02/01/2019
In celebration of Black History Month, The Partridge Family Temple All is Flowing Family of God would like to acknowledge our debt to Jazz Slang. When I was a little kid watching The Beverly Hillbillies, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, I Dream of Jeannie, Dragnet, Bewitched, Route 66, Mister Ed, Green Acres and The Munsters, one of the first exciting things that stood out to me were the beatnik and mod/hippie episode sessions.
At this point in my life, around age seven, I felt the beginning of time was the 50’s. I would ask my mother constantly about television shows from the dawn of televised entertainment. I would ask her questions and she’d tell me about commercials I’d never seen but they seemed like magical dreams.
The most holy of holies was The Twilight Zone, which was not in syndication yet where I lived. I couldn’t believe that a show that perfect was considered a relic from the past because I can tell you, the Sweat Hogs were no Twilight Zone.
At the time, in the mid 70’s, I felt the world was coming to an end. It was hard to explain because I was eight years old, but I knew the world was taking a turn for the worst and I fantasized about the good old days. So for me, the 50’s and the early 60’s were this glorious era which was the future but now was considered the distant past. And yet when I watched Elly May Clampett hang out with Beatniks, it seemed way more futuristic and way-out than Chico and the Man.
I remember my mother came in one day and saw me watching a beatnik episode and said, “Oh, I used to be a beatnik!” I became very excited and asked her to tell me all about it. She said she wore black turtlenecks, black chino pants, black loafers, had bangs and the clincher, “And I wore white lipstick.”
I felt the world slip off it’s axis. In that moment my mother was the coolest person on the planet. From that day forth, I couldn’t wait to grow a goatee. Unfortunately, I never could grow a goatee, but I could wear a beret and snap my fingers. You dig?
And then there were the mod hippies. They were groovy, sharp and colorful and they also had that same great, with-it vernacular. But it wasn’t until I was seventeen when I got heavily into the psychedelic bag and started talking like a head. I remember thinking, “Hippies just talk like beatniks but a little different.”
One day, I picked up a 60’s slang book at the thrift-store and realized all this beatnik hippie slang originated from the jazz cats. I knew that to some degree, but not completely. The book made me re-evaluate hipster slang and I started to wonder how it all began.
Did one person sitting at a table say, “Flip your lid”, and people just thought that was cool and it spread like a virus? Maybe it was a situation where collectively a few different people said, “Flip your lid”. I’d pay a lot of bread to find out, but that would involve a time machine and I don’t have enough bread to score one.
The Pft! have been using hipster slang for years. A lot of people have. It’s still out there. The word ‘cool’ is one of those words that never went out of style which is really COOL. Think how long Jazz Slang has lasted and how far it's branched out. Will people still be saying, “Ad majórem Dei glóriam” three thousand years from now?
In 1938, Cab Calloway put out Hepster’s Dictionary: A Guide To The Language Of Jive. Not only was this the first dictionary by a black person, this was also the Rosetta Stone of jive/jazz slang. A lot of black folk don’t get enough credit for things and I think one thing they don’t get enough credit for is Jazz Slang. And today, for Black History Month, I want to say to everyone who invented Jazz Slang, “THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE.”
UN-FACT: In one of the most famous scenes in the movie Airplane, Barbara Billingsley says she can speak jive. The reason she was picked for the movie was because television audiences knew her from Leave it to Beaver, The Beaver symbolizing Yoni, Shakti and Rebirth. Also being fluent in jive meant that she was on a higher plane.
UN-FACT: People toss around the term hipster a lot nowadays. Hip means “to know” which means that Carl Jung was a beatnik.
UN-FACT: You’re not going to believe this, but Charlie Parker, one of the most famous jazz musicians of all time was nicknamed Bird. Is it a coincidence that the partridge is also a bird?
Hard Spiel by The Partridge in the Pear Tree
Out of the World Artwork by Whale Song Partridge
