dojiee

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 17:34:22 -0400, George Thompson
<george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:

>HDAS has "Dojee see Dujy" and under Dujy it has the
>definition "heroin", but with a note that the first of its
>citations, "Dooji Woogie" and "King Dooji", song titles by Duke
>Ellington from 1939, seem to mean something else.
>
>Here is a quotation from Mary Lou Williams, Piano-player and
>arranger/composer from Kansas City, referring to the mid 1930s:
>"To top all, it was August and hot as a young girl's dojiee."
>
>Having a dirty mind -- aren't they a delight? -- I suppose there is
>some anatomical reference here.  But maybe not.
>Can there be a connection with the "dogie" of cowboy songs?
>
>This is from Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix, Kansas City Jazz: From
>Ragtime to Bebop -- A History, N. Y., &c.: Oxford U. Pr., 2005, p. 69,
>quoting an interview with Williams published in Max Jones, Talking
>Jazz, 1988, p. 184.

The interview originally appeared in Melody Maker, April-June 1954:

http://www.ratical.org/MaryLouWilliams/MMiview1954.html

In that transcription, the word is "doojie", which certainly makes more
sense than "dojiee".

Hans-Joachim Schmidt's site on Duke Ellington has an entry on "Dooji
Wooji" that mentions the HDAS def. for "duji", the Mary Lou Williams
quote, and another quote from Quincy Jones:

-----
http://themenschmidt.de/tunesdg.htm
The Autobiography of Quincy Jones p. 104 may help: "... Dinah said: 'You
know what, Mr. Green-ass Grasshopper? In case you forgot, I got your li'l
ass drunk last night and we did the doogie three times.' "
-----


--Ben Zimmer