Salve!,

[Luciano]

Ciao,

I didn't know that Denzil Best had "Bimshire" as a nickname (in slang it seems to mean Barbardos where his family came from) from which the title of the song "Bemsha Swing" originally came from, it seems.

Can anyone verify this information?

Edited December 7, 2024 by Luciano

[JSngry]

Interesting if true!

What is your source?

[jazztrain]

There’s this:  https://www.kuvo.org/bemsha-swing-stories-of-standards/#:~:text=Thelonious Monk and Denzil Best,where Denzil Best's family originated.

 

I figured that there was probably some information about this in Robin D.G. Kelley's Thelonious Monk - The Life and Times of an American Original.  There is.

In Robin Kelley's Monk biography, Kelley states that the correct title is "Bimsha Swing" and that "both [Denzil] Best and fellow Barbadian Gary Mapp understood the meaning -- Bimshire was the Phonetic pronunciation of "Bimshire," and Barbados's nickname was "Little Bimshire."

Edited December 7, 2024 by jazztrain

[JSngry]

Cool, thanks!