AZZ LEXICON

There is an interesting introductory essay by Mr. Gold on jazz jargon, which, like the music itself, is a language of protest --which often has no identifiable origins -- and which is an amalgam of Negro folk expressions and the imagery of urban, or underworld, life. Some of it is eccentrically ephemeral; some of it seeps into the popular parlance and in its more widespread applicability and acceptance may endure. The lexicon itself, a work of considerable enterprise, gives fairly extensive coverage of each word, its probable derivation and usage, with definitions and examples from all kinds of magazine (Metronome: Evergreen Review; Down Beat; etc. etc.) to book (Naked Lunch; The Horn; etc. etc.) literature.... For those who want to collar the swing, or be hip, or get with it, --or- just look it up.