I’ll straighten you later.
Mezzrow: Righteous, gizz, you’re a poor boy but a good boy—now don’t come up crummy.
Second Cat: Never no crummy, chummy. I’m gonna lay a drape under the trey of knockers for Tenth Street and I’ll be on the scene, wearin’ the green.
Although he was a decent clarinetist and saxophonist, Mezz Mezzrow (November 9, 1899 – August 5, 1972) is remembered today primarily for his 1946 autobiography “Really the Blues”, and for rejecting White society and embracing African-American culture, to the extent that he actually believed that he was Black. He was also a reliable supplier of marijuana to jazz musicians in the 1930s and ‘40s. He included this handy glossary of hipster jazz slang in the back pages of “Really the Blues”.
Glossary
Ace: dollar’s worth, dollar, one, first-rate
Advocate: help to build and perfect
Anywhere: state of possession (is you anywhere? =do you have any?)
Back: adverb used for emphasis (scoffed back = ate very heartily)
Ball: n., a good time; v., enjoy yourself
Barrellhouse: n., low, boisterous dive; adj., the original style of playing jazz, once associated with such low dives
Beat: exhausted, broke
Beat the boards: tapdance
Beat up your chops: talk a lot
Before-Abe: job (the implication being that a Negro’s employment is slavery, of the type that existed before Abe Lincoln)
Beginner Brown: Negro with light brown skin-tone
Bellychord: a pleasing, abrupt musical chord that hits the listener hard
Belly habit: an opium habit that, unlike the head type, affects the addict in the stomach
The Big Apple: New York City
Big Bean: sun
Biggity: swaggering, putting on airs
Bing: jail cell for solitary confinement
Bit: jail sentence
Biters: teeth
Blinds: spaces between tender and baggage car in any train
Blip: nickel
Bloodhound tip: snooping behavior of a policeman (see tip)
Blow: smoke marihuana
Blowtop: a crazy or violent person
Blow your fuse: go crazy
Blow your lid: go crazy
Blow your lump: find a full outlet for your emotions
Blow your top: go crazy
Blue Broadway: the sky
Boogie-woogie: a happier style of music which grew out of the blues; also, a style of dancing
Boogity-boogity: pell-mell
Bottle babies: drunks
Breadbasket: stomach
Break: a brief ensemble pause by a jazz band so that one player can extemporize a solo for a few measures
Break it up: bring the house down
Break time: get out of tempo
Breeze: go
Bright: morning
Bring down: depress
Bring down: a depressing thing, a disappointment
Bring time: punch a time-clock, work
Briny: unpleasant, hostile
Broom off: go away
Brown: Negro with brown skin-tone
Buddy ghee: pal
Bug: put in the insane asylum
Bundle: bankroll
Bunk habit: practice of lounging around while others smoke opium, and inhaling the fumes
Bust: arrest
Bust your conk: become extremely happy and carefree
Bust your vest: be big, magnanimous
Buster: something extremely good
Buzz: tell, whisper
Buzz tone: a trumpet or trombone tone similar to that of a kazoo
Café sunburn: pallor
Call some hogs: snore
Canhouse: whorehouse
Can’t see for looking: to stare so intently, usually with hostility, that your vision is blurred; to have your perspective distorted due to anger or jealousy
Cap: have the last word, go one better, outdo
Carry: escort
Case: study carefully
Cat: regular fellow, guy
Cathouse: whorehouse
Chances go around: everybody gets his turn, the wheel of chance keeps spinning
Change: money
Chesty: conceited
Chick: young girl
Chicken dinner: pretty young girl
Chimes: hours
Chinch: bedbug
Chippy’s playground: stomach
Chips: money
Chops: lips
Claws: fingers
Clinker: bad musical note
C-notes: hundred-dollar bills
Coin gold: make a lot of money
Collar: understand, get hold of
Collar all jive: understand all the subtleties
Collar a nod: get some sleep
Come on: give a terrific performance, be superb
Comp: accompaniment
Complexy: neurotic
Con: convict; also: consumption
Conk: n., head; v., hit on the head
Conkhouse: head
Connection: contact-man who supplies you with drugs,etc.
Coonshout: corny imitation of oldtime Negro style of singing
Cop a deuceways: buy two dollars’ worth
Cop a slave: get a job
Cop a squat: sit down
Corn: anything hackneyed, cliché
Cover all spots: cope with all situations
Crack your jaw: talk
Craunch: grind
Creep pad: a whorehouse where the girls are pickpockets
Crib: type of one-room whorehouse in old New Orleans
Croaker: doctor
Cruise: entice
Crummy: obnoxious
Cruncher: sidewalk
Crunchers: feet
Cubby: home, apartment, room
Cuckaburr: acorn; cocklebur
Cut: outdo, out-perform
Cut out: leave
Cut some rug: dance
Cut some steps: dance
Cutting contest: competitive get-together of performers
Dance on all setting: crash the gates everywhere
Daniel: buttocks
Deuce: a couple
Deuceways: two dollars’ worth
Dicty: snooty, high-class
Dig: understand, appreciate, listen to, follow, grasp, get
Dim: night
Dime note: ten-dollar bill
Dinner: pretty young girl
Dirty dozens: elaborate game in which participants insult each other’s ancestors
Do a Houdini: disappear
Dog around: follow
Dommy: home, domicile
Don’t lose it: sarcastic expression which really means it’s no good, get rid of it
Doodlely-squat: nothing, no more than the product of a child who squats to do his duty
Dotey: old, senile
Doublebank: gang up on
Double-o: studious look
Downbeat: conductor’s signal for the band to begin playing
Down under: below the Mason-Dixon line
Down with it: top-notch, superlative
Drape: suit of clothes
Dreambox: head
Dreamers: blankets
Driftsmoke: clouds
Drink: ocean
Drink den: saloon
Drip: rain
Drugg: brought down, depressed
Dry goods: clothes
Dummy up: shut up, refuse to talk
Duster: buttocks
Early black: early evening
Eat up a breeze: eat a lot
Enamel: skin
Evil: unpleasant, obnoxious, hostile, neurotic
Excusing: except for
Eyeball: look, stare
Face: a form of greeting
Fall in: arrive on the scene
Fall out: be tickled to death
Father grab somebody: May the Lord take him away, to hell with him
Fault: blame
Faust: ugly (as the devil)
Fay: n., white person; adj., white
Feds: Federal agents
Fer it: in favor of it
Fillmill: saloon
Final: go
Fish: new inmates in jail, fresh caught
Fishblack: Friday night
Fishtail: weaving motion of the buttocks during a dance
Fix to: intend to
Flickers: movies
Fly: smart, sophisticated, in the know, alert
Fly right: behave
Foam: beer
For kicks: for pleasure’s sake
Foxy: sly, clever, good
Fracture your toupee: go crazy
Fracture your wig: go crazy with joy
Frame: body
Framer: bed
Frantic: wild, nervous, unusually good
Fraughty issue: unhappy state of affairs
Freakish: homosexual, perverted, weird
Freebie: handout, something gratis
Frolic-pad: place where you have a good time
Frompy: unattractive
Fruit: romance playfully
Funk: stench
Funky: smelly, obnoxious
Fusebox: head
Gallion: slave quarters, Jim-Crow section
Gangbuster: anything especially powerful
Gas-meter: a quarter
Gasser: something terrific that takes your breath away
Gate: form of greeting
Gauge: marihuana
Gaycat: have a good time
Geechee: Southerner from Georgia
Get in your mouth: disturb you, repel you
Get off: express yourself, render a good performance
Get-off chorus: improvised solo for one chorus
Get straight: reach an understanding, pay a debt
Gig: single engagement, club date
Gimpy: lame
Git-box: guitar
Give the office to somebody: to signal surreptitiously
Gizz: short for gizzard
Gizzard: form of greeting
Glim: look at
Glimmer: electric light
Go down: happen
God sure don’t like ugly: you get what’s coming to you
Going to Slice City: going to cut somebody up
Golden-leaf: the best marihuana
Gone: out of this world, superlative
Gone with it: really inspired, completely in control of the situation
Grabbers: hands
Grass: marihuana
Grease: eat
Grease your chops: eat
Grefa: marihuana
Grimy: sour, unpleasant
Groovy: really good, in the groove, enjoyable
Gully-low: lowdown, unhappy
Gumbeat: talk
Gun: look, stare
Gunboats: large shoes
Gutbucket: earthy style of music
Hack: keeper in a jail
Half-hipped: not very enlightened or sophisticated
Half past the unlucky: midnight on Friday
Hankachief-Head: old Southern mammy
Hamfat: ham performer, a nobody
Hard-cutting: powerful, very good
Hard-cutting mezz: the best brand of marihuana; anything that’s tops
Have a ball: have a good time
Have your hair fried: have your hair treated with hot irons
Hay: marihuana
Head arrangement: a musical arrangement by ear, without written music
Head Knock: God
Heeb: Jewish person
Heebies: jitters
Hemp: marihuana
High: intoxicated, or strongly affected by marihuana or other drugs
High-jive: intellectual patter, the smoothest and most elaborate line
Highjiver: smooth character with a very fancy and intellectual line of talk
Hincty: snobbish, stuck-up, full of airs; also: suspicious
Hip: in the know, worldly-wise, clever, enlightened, sophisticated
Hipster: man who’s in the know, grasps everything, is alert
Hit the jug: drink heavily, often from the bottle; have a drink
Homey: form of greeting between people from the same place
Honeymoon kick: a situation of great intimacy, close friendship (see kick)
Honky: factory hand
Hooked: addicted
Hop: opium
Hopdog: insatiable opium addict
Hophead: opium addict
Hot: angry
Hot for: enthusiastic about, in favor of
Hot minute: brief moment (implying great hurry)
House of many slammers: jail
Hustler: prostitute; also: anybody who makes a living by hook or crook
Hype: v., to deliver a phony but convincing line, to build up a sucker for the kill, to lay the groundwork for a scheme; n., a build-up, a phony story
Hype up: build up (with ulterior motive)
Ice: diamonds
If push comes to shove: if a showdown comes, if things come to a head
Igg: ignore
In front: in advance, ahead of time
In there: very good, sincere, masterful, likable
Intro: introduction to a musical piece
Issue: a questionable or serious case or situation
Jag: a state of extreme stimulation, produced by marihuana or some other stimulant
Jam: to play collectively improvised music
Jam session: a musical get-together in which all the playing is collectively improvised
Jam-up: very good, most pleasing
Jawblock: to engage in small talk
J.B.: jet black, a very dark Negro
Jeff Davis: an unenlightened person, a hick from down South (sometimes shortened to jeff)
Jim Crow: the symbol of anti-Negro discrimination and segregation
Jim-jam-jumping: extremely lively, vivacious
Jive: v., to kid, to talk insincerely or without meaning, to use an elaborate and misleading line; n., confusing doubletalk, pretentious conversation, anything false or phony
Jive that makes it drip: clouds that produce rain
John: customer in a whorehouse
Joint: set of instruments used in smoking opium
Joybox: piano
Juice: n., liquor; v., to drink a lot
Juiced: drunk
Jump: turn, become (ex.: jump salty = turn sour or hostile)
Jump: modern corruption of jazz in which short cliché riffs are repeated over and over mechanically and the loud, ringing sock cymbal sets the pace
Jump stink: turn sour and hostile
Jungle bum: a hobo who cooks out in the open
Jungles: San Juan Hill section of Manhattan, around Tenth Ave. in the Sixties
Junkie: dope fiend
Keep a lot of rumpus: act boisterously, make a lot of noise
Kick: good feeling, something that gives a lot of pleasure
Killer: anything very powerful, fine
King Kong: cheap moonshine, corn whisky
Kip: sleep (from camp)
Kisser: mouth or face
Kitchen: back of the head, the hair just above the nape of the neck
Kitchen mechanics: domestic servants
Kitten: very young girl
Knock: give
Knock a fade: go away, leave
Knock out some vittles: eat
Knock somebody some skin: shake hands with somebody
Knowledge-box: head
Kyaw-kyaw: sarcastic laughter
Laine: hick, innocent, sucker
Lamp: look at, see
Latch on: get hold of
Late watch: early hours of the morning
Lay: to give, do
Lay down: to recline and smoke opium
Lay it: do something masterfully, do a good job
Lay it on somebody: do something good for somebody
Lay some iron: tapdance
Lay your racket: perform, talk, give a good and convincing account of yourself
Layout: set of instruments used to smoke opium
Lead: melody, instrument that plays the melody in a band, solo chair of a section in a band
Lean your affection on somebody: to romance, to give a line to a girl
Light up: smoke marihuana
Like Jack the Bear: worthless, no-account, broke, insignificant
Lily-whites: sheets
Lindy hop: a Negro dance
Line two: one of anything (numbers are doubled to confuse outsiders)
Line your flue: eat
Lip: embouchure, muscular strength and control in the lips needed to blow wind instruments
Liquor-head: drunkard
Loaded: drunk or full of drugs
Loot: money
Lowrate: ridicule, show up
Luck up on: get by luck, come into possession of unexpectedly
Lush: to drink
Lushhound: drunkard
Lushy: drunkard
Mac: pimp
Main saw on the hitch: wife
Main stash: home
Main stroll: Seventh Avenue in Harlem
Make: rob, visit
Make time: beat a rhythm
Make your love come down: Arouse your passion, put you in a romantic mood
Mammy jamming: incestuous obscenity
Mash: give
Mellow: feeling good, especially after smoking marihuana
Meserole: corruption of mezzroll
Mess-around: dance in which hips are swung around in a circle
The mezz: the best brand of marihuana; anything unusually good
Mezzroll: fat sticks of marihuana, handrolled, with the ends tucked in
The mighty mezz: see the mezz
Mooch: beg, look for handouts
Moo-juice: milk
Mop-mop: modern corruption of jazz built up around mechanical riffs
Moss: hair
Most anxious: very fast or excited
Motherferyer: incestuous obscenity
Much: like, be in favor of
Mudkicker: streetwalker
Mug: making faces or subtly clowning during a performance
Mugg: associate with
Muggles: cigarettes of marihuana
Murder belt: the South
Murder State: Mississippi, or any lynch state down South
Mush: kiss
Muta: marihuana
Nappy: kinky
Nature: potency, virility
Nayo hoss: no, buddy; that’s wrong
Never no crummy: never in bad taste, never offensive
Nix out: eliminate
No stuff: no kidding
Note: notoriety, publicity
Nowhere: insignificant, broke
Nympho kick: nymphomaniac form of behavior, erotic exhibitionism
Ofaginzy: white person
Ofay: a white person (from the pig Latin for foe)
Offtime: out of harmony, old-fashioned, corny offensive
Old Fireball: sun
One-nighters: one-night engagements
Oscar: guy, especially a biased and narrow-minded one
Out: oust, get rid of, destroy
Pad: joint, place to enjoy yourself, bed
Paddy: cop
Pay no rabbit: ignore
Peck: see peckerwood
Peckerville: any Southern town
Peckerwood: any white Southerner
Peepers: eyes
Pen: penitentiary
Penny one: a single penny
Pick up on: get, take, learn; also: smoke marihuana
Pick up on some vittles: get some food, eat
Pick up on what’s going down: understand what’s happening
Pick up the tempo: play faster
Pigeon: young girl
Pill: pellet of opium (also called yen pox)
Pink: white
Piss-ant: a nobody, small fry
Pitch a boogie-woogie: get excited, get worked up
Plant you now and dig you later: got to go now, I’ll see you later
Play: a thing to do, program of action, the order of the day
Play hip: pretend to understand
Playground: see chippy’s playground
Poke: pocket, wallet
Politician: trusty in a jail
Poppa De-Da-Da: New Orleans character who originated a strutting kind of dance
Pounder: cop on the beat
Prayerbones: knees
Press roll: a type of roll on the snare drums
Psycho kick: psychopathic form of behavior
Pull a creep: leave
Pull a fade-out: go away
Pull somebody’s coat: enlighten, tip somebody off
Pump: heart
Punk: young man who plays the feminine role in a homosexual relationship
Push: sell, handle, purvey
Put down: do, be active in some way
Queen: woman, girl
Quiet ones off the main drag: sidestreets
Quit it: leave
Raise: arm (on your left raise = on your left)
Raise sand: make a fuss, create a stir
Rap: a criminal charge
Razzmatazz: anything old-fashioned, corny
Ready: competent, dauntless
Recite: play a good solo on your instrument
Reefer: cigarette of marihuana
Rhyming: verbal game in which an idiomatic conversation is conducted in rhythmic, rhyming phrases
Riff: n., musical phrase or passage; v., to play such distinctive phrases
Righteous: good, right, satisfying
Righteous bush: marihuana
Righteous spiel: correct, convincing and honest talk
Rinky-dink: antiquated, broken down
Rip-bop: corruption of jazz now in vogue, very fast, frenzied, and mechanical type of music (also known as re-bop and be-bop)
Roach: small butt from a cigarette of marihuana
Rock: dollar
Rods: long bars under a freight car
Roost: home
Rooster: buttocks
Rubber: automobile
Rumble: fight
Run in: arrest
Run somebody away: chase away
Run with: associate with
Run your mouth: talk a lot
Salty: sour, hostile, unpleasant
Sand: an oldtime Negro dance
Sawbuck: ten-dollar bill
Scat: sing nonsense syllables
School: teach
Scoff back: eat a lot
Scraggy: dilapidated
Scratchpad: verminous room or flophouse
Screw: prison keeper
Scuffle: struggle to get along
Scuffle up: raise, collect, get together
Scumpteen: a lot of
Send: give you a good feeling
Sell out: run away
Shakes: d.t.’s
Shake-up: mixture of corn whisky and wine
Shark: man with a good line that women fall for
Sharp: alert, dressed well, keen-witted
Short-histe: masturbatory, perverted
Show: to make an appearance
Shroud-tailor: undertaker
Shying: the technique of cooking opium pills
Signify: hint, put on an act, boast make a gesture
Skin-beater: drummer
Skullbuster: brain-twister, a tough problem; also: something very good
Sky-pilot: preacher
Slammer: door
Slave tip: work
Slot: form of greeting
Slow drag: dance music in slow tempo
Smeller: nose
Snagging: verbal game in which person who has to say “What?” gets a mark against him
Snap your cap: go crazy
Snatcher: detective
Snatchpad: bed
Sniffer: nose
Snow: cocaine
Sold: good
Sometimey: unstable, unpredictable, neurotic
Soundbox: larynx, throat
Spade: Negro
Spaginzy: Negro
Spike: add alcohol to beer
Splash: rain
Splinter your toupee: go crazy
Spring: release from jail
Square: unenlightened person, a working man, an orthodox follower of the rules
Square from Delaware: unenlightened person
Squinch-eyed: heavy-lidded, with the eyes half closed
Stash: v., to hide or put away, to go to sleep; n., house, bed, hiding place
Stick of tea: cigarette of marihuana
Sticking: having some or a lot, not destitute or empty-handed
Stinchy: stingy
Stir: penitentiary
Stoolie: stool pigeon, informer
Storyville: the old tenderloin district of New Orleans
Straighten: pay up, straighten out a debt
Stretch your chippy’s playground: eat
Strides: pants
Stringpost: neck
The Stroll: Seventh Avenue in Harlem; any main street
Struggle-buggy: jalopy
Stud: guy, man
Study about: think about, contemplate
Stuff: a lie, a line, something suspect or unacceptable
Stuff with the dead ones’ pictures: paper money
Suds: beer
Suspicion: suspect
Suzie-Q: a Negro dance
Tab: project, line of activity, program
Tail: somebody who follows you
Tailgate: New Orleans style of trombone playing
‘Taint no crack but a solid fact: it’s the truth
Take low: cower, act humble
Take some weight off somebody: relieve, cheer up
Talk behind somebody: believe and support what he says because he’s honest
Tea: marihuana
Tea-pad: place where you smoke marihuana
Teen-inetsy: teeny-weeny, tiny
Tell a green man something: enlighten me, put me wise
Tenth Street: ten dollars
Tick twenty: ten o’clock (times of day are doubled to confuse outsiders)
Tighten: sell a bill of goods, clinch a deal, win over
Tin: small amount of opium
Tinklebox: piano
Tip: way of acting, pattern of behavior, environment, program
Tipple ukulele: twelve-stringed ukulele
Tog: dress up
Top: head
Tops: roofs of passenger trains
Torpedo: gunman
The Track: Savoy Ballroom in Harlem
Trail: walk
Trey: three
Trey of knockers: the three balls over a pawnshop
Trickeration: misleading words or acts
Trilly: walk in a carefree way
Troubled with the shorts: broke, poverty-stricken
Tubs: drums
Turf: street
Twinklers: stars
Twister: key, handle
Typewriter: machine gun
Unbooted: ignorant, naïve, unenlightened
Uncle Tom: symbol of the bowing and scraping humility of the traditional Southern Negro
Unhip: naïve, unenlightened, corny
The unlucky: Friday
Uppity: snooty, ritzy, conceited
Ups: the upper hand
Vine: suit of clothes
Viper: marihuana smoker
Walking bass: a bass part that moves up and down the chords
Waller: wallow
Wash away: kill
(Your) water’s on and it’s boiling: there’s trouble brewing for you
Wear the green: have some paper money
Weave the four F’s around somebody: high-pressure romancing (find ‘em, fool ‘em, frig ‘em, and forget ‘em)
Weed: marihuana
Weight: blues, depression
Wet your tonsils: drink
White stuff: cocaine, morphine, and heroin
Widen: leave
Wig: head or hair
Wig-trig: idea
Wooden kimono: coffin
Woodshed: practice or study alone
Wren: young girl
Yarddog: low or uncouth person
Yen hok: implement used in cooking marihuana
Zooty: stylish, fashionable