Antedating of "Hepcat"

Hugo hugovk at GMAIL.COM
Mon Mar 18 21:04:59 UTC 2013


> books.google.com/books?id=0oRUAAAAYAAJ
> The Virginia spectator - Volume 1 - Page 150
> University of Virginia - _September, 1937_ - Snippet view - More editions
> (In the jargon of the musical world, a _hep cat_ is one who is in the
> KNOW, and knows he is in the KNOW; an icky was described at length in
> the last issue of " Canned Swing").

And the preceding sentence:

> ... for it is ertain that they greatly outnumbered the "hep cats" and
musicians who did the sensible polling.

I found the same snippet, but it's really from 1938. Searching for years
gives:

"7 pages matching *1936* in this book"
Page 53: Letters dated 1935 and 1936
Page 61: "...from the better known periodicals of 1936."
Page 89: "...from 1931 through 1936 Virginia had won 28..."
"44 pages matching *1937* in this book"
Page 61: A review of a book called _The Best Short Stories, 1937_
"38 pages matching *1938* in this book"
Page 85: In memoriam... 1935-1938
Page 150: [nothing shown, but the same page as the hep quote]
Page 200: Three letters dated March and April 1938
"1 page matching *1939* in this book"
Page 91:"... but will bar from 1939 competition all Sophomores ...."

Suggesting 1937 has already passed by page 61; 1939 is yet to happen by
page 91; 1938 still in progress by page 200.

The Virginia Spectator had a different name before 1937; 1937 was it's
first volume by this name. Hathi Trust only has it up to 1922.
http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009784057

But, back to the "hep cat" snippet itself. The right hand column
mentions a "Let's
Play Fair" number written by Edgar Leslie and Joe Burke. "Let's Play Fair"
was a nightclub show that opened January 18, 1938.
http://keepingscore.x10.mx/let'splayfair.html

The right hand column text can be excavated to reveal:

"Martha Raye, George Burns and Gracie[?] Allen go collegiate in this new
Paramount film, "College Swing." I Fall in Love with You Every Day is a
medium tempo melody tune by Frank Loesser and Manning Sherwin. A fine
number, but we go for the Loesser-Lane song on the "B" side. Larry Clinton
reduces the tempo a little, the band loosens up and some swell swing
results."

College Swing and I Fall In Love With You Every Day are from 1938.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030002/
http://www.library.unh.edu/special/index.php/sulloway/series-iv-ik

What's more, by finding the above sentence, we can also get the preceding
snippet:
http://books.google.com/books?id=0oRUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA150-IA10&img=1&pgis=1&dq=%22Day+is+a+medium+tempo+melody+tune%22&sig=ACfU3U2qWJot_H6r9ESyq2KbTCoEfclVIw&edge=0

Which on the left hand side gives us the start of the "hep cat" article,
including:

"That Down Beat contest which was conducted during the last two months of
1937 showed some very interesting facts. The editors of the contest hoped
to ascertain who the best musicians, orchestras, and vocalists were in the
year of 1937."

cheers,

Hugo

PS. I once contacted Google via their web form about some a Full View
"book" which was really more than one book, and to my surprise they
replied that
they would fix it. The second time I found one, to my surprise they replied
that as they weren't selling it as an ebook they were therefore going to
leave the broken books and bad metadata intact.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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