Flip your cap over this swinging sample of slang from America's finest jazzmen

Jazzmen had their own lexicon, reflecting their views on music, life and fellow artists. The musicians never used it with the public, and even if the fans heard it, they wouldn't have understood it. What was the point? The secret language allowed artists to speak for their audience without them hearing, just as immigrant parents used Yiddish, Polish, or Italian to keep things from their English-speaking children. Or kids use pig Latin, and jive, to keep things from parents.

Their word book encouraged intimacy even as it provided secrecy. It was a shorthand for understanding their world, as we can see from this sample:

Alligator: listener (sometimes a white jazzman trying to learn – or steal – from black people).

BBQ, canary, and dove: slang for a woman;

Blow my top, flip my cap, and my failure: expressions that make it clear that you had enjoyed yourself.

Bug disease: Ellington's term for letting the annoyances of everyday life bother you, which he tried hard not to.

Man with butter and egg: a small moment big shot;

Chili Bandits: girls who chased musicians;

Crow Jim: anti-white bigotry, as distinct from Jim Crow racism.

Cutting Competition: a battle of pianists or bands to see who shined the most.

Fear: musicians turned the term, from its previous meaning of frustrated to in-the-groove.

Galilee: the way African Americans in the North referred to the South they had left behind.

Gray: Basie's word for white people. Black people were Oxford Grey the oxen?

Headscarf: close relationship with an uncle Tom.

Drink head: a drunkard, while a dipsia he was a drunk looking for sex, but you could count on one 100-proof type;

Moldy figs: The disparaging way up-and-coming players referred to the old guard.

Theft light: soft swing, while grand theft it was the opposite and intestinal tract he was swinging at the Blues.

Ugly guys: people who were as unwelcome as an undertaker at a wedding morning.

Ofi: a not-so-affectionate way black people referred to white people.

Physic: a laxative that, like most, Louis pronounced with an accent that suggested Brooklyn as much as his native New Orleans.

Potville: the name given to the deadliest burger where the only thing you had to do was get drunk or smoke, preferably hand-wrapped in lard bomber;

Race man (or woman): the opposite of an Uncle Tom, which had become a verb, tomming;

Sandman: much like a handkerchief, though it was all right, the Count advised, to “do a bit of scrubbing to get next to a chick.”

Taking a Boston: another way to say swing;

Snakes: people like Louis who smoked gage, tea, mota, muggles, weed, reefer, or what he called simply some of that good shit;

Whaling: Louis' shorthand for sex, which he talked about almost as often as he did it.

Jesus no boss and slaughterer: Terms used by Armstrong to escape the police or bigots.

Nicknames were almost as common as coined vocabulary for jazzmen and women, including:

Edward Kennedy Ellington: Governor, Guv'nor, Guvvy, the Duke of Hot, Maestro, the Joe Louis of Song Champions, Fatso, Monster, Tubby, Phony, Stinkpot, Apple Dumpling, Dumpy, Dump, Puddin', Head Knocker, Sandhead, The Artful Dodger and, more often and more simply, the Duke.

William James Basie: Willie, Billy, Chief, Holy Man, Jump King of Swing, Daddy Basie, Base Man, Bateman, Base, Tink-a-Tink Man, Mr. Hold-It-Together, Picasso of Jazz, Kansas City Killer, Splank, Splanky and, the one that stuck, Count.

Louis Armstrong: Little Louis, Shadmouth, Dipper, Dippermouth, Gatemouth, Satchelmouth, Boat Nose, Hamock Face, Slow Foot, Rhythm Jaws, Sackface, Henpeck, Brass (or Iron) Lips, Laughin' Louie, Fats Armstrong, Ambassador Satch, Louie, Mighty Satch , Uncle Satchmo, Satchee-mo and, the most famous sobriquet in song, Satchmo. As for who Louis liked best, he said: “Call me anything. Just don't call me too late for dinner!”.

Larry Tye is a New York Times best-selling author and journalist. Of last book, The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie Transformed America, looks at how these three maestros wrote the soundtrack to the civil rights revolution. Out now at HarperCollins.