Jive

I presume actors sometimes need to develop a new vocabulary for their role on the stage or in film. Lately, I have been thinking of creating a new language by combining Polari and Jive Talk. My obsession with British subculture led me to be aware of the British Gay slang world of Polari. If I can combine the two language styles and use them daily, that would be divine. No one will understand me, but still, it would be amusing.

Charlie Parker has been the entrance to my recent obsessions regarding Los Angeles during the war and post-war years and focusing on the nature of BeBop Jazz at that time. My father, Wallace Berman, came from that place and era, and his everyday vocabulary had traces of Jive but in the mode of a hyper-cool landscape. As a teenager, he put himself in the world of Black-American jazz culture, especially hanging out and dancing in jazz clubs of that era. It is here or there that he found that bridge between the young life of being in the trenches of the Jazz world and fine art. The juxtaposition of Wallace reading French poetry translated into English and his love for BeBop worked well in his intellectual framework. I have no memory of Wallace using a word that wasn’t necessary; he was a minimalist when it came to conversation. He developed a language where he could express himself with less vocabulary.

Lord Buckley was probably the most prominent figure who used Jive in his stand-up comedy act. He was an influential jazz-orientated Comedian with the identity of an upper-crust British aristocrat but mixed it in with Black American Jive talk. His parents were from Manchester, England, but Buckley was born in Northern California. He was influential in the BeBop and Beat world due to his language skills and vision to combine Beat sensibility with a Vaudeville approach. He was indeed a hybrid of both cultures.

Less known but equally important is Slim Gaillard, a Swing-era Jazz guitarist, and pianist who merged into the BeBop world with Dizzy and Charlie Parker playing in his combo. Through my amateur studies of Parker, I discovered Gaillard’s music, which is terrific, but his lyrics are really something. Gaillard invented his language, Vout-o-Reenee, and wrote a dictionary. Since Lord Buckley has already combined the British touch with Jive, I’ll try to work on making it happen in my everyday existence.

An even more obscure presence in the world of jazz and hipster-dom is Harry ‘The Hipster’ Gibson. Like my dad, he was Jewish but obsessed with the Black American culture of his time. A masterful boogie-woogie pianist and singer, he had his vocabulary in the extreme Hipster category.

Harry ‘Daddyo’ Gibson’s music and lyrics are frantic, amphetamine-orientated boogie that artists such as Little Richard must have been aware of in their youth. Returning to Slim Gaillard, I hear early 1970s Marc Bolan in his music. So yes, this type of world is never completely gone but mutates into other beings and souls. Life is short, but art lasts forever.