Really the Blues

This jive-tongued jazz cat really knows how to use language! His use of slang is evidenced by the ten-page glossary at the end of the book. Raw and gritty, Mezzrow’s memoir describes how he learned to play jazz and blues in a juvenile reformatory, where he developed his love for the Black “race” and its culture. He often riffs on race. In 1920s Chicago he rubbed elbows with Black and White jazz luminaries, plus gangsters, prostitutes, and drug dealers. During a side trip to Paris, France, he spread the gospel of jazz to Europe. In the 30s he lived in… show more.

This classic work vividly captures the language and color of the Thirties jazz scene straight from the horse’s mouth; loquacious and colorful pioneer saxophonist Mezzrow, who was best known among his crowd as their pot dealer. Director Phil Kaufman expressed some interest in the property years ago, but it remains a movie waiting to be made—an utterly evocative portrait of a time and place (and mentality) of a unique and distinctive moment in American history. Mezzrow was right in the center of the whole scene and he knew everybody. “I guess I must be the sociable type,” he writes, “My… show more.