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Title: Really the Blues by Bernard Wolfe, Mezz Mezzrow ISBN: 0-8065-1205-9 Publisher: Citadel Trade Pub. Date: April, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.88 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Mezzrow Swings!
Comment: Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow was a white jewish kid who was born in Chicago in 1899. In his late teens he discovered the jazz music that was being played around the south side of Chicago in those days. "Mezz" fell in love with the sound of early jazz and with the excitement of the music scene. Chicago was a jazz center then, and Mezzrow heard many of the great pioneers of the music including Freddie Keppard, Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong and many others. Soon he bought a clarinet and began trying to play like his heroes.
The club owners who employed Mezzrow were prohibition era gangsters including Al Capone. The gangsters were interesting louts. Capone once wanted Mezzrow to fire a girl singer who was developing a romantic relationship with Capone's younger brother. Capone said, "she can't sing anyway." Mezzrow was so upset that he told Capone, "why, you couldn't even tell good whisky if you smelled it and that's your racket, so how do you figure to tell me about music." (sic) Feisty!
Mezzrow wrote this book in 1946, and he uses 20's era slang to tell his story. This is as groovie as a 10 cent movie, jack. It's also fun.
Mezzrow's maniacal enthusiasm for early jazz is endearing. Not many people who were actually present at the time considered jazz music to be important enough to write books about. Part of Mezzrow's purpose is to convince the reader that jazz music is important. One of the earlier reviewers compares Mezzrow's book unfavorably to Louis Armstrong's autobiography, Satchmo. Armstong's book is good, but Mezzrow's book is more honest than Armstrong's. Armstrong was born into dire poverty. His mother may have been a prostitute, and he was placed in an orphanage at an early age. His book cleans up the criminals and murders in his story so that they are merely "colorful characters", and he leaves out as much unpleasantness as possible. Mezzrow tells more of the whole story. He candidly discusses his drug experiences, and his jail sentences as well as his happier times.
An added bonus to this book is that Mezzrow leaves out all that boring background information that plauges other books, like who his grand parents were and what his childhood was like. Mezzrow's book starts right off with his discovery of music in Pontiac reform school.
If you like this book, or Louis Armstong's book, another good book by an early jazz musician is Jelly Roll Morton's book, Mr. Jelly Roll.
Rating: 4
Summary: The ultimate wannabe?
Comment: This is quite a yarn. I leave it to others to debate Mezzrow's place in jazz history. I found it interesting as a social study. Tales of 1920s gangsters and prohibition, the Chicago and Harlem music scene, and race relations. Of course, it's not always clear how much of this is true and how much may be a product of Mezzrow's (or Wolfe's) desire to make the story better.
For me, Mezzrow came across as the ultimate wannabe. He wanted to be a black jazz musician from New Orleans. He was a Russian Jew, born in Chicago. He lived the life, the music *was* his life (except when opium was his life), but he could never fully be what he wasn't.
Compare, for example, Louis Armstrong's autobiography "Satchmo." Armstrong matter-of-factly tells about his life, not wanting it to be anything else. Mezzrow is always trying to be something he isn't and never can be. He was an interesting character.
It's a good read.
Rating: 5
Summary: jazz...jail...god...
Comment: the hippest trip around...this book will grab you by the soul and spin you around. reading it changed my life.
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Title: We Called It Music: A Generation of Jazz by Eddie Condon, Thomas Sugrue, Gary Giddins ISBN: 0306804662 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: April, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and "Inventor of Jazz" by Alan Lomax, Dacid Stone Martin, Lawrence Gushee, David Stone Martin ISBN: 0520225309 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 05 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Blues People : Negro Music in White America by Leroi Jones ISBN: 068818474X Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 03 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West by Phil Pastras, Philip Pastras ISBN: 0520236874 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 06 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Treat It Gentle: An Autobiography by Sidney Bechet ISBN: 0306811081 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: 05 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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