Bill Milkowski, Swing It!: An Annotated History of Jive

Bill Milkowski, Swing It!: An Annotated History of Jive - Milkowski's the heppist, most swingin' cat,

Filling his pages with that jazz scat.

He's no Icky,

Hip to the square,

A lover of jive,

In the heart he bares.

A digger of Cab, Gaillard,

Roy 'n' Gatemouth Browns,

The Jet Set Six and The Yalloppin' Hounds.

Dr. John, Dorsey, Longhair too,

Ella, Pops and Ernie K-Doe.

All their stories Bill puts down,

From the day of their coming,

'Til theys calling off all bets,

an' goin' down Marble Town.

These cats beat it out and broke it up,

getting their kicks,

and saving on cups.

The Pres got hung up on pour man juices,

Not alone in the way of his ills,

Guzzlin' foam wi' the last of his deuces,

Scoffing fishheads and scrambling for the gills.

Bill's been laying down some heavy Armstrongs,

Only mop-shi-lu over too little Rap load.

You can tell that to a one-legged man,

so he can bump it off down the road.

This read's all city, na Icky,

by the blue-eyed soul brother,

He's the jazz man in the main.

Here comes the man again.

Here comes the man again.

Out-a-sight.

I'm hippin' you man,

pick up the book,

and dip and dive on this mess o' jive

Now I gotta cut out.