Jazzmen had their own lexicon, reflecting their takes on music, life, and fellow artists. The musicians never used it with the public, and even if fans overheard, they would not have understood. Which was the point. The secret language allowed performers to talk about their audience without it overhearing, the way immigrant parents used Yiddish, Polish, or Italian to keep things from their English-speaking children. Or children use pig Latin, and jive, to keep things from parents.
Their wordbook fostered intimacy even as it conferred secrecy. It was a shorthand for making sense of their world, as we can…
