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Really the Blues
The story of Milton Mezzrow—a white kid who fell in love with black culture. First published in 1946, Really the Blues was a rousing wake-up call to alienated young whites to explore the world of jazz, the first music America could call its own. Told in the jive lingo of the underground's inner circle, this classic is an unforgettable chronicle of street life, smoky clubs, and roadhouse dances.
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First published January 1, 1946
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December 4, 2017
"Really The Blues" demonstrates how it's good to have something to do.
Talk about alternative paths. Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow blazed one through the jungle of conformity, "went black," lost time to drugs, fomented early 20th century jazz, became too familiar with jail, but remained focused on a vision.
Were it not for the journey New Orleans jazz made up the Mississippi to Chicago in the early paces of the 20th century, Milton Mezzrow would have had, like all of us, a story to tell, but no audience.
His story stands on three sturdy and utterly novel legs.
One was a total adhesion to all things African-American, or Negro, as they said in his day. A second was the aforementioned passion for a very specific jazz that came up out of the Crescent City and got amplified by his friend, Louis "Pops" Armstrong. The third was a commitment to the manifold virtues of marijuana or, as he alternately referred to it: golden leaf, gauge, muta, and -- highwayscribery's favorite -- muggles.
Tee-hee.
Raised on Chicago's south side, "Mezz" landed in jail early. More stupid than criminal, his interest in the clarinet and saxophone kept the young Jewish jailbird on the up-and-up; focused and ennobled his misbegotten adventures.
His story really takes form upon moving to New York with Gene Krupa and a tiara of future jazz-era jewels in an attempt at storming the music industry's gates with their hot new toy.
Settling in Harlem, establishing his base at the intersection of 133rd Street and Seventh Ave., Mezzrow became the "white mayor," the "link between the races," ambassador for muggles, purveyor and recorder of a unique argot -- the poetry of the proletariat -- "jive."
The Mezz was an influential fellow in his moment and this jive the dominant tongue at the intersection of Cool Street and Downbeat Avenue.
"Really the Blues," came out when Jack Kerouac was digging the music Mezz expounds upon, and it's no fantasy to surmise that the beat poet's jazz-infused prose are not heavily influenced by this book and the way it is told.
We're suggesting, without a hint of accusation, that Kerouac borrowed heavily from, or at least riffed on, the Mezzrow's mostly forgotten text. It's called research and is born of the writer's anthropological duty.
Colorful or operatic, Mezzrow's life was rarely easy, but he kept blowing horns, in and out of jail, searching for a soul-state firmly rooted in his beloved New Orleans jazz.
An uncompromising commitment to the style finally bore fruit in his savoring of Sidney Bechet's "Blues of Bechet" and "The Sheik of Araby."
He describes the epiphany thusly:
"It meant: Life gets neurotic and bestial when people can't be at peace with each other, say amen to each other, chime in with each other's feeling and personality; and if discord is going to rule the world, with each guy at the next guy's throat, all harmony gone -- why, the only thing for a man to do, if he wants to survive, if he won't get evil like all the other beasts in the jungle, is to make that harmony inside himself, be at peace with himself, unify his own insides while the snarling world gets pulverized."
The next natural and positive step for Mezzrow was to team-up with Bechet.
In a publication called "The Record Changer," reviewer Ernest Bornemen said that these tracks, "went back beyond Louis and beyond Bunk Johnson and beyond Buddy Bolden, to the very roots of music, to the cane and the rice and the indigo and the worksongs and the slave ships and the dance music of the inland Ashanti and the canoe songs of the Wolof and Mandingo along the Senegal River."
The review represented Mezz's crowning moment. Not as a professional poo-bah, but as proof that he had reached an important milestone in his musically inspired drive for spiritual wholeness.
Mezzrow closes his tale by relating how writer Bernard Wolfe convinced him to cough-up an autobiography. Wolfe's words best describe what's on tap in "Really the Blues."
"Not very many people have gotten a good look at their country from that bottom-of-the-pit angle before, seen the slimy underside of the rock. It's a chunk of Americana, as they say, and should get written. It's a real American success story, upside down: Horatio Alger standing on his head.
"In a real sense, Mezz, your story is the plight of the creative artist in the USA. -- to borrow a phrase from Henry Miller...It's the odyssey of an individualist, through a land where the population is manufactured by the system of interchangeable parts. It's the saga of a guy who wanted to make friends, in a jungle where everybody was too busy making money and dodging his own shadow."
Mission accomplished, Milton.
Talk about alternative paths. Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow blazed one through the jungle of conformity, "went black," lost time to drugs, fomented early 20th century jazz, became too familiar with jail, but remained focused on a vision.
Were it not for the journey New Orleans jazz made up the Mississippi to Chicago in the early paces of the 20th century, Milton Mezzrow would have had, like all of us, a story to tell, but no audience.
His story stands on three sturdy and utterly novel legs.
One was a total adhesion to all things African-American, or Negro, as they said in his day. A second was the aforementioned passion for a very specific jazz that came up out of the Crescent City and got amplified by his friend, Louis "Pops" Armstrong. The third was a commitment to the manifold virtues of marijuana or, as he alternately referred to it: golden leaf, gauge, muta, and -- highwayscribery's favorite -- muggles.
Tee-hee.
Raised on Chicago's south side, "Mezz" landed in jail early. More stupid than criminal, his interest in the clarinet and saxophone kept the young Jewish jailbird on the up-and-up; focused and ennobled his misbegotten adventures.
His story really takes form upon moving to New York with Gene Krupa and a tiara of future jazz-era jewels in an attempt at storming the music industry's gates with their hot new toy.
Settling in Harlem, establishing his base at the intersection of 133rd Street and Seventh Ave., Mezzrow became the "white mayor," the "link between the races," ambassador for muggles, purveyor and recorder of a unique argot -- the poetry of the proletariat -- "jive."
The Mezz was an influential fellow in his moment and this jive the dominant tongue at the intersection of Cool Street and Downbeat Avenue.
"Really the Blues," came out when Jack Kerouac was digging the music Mezz expounds upon, and it's no fantasy to surmise that the beat poet's jazz-infused prose are not heavily influenced by this book and the way it is told.
We're suggesting, without a hint of accusation, that Kerouac borrowed heavily from, or at least riffed on, the Mezzrow's mostly forgotten text. It's called research and is born of the writer's anthropological duty.
Colorful or operatic, Mezzrow's life was rarely easy, but he kept blowing horns, in and out of jail, searching for a soul-state firmly rooted in his beloved New Orleans jazz.
An uncompromising commitment to the style finally bore fruit in his savoring of Sidney Bechet's "Blues of Bechet" and "The Sheik of Araby."
He describes the epiphany thusly:
"It meant: Life gets neurotic and bestial when people can't be at peace with each other, say amen to each other, chime in with each other's feeling and personality; and if discord is going to rule the world, with each guy at the next guy's throat, all harmony gone -- why, the only thing for a man to do, if he wants to survive, if he won't get evil like all the other beasts in the jungle, is to make that harmony inside himself, be at peace with himself, unify his own insides while the snarling world gets pulverized."
The next natural and positive step for Mezzrow was to team-up with Bechet.
In a publication called "The Record Changer," reviewer Ernest Bornemen said that these tracks, "went back beyond Louis and beyond Bunk Johnson and beyond Buddy Bolden, to the very roots of music, to the cane and the rice and the indigo and the worksongs and the slave ships and the dance music of the inland Ashanti and the canoe songs of the Wolof and Mandingo along the Senegal River."
The review represented Mezz's crowning moment. Not as a professional poo-bah, but as proof that he had reached an important milestone in his musically inspired drive for spiritual wholeness.
Mezzrow closes his tale by relating how writer Bernard Wolfe convinced him to cough-up an autobiography. Wolfe's words best describe what's on tap in "Really the Blues."
"Not very many people have gotten a good look at their country from that bottom-of-the-pit angle before, seen the slimy underside of the rock. It's a chunk of Americana, as they say, and should get written. It's a real American success story, upside down: Horatio Alger standing on his head.
"In a real sense, Mezz, your story is the plight of the creative artist in the USA. -- to borrow a phrase from Henry Miller...It's the odyssey of an individualist, through a land where the population is manufactured by the system of interchangeable parts. It's the saga of a guy who wanted to make friends, in a jungle where everybody was too busy making money and dodging his own shadow."
Mission accomplished, Milton.
May 25, 2013
This is my favorite book, ever. Huge, major, innsabely big influence on my life and world view.
As I write this, I am beginning to get more than just a little wig fried out by the fact that he and I have had some very similar lives.
- We both discovered a music that changed our lives.
-We hve both devoted most of our lives toward promoting and playing what we consider to be "the real stuff."
Mezzrow and myself have both experienced the horrors of drug addiction.
We both sing the praises of Marijuana, and it's potential for improving mental health and creativity.
Mr. Mezzrow and myself share the same story telling abilities.
He was The original hipster. The jive dictionary alone is worth getting this one for.
As I write this, I am beginning to get more than just a little wig fried out by the fact that he and I have had some very similar lives.
- We both discovered a music that changed our lives.
-We hve both devoted most of our lives toward promoting and playing what we consider to be "the real stuff."
Mezzrow and myself have both experienced the horrors of drug addiction.
We both sing the praises of Marijuana, and it's potential for improving mental health and creativity.
Mr. Mezzrow and myself share the same story telling abilities.
He was The original hipster. The jive dictionary alone is worth getting this one for.
August 14, 2011
Really the Blues is the story of Milton Mesirow, a Jewish kid from Chicago possessed by jazz and black culture, as told to Bernard Wolfe. With its hip jive-talk and descriptions of clubs, dens and prisons, it captures an important time and place in American music. I could’ve used an introduction that offered context and, as a piece, the book was a little long (and Mezz kind of a self-promoter). I loved best his experiences in my home town of Chicago, his observant descriptions of musicians, and the details that speak for the era (how kids on street corners carried white handkerchiefs and mimicked Louis Armstrong’s stance).
March 8, 2017
REALLY THE BLUES is the story of Mezz Mezzrow, one of the first hipsters, white negroes, cultural appropriators, whatever they’re calling it nowadays. A Jewish ghetto snipe from Chicago, he was introduced to dixieland jazz on a stint in prison as a boy and never looked back. Though a decent clarinet player and professional musician of some renown, he’s more infamous as a pot dealer, and the book can be read as a love poem to getting stoned. But it’s also a lexicon of hip slang of the time, the development of early jazz and championing the plight of black Americans. By the end of the book, Mezz has basically transitioned to a black man, or at least the prison categorizes him as one and holds him in a cellblock for black prisoners (Mezz is in and out of jail a lot). He marries a black woman and lives in Harlem and goes out of his way to illustrate how fully he was accepted by other blacks as one of their own. At the end of the book there are several appendixes on the music and the slang, but most interesting is by Mezz’s co-writer, the sci-fi scribe Bernard Wolfe, who explores the concept of where negrophilia and negrophobia meet.
November 7, 2018
The way-too-fun story of a white Jewish kid from Chicago who became ensconced in the nascent jazz scene (Dixie-sish, or anything pre-hard bop) in Chicago, New York, and Paris during the 20s and 30s, and who later came to identify himself as African-American.
As you can see, there's a lot of appeal here. Me, I read it mostly because of the music. Mezz, a mediocre hornblower at best, did perform with and helped bring together a lot of New Orleans-sound bands and musicians, so he was kind of an instrumental pivotal player through the scene while being a bit player instrumentally. He knew Bix Beiderbecke, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong and helped bring together some of the first mixed jazz bands during Jim Crow's heyday. He also sold pot in Harlem (and got served up to Riker's for it where he said he was "colored" to get into that wing of the prison), was an opium addict, and was involved in any number of criminal shenanigans so his memoir has all that going for him.
For a white Jewish kid from Chicago, Mezz has some startling insight into black culture and what he sees as black psychological superiority over the neurotic white America he is a part of himself.
As you can see, there's a lot of appeal here. Me, I read it mostly because of the music. Mezz, a mediocre hornblower at best, did perform with and helped bring together a lot of New Orleans-sound bands and musicians, so he was kind of an instrumental pivotal player through the scene while being a bit player instrumentally. He knew Bix Beiderbecke, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong and helped bring together some of the first mixed jazz bands during Jim Crow's heyday. He also sold pot in Harlem (and got served up to Riker's for it where he said he was "colored" to get into that wing of the prison), was an opium addict, and was involved in any number of criminal shenanigans so his memoir has all that going for him.
For a white Jewish kid from Chicago, Mezz has some startling insight into black culture and what he sees as black psychological superiority over the neurotic white America he is a part of himself.
August 1, 2008
Great book- wonderful historical insight and great tales- even though most of it probably isn't true!
August 6, 2010
Gotta love Mezz. A true character from the earlier days of jazz. It's a very enjoyable and entertaining book. Mezz was around when it all happened and made some records with many jazz greats of the era - but truth be told - he was there mainly as a source of marijuana to musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet, etc. They tolerated his playing and he kept them high. Many of the older musicians got a kick out of this book,but viewed it as an attempt at self promotion. With all that just read between the lines and enjoy it. Mezz was one of a kind.
August 5, 2016
Could've been a great book instead of a good one. I suspect the best bits are Wolfe's. Mezzrow spends much of his time convincing the reader that he's the link between races, which leads me to believe that he's full of shit on all accounts. He's obviously schooled in the New Orleans jazz idiom, as evinced by the appendices, but the hip ofay jabs grow more and more tiresome as the pages pass. At half its length, this would've been a potent read.
September 20, 2024
i really enjoyed this even tho it took me forever (some parts were mad boring). as a lover of blues and jazz it was fun to hear stories from when it was at its height from someone who was a prominent feature in it (although he’s lowkey problematic)
May 15, 2014
The Blues Backstory
This review is from: Really The Blues (Paperback)
This is Mezzrow's own account of his early life, musical influences, bands he played with and led, and the development of blues/jazz from his involvement in the early days. Mezzrow represents a huge gap in my knowledge of the development of jazz and blues.
Mezzrow was a Polish-American Jew who became fascinated with the creative sounds arising out of the Southern black cultural music we know as blues, now loved around the world. He moved in the black circles, culturally and musically, in a time when social segregation drew high walls around the rich sub-culture and tried to discount and discourage acceptance of the black music influences in the early 20th century.
This is an excellent first-hand introduction to jazz as it was developing from Dixieland New Orleans and the Chicago off-shoot that developed under Mezzrow's influence. He recounts how common terms related to music, jazz and jive culture of the 1920s-30s developed. Mezzrow is honest about the hold drugs got on the developing music industry for the inner-city crime syndicates of Chicago.
Mezzrow was the person who mentored Gene Krupa and other jazz greats. He was a good friend of Louis Armstrong, and in 1931 was hired by Louis as his musical director for recording sessions. Mezzrow organized a top studio band for Armstrong's national live radio show. He engaged Alex Hill, the top black arranger, as the arranger and leader for the new band he organized. This broke another barrier in society and music.
Alex was able to develop big band arrangements, but maintain the style and format of the original New Orleans-Chicago format Louis was known for and Mezzrow as committed to promote. He details the movement of big-band jazz away for the original improvisation and small-group synthesis that combined composition and performance.
This was an exciting and rewarding saga of the seamy as well as the glorious side of American music in the 20th century. Thanks for Barnes and Noble for their attention to classics of culture and history, in this series "Barnes and Noble Rediscovers."
This review is from: Really The Blues (Paperback)
This is Mezzrow's own account of his early life, musical influences, bands he played with and led, and the development of blues/jazz from his involvement in the early days. Mezzrow represents a huge gap in my knowledge of the development of jazz and blues.
Mezzrow was a Polish-American Jew who became fascinated with the creative sounds arising out of the Southern black cultural music we know as blues, now loved around the world. He moved in the black circles, culturally and musically, in a time when social segregation drew high walls around the rich sub-culture and tried to discount and discourage acceptance of the black music influences in the early 20th century.
This is an excellent first-hand introduction to jazz as it was developing from Dixieland New Orleans and the Chicago off-shoot that developed under Mezzrow's influence. He recounts how common terms related to music, jazz and jive culture of the 1920s-30s developed. Mezzrow is honest about the hold drugs got on the developing music industry for the inner-city crime syndicates of Chicago.
Mezzrow was the person who mentored Gene Krupa and other jazz greats. He was a good friend of Louis Armstrong, and in 1931 was hired by Louis as his musical director for recording sessions. Mezzrow organized a top studio band for Armstrong's national live radio show. He engaged Alex Hill, the top black arranger, as the arranger and leader for the new band he organized. This broke another barrier in society and music.
Alex was able to develop big band arrangements, but maintain the style and format of the original New Orleans-Chicago format Louis was known for and Mezzrow as committed to promote. He details the movement of big-band jazz away for the original improvisation and small-group synthesis that combined composition and performance.
This was an exciting and rewarding saga of the seamy as well as the glorious side of American music in the 20th century. Thanks for Barnes and Noble for their attention to classics of culture and history, in this series "Barnes and Noble Rediscovers."
April 20, 2008
for thesis research...
Published in the late 1940s, this book had to be a huge influence on the Beat Generation writers - and yet, that comes as a surprise because who's heard of this man or his book? Presented here is the life of Mezz Mezzrow - "the guy, behind the guy" in the Jazz world. Drug addict, drug pusher, and good friends with - and musical director of - Louis Armstrong, Mezz tells the story behind the scenes of the jazz explosion of the 20s and beyond. Written in Harlem vernacular, you don't need to understand jive to dig his story, you can simply dig the language itself; however, if you're not a jazz aficionado, the many people/musicians Mezz writes about will be completely foreign and seem somewhat insignificant to the plot-line - but how can one equate one's life with a plot-line anyway? All in all, a good document of the counterculture of the 20s.
Published in the late 1940s, this book had to be a huge influence on the Beat Generation writers - and yet, that comes as a surprise because who's heard of this man or his book? Presented here is the life of Mezz Mezzrow - "the guy, behind the guy" in the Jazz world. Drug addict, drug pusher, and good friends with - and musical director of - Louis Armstrong, Mezz tells the story behind the scenes of the jazz explosion of the 20s and beyond. Written in Harlem vernacular, you don't need to understand jive to dig his story, you can simply dig the language itself; however, if you're not a jazz aficionado, the many people/musicians Mezz writes about will be completely foreign and seem somewhat insignificant to the plot-line - but how can one equate one's life with a plot-line anyway? All in all, a good document of the counterculture of the 20s.
Read
May 16, 2018The story of a Chicago Jew who became enamored with that old New Orleans style jazz and the African American culture which created it, and ended up playing a fascinating role (assuming you believe this autobiography, which my googling seemed to more or less confirm) in spreading and popularizing jazz music throughout America and the world, when he wasn’t dodging the Purple Gang in Detroit during prohibition, selling marijuana to Louis Armstrong, or being an opium addict. True or false, this book was a heaping shitload of fun, with pages of entertaining anecdotes about jazz greats and an absolutely fabulous overview of century-old slang. Good on NYRB for re-issuing it.
July 8, 2013
If you want to learn about jazz, but also want an entertaining and vibrant look at the era, this is the book.
I read this as a teenager when I asked my Dad what book I should read to learn about jazz. Without a fraction of a second of hesitation, he said "Really The Blues" by Mezz Mezzrow.
Name the figure you want to learn about from the truly gritty and heady part of the jazz scene. Now go pick this up and read it.
Opening line: "Music school? Are you kidding? I learned how to play sax in Pontiac Reformatory."
I read this as a teenager when I asked my Dad what book I should read to learn about jazz. Without a fraction of a second of hesitation, he said "Really The Blues" by Mezz Mezzrow.
Name the figure you want to learn about from the truly gritty and heady part of the jazz scene. Now go pick this up and read it.
Opening line: "Music school? Are you kidding? I learned how to play sax in Pontiac Reformatory."
April 17, 2011
Damn this Mezz is hip. This is his life story and it's full of funny stories, characters and a commitment to spreading the gospel of jazz and blues. He hung out with some heavy hitters including Louie Armstrong, Al Capone, James P Johnson and became a fixture in Harlem. Pretty cool and unique for a white guy in the 1st half of the 20th century. His dedication to jazz and writing this book actually did change the world.
June 18, 2013
Malgré que ce soit tiré par les cheveux de temps en temps, ce livre porte malheureusement bien son titre français un peu ringard, "La rage de vivre". Magnifique portrait du Chicago south-side et du Harlem des années 20-40, au travers de la passion d'un juif blanc pour la culture noire. On y croise Bix Biederbecke, Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, Sidney Bechet, et de magnifiques compagnons de prison. À recommander aux fans de New Orleans et aux fervents d'Henry Miller.
July 17, 2011
A rare historical document of the blues musician during its golden age. Mezz grew up in the streets during the '20s and he describes life as a musician isn't a bed of roses. In addition to the musical history lesson, this book is peppered with the hip lingo that cool jazz cats used back in the day.
May 2, 2018
The incredible story of Mezzrow. At times you can read between the lines and hear Bernard Wolfe but Mezz and his sense of humor and love for the blues are always there. On meeting Wolfe he suggests that the writer is a masochist for wanting to write down his story!
September 9, 2008
One of my favorite books of all time!
July 31, 2009
Formed my character.
July 26, 2012
Perhaps the greatest book about music ever.
August 1, 2016
I found this little beauty (an Anchor pocketbook from the '70's) winking at me from our Goodwill donation box, and mentally castigated one of my co-workers for not putting it on the shelf, while eagerly scooping it up. After gingerly reading about a quarter of the way through, the spine almost literally blew up: I wound up duct-taping portions of the book together so I could finish reading it. So it took me a while to read.
The book itself is everything I expected it to be: hip, cool, self-aggrandizing, a pleasure to read. Mezz was the King of the Moldy Figs: no form of music had any validity at all unless it was based in New Orleans jazz idiom. I can only imagine what he had to say about be-bop (although I suppose that's what he means when, late in the book, he disparagingly references something he calls "rip-bop"). He could certainly write entertainingly about life on the edges:
"An entertainer, one of the girls who did a couple of vocals and specialized in a suggestive dance routine, was having a ball all to herself. She had cut loose from her partner and was throwing herself around like a snake with the hives. The rhythm really had this queen; her eyes almost jumped out of their sockets and the cords in her neck stood out stiff like ropes. What she was doing with the rest of her anatomy isn't discussed in mixed company...
Then with one flying leap she sailed up on the bandstand, pulled her dress up to her neck, and began to dance. I don't know if dance is the right word for what she did - she didn't move her feet hardly at all, although she moved practically everything else. She went through her whole routine, bumps and grinds and shakes and breaks, making up new twists as she went along, and I do mean twists. A bandstand was sure the wrong place to do what she was trying to do that night. All the time she kept screaming, 'Cut it out! It's murder!' but her body wasn't saying no."
After a spell in Riker's Island, Mezzrow officially renounced ofay culture, listing himself as a "negro" for the draft board. After the War, he became an ex-pat, living out his life in the south of France, where he was very much appreciated.
"The white man is a spoiled child, and when he gets the blues he goes neurotic...when he's brought down he gets ugly, works himself up into a fighting mood and comes out nasty. He's got the idea that because he feels bad somebody's done him wrong, and he means to take it out on somebody."
The book itself is everything I expected it to be: hip, cool, self-aggrandizing, a pleasure to read. Mezz was the King of the Moldy Figs: no form of music had any validity at all unless it was based in New Orleans jazz idiom. I can only imagine what he had to say about be-bop (although I suppose that's what he means when, late in the book, he disparagingly references something he calls "rip-bop"). He could certainly write entertainingly about life on the edges:
"An entertainer, one of the girls who did a couple of vocals and specialized in a suggestive dance routine, was having a ball all to herself. She had cut loose from her partner and was throwing herself around like a snake with the hives. The rhythm really had this queen; her eyes almost jumped out of their sockets and the cords in her neck stood out stiff like ropes. What she was doing with the rest of her anatomy isn't discussed in mixed company...
Then with one flying leap she sailed up on the bandstand, pulled her dress up to her neck, and began to dance. I don't know if dance is the right word for what she did - she didn't move her feet hardly at all, although she moved practically everything else. She went through her whole routine, bumps and grinds and shakes and breaks, making up new twists as she went along, and I do mean twists. A bandstand was sure the wrong place to do what she was trying to do that night. All the time she kept screaming, 'Cut it out! It's murder!' but her body wasn't saying no."
After a spell in Riker's Island, Mezzrow officially renounced ofay culture, listing himself as a "negro" for the draft board. After the War, he became an ex-pat, living out his life in the south of France, where he was very much appreciated.
"The white man is a spoiled child, and when he gets the blues he goes neurotic...when he's brought down he gets ugly, works himself up into a fighting mood and comes out nasty. He's got the idea that because he feels bad somebody's done him wrong, and he means to take it out on somebody."
February 7, 2019
An excellent book, even though it is definitely a product of its time--it's rife with stereotypes about Black Americans even as it tries to refute them. Nevertheless the book provides keen insights into the early jazz scene of Chicago and New York between 1918 and 1940. Mezzrow's intimate portraits of Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Red McKenzie (who, like Mezzrow, was one of the first "wiggers"), Jimmy Noone, Sidney Bechet, Bessie Smith, Tommy Ladnier, Leon Rappolo, Frank Teschmacher, Al Capone and others are invaluable, if slightly inaccurate.
Mezzrow was very much enamored of the old South Side/New Orleans style of jazz that he heard at the Pekin and other cafes in the late 1910s-early 1920s, and consistently held up that particular brand of jazz as being the truest and most authentic form--disdaining bebop, jump and swing as expressions of the "split, hacked-up personality" when in fact, Mezzrow simply did not understand these forms. As much as he lived and breathed jazz music, he seems to have missed the whole point of what swing and bebop were all about; indeed, he seems to have missed the point of what jazz was about to begin with. Mezzrow never became the master musician he thought he was. In his own words, "We never practice." Meaning, of course, that Mezzrow never practiced his clarinet like he should have; he was too wrapped up in the drug world; he even became an addict himself between 1931 and 1935. The old jazz idiom that he loved in Chicago never really caught on in New York, any more than it caught on in Kansas City or Los Angeles or San Antonio.
Bernard Wolfe's rejoinder to the book, published a few years later and included at the end of the text, pinpoints Mezzrow's love of New Orleans jazz as a love for an antiquated image of the Black American as rhythmic, soulful, down-home and earthy. Wolfe's rejoinder, however, is painted with too broad a brush. I would not think that King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet and Freddie Keppard played music that was intended solely for consumption by prurient whites slumming in South Side Chicago. Even Mezzrow was keen enough to note that Jimmy Noone's Orchestra often played music that was meant only for "colored" ears--and in one of the most revealing passages in "Really the Blues" Mezz Mezzrow records for posterity what is arguably one of the very first known examples of Rap, delivered by alto saxist Joe Poston--in 1928!
Mezzrow was very much enamored of the old South Side/New Orleans style of jazz that he heard at the Pekin and other cafes in the late 1910s-early 1920s, and consistently held up that particular brand of jazz as being the truest and most authentic form--disdaining bebop, jump and swing as expressions of the "split, hacked-up personality" when in fact, Mezzrow simply did not understand these forms. As much as he lived and breathed jazz music, he seems to have missed the whole point of what swing and bebop were all about; indeed, he seems to have missed the point of what jazz was about to begin with. Mezzrow never became the master musician he thought he was. In his own words, "We never practice." Meaning, of course, that Mezzrow never practiced his clarinet like he should have; he was too wrapped up in the drug world; he even became an addict himself between 1931 and 1935. The old jazz idiom that he loved in Chicago never really caught on in New York, any more than it caught on in Kansas City or Los Angeles or San Antonio.
Bernard Wolfe's rejoinder to the book, published a few years later and included at the end of the text, pinpoints Mezzrow's love of New Orleans jazz as a love for an antiquated image of the Black American as rhythmic, soulful, down-home and earthy. Wolfe's rejoinder, however, is painted with too broad a brush. I would not think that King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet and Freddie Keppard played music that was intended solely for consumption by prurient whites slumming in South Side Chicago. Even Mezzrow was keen enough to note that Jimmy Noone's Orchestra often played music that was meant only for "colored" ears--and in one of the most revealing passages in "Really the Blues" Mezz Mezzrow records for posterity what is arguably one of the very first known examples of Rap, delivered by alto saxist Joe Poston--in 1928!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 28, 2023
Really the Blues by Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow (Random House 1946) (927.8) (3439).
I've waited many years to find a copy of this book.
Born in 1899, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow had a lifelong obsession with blues and jazz music. Mezz was a Jewish sax player in Chicago at a time when strict racial segregation was the order of the day. Mezzrow completely rejected the societal strictures against integration; he played and recorded with the most famous stars of his day without regard for the color line. In his heyday in the 1930's and 1940's, Mezzrow was a close friend of the legendary Louis “Pops” Armstrong. Mezz chose to live in Harlem and was one of the first white musicians to completely immerse himself in Black culture. He formed one of the first racially-integrated orchestras.
But Mezzrow is also remembered for a very different reason; Mezz Mezzrow was the original “Viper.” A “viper” in the parlance of the nineteen-thirties jazz world was a cannabis smoker. Mezzrow was the Johnny Appleseed of marijuana. He was known throughout Harlem as the man to see for the best quality herb that had ever been smoked, all for the price of “three reefers for fifty cents.” He eventually served several years in prison for possession of a few of these cigarettes.It's an interesting look at the Jazz Age. As Pops Armstrong used to say when sharing a joint, “Light up and be somebody!”
My rating: 7.25, finished 4/26/20 (3439). I purchased my used PB copy in good condition from Amazon on 12/26/19 for $7.00.
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March 23, 2018
I picked this up after it was mentioned in Diane di Prima's "Memoirs of a Beatnik", which I had read recently. It's a decent read, with a lot of the interest lying in the fact that the author was describing a time when jazz was blossoming, and the language, attitudes, and culture that went with that. The language was probably most interesting to me, all of the slang and such, and the glossary in the back is super helpful. Who knew that before Harry Potter, "muggles" meant marijuana cigarettes! Pretty funny in my opinion!
As for the negative, the overall tone of the writing is braggadocios and filled with name dropping, in a way that started to feel almost "Forrest Gump" like. I mean, Mezzrow hears a piano being played, opens the door, and there is Jelly Roll Morton! He talks back to Al Capone! He unknowingly makes friends with the notorious Purple Gang! It just goes on and on like that, making it feel like fiction, or at least a lot of truth stretching! Oh yes, and he writes quite a bit about what a good jazz musician he is. No humble pie for this guy!
Despite all of that, I did like the read. He really captures the "scene" and true or not, I was glad to pick it up! And I'll never think of muggles in the same way again. :-)
As for the negative, the overall tone of the writing is braggadocios and filled with name dropping, in a way that started to feel almost "Forrest Gump" like. I mean, Mezzrow hears a piano being played, opens the door, and there is Jelly Roll Morton! He talks back to Al Capone! He unknowingly makes friends with the notorious Purple Gang! It just goes on and on like that, making it feel like fiction, or at least a lot of truth stretching! Oh yes, and he writes quite a bit about what a good jazz musician he is. No humble pie for this guy!
Despite all of that, I did like the read. He really captures the "scene" and true or not, I was glad to pick it up! And I'll never think of muggles in the same way again. :-)
January 25, 2010
"Music School? Are you kidding? I learned to play the sax in Pontiac Reformatory." Mezz Mezzrow.
One of the best books about jazz I've ever read. Mezzrow, born in 1899, was a sax and clarinet player, arranger and marijuana dealer who worked with and sold to many of the great early jazz players including Louis Armstrong, Sydney Bechet, Lionel Hampton, Benny Carter and Fats Waller.
A white Jewish kid from Chicago, Mezzrow claims to learned from playing on the street and then honing his skills from his stints in reform schools and prisons where he was allowed to play with the negro inmate bands.
By following Mezz from Chicago to New Orleans, Paris and New York City we not only get to enjoy the story of an unlikely and adventurous life, we are treated to an amazing behind the scenes look at the jazz world that makes this required reading for anyone even mildly interested in jazz or American culture in general.
Really the blues, indeed.
June 8, 2017
I didn't really want to finish this book. It's just so fascinating to get a first hand take on the early days of jazz and Mezzrow is a great (tall) tale spinner. It's such a grimy, messy, lived in, take on the period and yet it's full of utter reverence for the music and a touching (if simplistically naive) love for negro culture. Mezzrow writes of himself as he wants us to perceive him, a white man thoroughly assimilated into negritude and jazz. There are reasons to doubt that as well as nearly everything he writes but the greatest narrators aren't necessarily reliable ones. Ultimately, the emotional truth of Mezzrow the character as he and co-writer Bernard Wolf defined him here has largely eclipsed Mezzrow the historical figure and that's a testament to the considerable strength of their writing.
August 26, 2013
An entertaining and informative 'rave up' that comes across like one, long spoken jazz riff.
The book is an autobiography first released in 1946 about Mezz Mezzrow, a white kid from the north-side of Chicago who not only loved jazz and blues, but felt strongly attracted to the entire Black race. It looked like he might spend his entire life behind bars for pointless and absurd crimes, yet his love of music and the people that made it seemed to offer him hope. At that time in American history, his viewpoints were unthinkable, and Mezz's take on race and music are probably thirty years ahead of their time. The book is chock full of colloquial expressions and 'jive talk' that really makes you feel like you are part of the groundbreaking era at the birth of the modern jazz age.
The book is an autobiography first released in 1946 about Mezz Mezzrow, a white kid from the north-side of Chicago who not only loved jazz and blues, but felt strongly attracted to the entire Black race. It looked like he might spend his entire life behind bars for pointless and absurd crimes, yet his love of music and the people that made it seemed to offer him hope. At that time in American history, his viewpoints were unthinkable, and Mezz's take on race and music are probably thirty years ahead of their time. The book is chock full of colloquial expressions and 'jive talk' that really makes you feel like you are part of the groundbreaking era at the birth of the modern jazz age.
August 24, 2018
In this classic book, Mezzrow positions himself as a White Negro, inspired by and attracted to the black music community from the first moment he heard the blues. While Mezzrow was indeed responsible for bringing some musicians back into the spotlight and re-popularizing traditional jazz styles, in reality his main contributions to the music were as a middling reedman and a tireless pusher of weed all over Harlem. Little baggies opened far more doors for him than his musical talents would. He talked a good game, to be sure, but many of his tales are as fictitious as Mingus' fantasy sidesteps in "Beneath the Underdog". The level of fantasy should not, however, dissuade you from reading this timeless snapshot of jazz' early years and colorful characters.
October 30, 2017
Really the Blues by Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe takes the jive talking of Eddie Condon’s We Called It Music, to another level. I’ve read that this book had a big influence on Jack Kerouac and the beat writers of the 50s. That won't surprise you when you read this prose. Mezzrow counted Bix Beiderbecke as a special friend, mainly because of their jazz connection. He writes, “I never heard a tone like he got before or since.” And later, “He knows where to put the ‘Amens.’" Mezz also gives a brutally honest account of his drug addiction. He was also a close friend of Louis Armstrong for whom he supplied "muggle," as pot was called in those days. This book gives a vivid picture of the early days of Jazz and the many personalities of the period. Well worth your time to read.
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