Really the Blues

Rating:
Summary: I'm sticking with love for this read, gate
Review: For years I thought this was an LP not a book then one day I find it for 4 bucks at the a shop can't believe it, buy it before I'm a quarter through I'm back buying it for a pal who I know needs it in his life too. I keep it at my bedside and pray my kids don't tear it up on me. Mezz is the man of the century.

Rating:
Summary: Looking for Jazz, Mezz tells all.
Review: I bought this book a few years back. I loaned that copy to Sam a friend of mine. I loved this book. I read it twice before ol' Sammy got his paws to clutching it. This book speaks of the love of music. Jazz in particular. Sam still has my copy of that book. He ended up taking to Amsterdam, where he lives now. I found another copy, a first edition, for a dollar in a used book store. I gave the man his dollar and got out quick. I'm sorry to see this book (at time of writing) is out of print. If it ends up in print. It's worth the read. If ol' Amazon.com can't get it for you, you could look up my good friend Sam.

Rating:
Summary: Mezzrow indeed found & lived his dream, an oustanding read!!
Review: I was just lucky enough to be given a batch of discarded books on music because I teach a course in music appreciation. I thumbed thru the box and stumbled across Really the Blues, printed 1946, first edition, great condition. What started out as a simply read turned into an obsession and I read the entire book in two settings. It is a journey that few people have ever taken and even fewer have written about. The lingo alone is worth the price of the book. For those who have ever wondered what the smell of jazz was like in the 20s-30s and 40s, read this book. It rips at your sense of justice, morality, and involvement in the human race. Milton Mezzrow gets my vote for one of the top spots in american music history as well as one of the top spots among those who have given back to the world much more than they ever took. The book smolders with intensity and describes a journey into ones self that takes the reader from the recording studios of Harlem, across the world of music, into the flophouses and whorehouses that featured jazz in the early years, on thru jails, prisons, and work gangs. The life and times of Milton Mezzrow should under no circumstances be left out of the history of jazz. I found it satifying to hear that in slang Mezz has come to mean the best as this is surely the best story that I have read in so long that it defies comparison to anything that I can remember. If you do not read another book for the remainder of the year, when this one is available, grab it, a slightly warm beer and find a very comfortable spot to enter a world that reads like science fiction and yet is indeed music fact. Good reading and enjoy the beer too.

Rating:
Summary: Mezzrow Swings!
Review: 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:
Summary: Mezzrow Swings!
Review: 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:
Summary: Just as riveting as "Amistad" in reverse!
Review: Poppa Mezz tells it like it was in the beginning of the melting pot of music from New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City & the fields of Mississippi into the clubs in Harlem. A white man who hung & played with the best, & fronted the 1st integrated band. Undoubtedly the truest & most humorous translation of the language of the street, & the life that beat with the Beat. Catch ya on the back side of the Tree, Slot!

Rating:
Summary: jazz...jail...god...
Review: the hippest trip around...this book will grab you by the soul and spin you around. reading it changed my life.

Rating:
Summary: The ultimate wannabe?
Review: 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:
Summary: this book changed my life
Review: Yes this is one of those very rare books that becomes like an old friend,I would love to have met "the Mezz"felt like I met him somewhere between the pages.I've had this great book since the60s have passed it arround my musician friends and without fail everytime,,,,,ah! brings a tear to my eye.The main thing Mezz taught me here was "hang in there" but so many other things too.In a world of great books this one's my favorite,I was borne and raised in NewZealand,but was able to visit those wonderful seedy bars and clubs with ole Mezz and the boys.thanks Mezz.Great stories.