Mezz Mezzrow
Mezz Mezzrow | |
---|---|
Dixieland Mainstream jazz | |
Occupation(s) | Jazz clarinetist, saxophonist |
Instrument(s) | Clarinet alto saxophone tenor saxophone |
Milton Mesirow (November 9, 1899 – August 5, 1972),[2] better known as Mezz Mezzrow, was an American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist from Chicago, Illinois.[1] He is remembered for organizing and financing recording sessions with Tommy Ladnier and Sidney Bechet. He recorded with Bechet as well and briefly acted as manager for Louis Armstrong. Mezzrow is equally known as a colorful character, as portrayed in his autobiography, Really the Blues (which takes its title from a Bechet composition), co-written with Bernard Wolfe and published in 1946.
Music career
According to one biographer: "As a juvenile delinquent, [Mezzrow] was in and out of reformatory schools and prisons where he was exposed to jazz and blues music. He began to play the clarinet and decided to adopt the African American culture as his own. He became a ubiquitous figure on the
Along with other white musicians of his era, such as Eddie Condon and Frank Teschemacher, Mezzrow visited the Sunset Café in Chicago to learn from, and listen to, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five.[4] He admired Armstrong so much that after the release of "Heebie Jeebies", he, along with Teschemacher, drove 53 miles to Indiana in order to play the song for Bix Beiderbecke.[5]
Mezzrow's first recordings were released in 1933, under the band name Mezz Mezzrow And His Orchestra. The group was composed primarily of
In the mid-1940s, Mezzrow started his own record label, King Jazz Records, featuring himself with groups, usually including Sidney Bechet and often including the trumpeter Oran "Hot Lips" Page.[2]
He appeared at the 1948 Nice Jazz Festival, following which he made his home in France and organized many bands that included French musicians including Claude Luter and visiting Americans, such as Buck Clayton, Peanuts Holland, Jimmy Archey, Kansas Fields and Lionel Hampton.[2] With ex-Count Basie trumpeter Buck Clayton, he made a recording of Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" in Paris in 1953.
His total recorded output amounts to almost 150 sides, all of which were also collected and re-released on various albums.[6] Despite this lengthy and successful career, the record producer Al Rose was critical of Mezzrow's musicianship, saying that in his opinion "he wasn't a very good clarinetist," while praising him for his willingness to help other musicians in need and citing "his generosity and his total devotion to the music we call jazz."[7]
Personal life
Milton Mesirow was ethnically and religiously
Mezzrow praised and admired
The family lived in Harlem, New York City, where Mezzrow declared himself a "voluntary Negro" and was listed as Negro on his draft card in World War II.[8] He believed that "he had definitely 'crossed the line' that divided white and black identities".[9]
Mezzrow became known as much for his cannabis advocacy as his music.[2] In his time, he was so well known in the jazz community for selling marijuana that Mezz became slang for marijuana, a reference used in the Stuff Smith song, "If You're a Viper".[10] He was also known as the Muggles King, the word muggles being slang for marijuana at that time; the title of the 1928 Louis Armstrong recording "Muggles" refers to this. Armstrong was one of his biggest customers.[11] A letter from 1932, written by Armstrong, demonstrates this relationship; while in England, Armstrong detailed in this letter about where and how Mezzrow should send marijuana.[12]
In 1940, he was arrested in possession of sixty joints while trying to enter a jazz club at the 1939 New York World's Fair, with intent to distribute. When he was sent to jail, he insisted to the guards that he was black and was transferred to the segregated prison's black section. In Really the Blues, he wrote:
Just as we were having our pictures taken for the rogues' gallery, along came Mr. Slattery the deputy and I nailed him and began to talk fast. 'Mr. Slattery,' I said, 'I'm colored, even if I don't look it, and I don't think I'd get along in the white blocks, and besides, there might be some friends of mine in Block Six and they'd keep me out of trouble'. Mr. Slattery jumped back, astounded, and studied my features real hard. He seemed a little relieved when he saw my nappy head. 'I guess we can arrange that,' he said. 'Well, well, so you're Mezzrow. I read about you in the papers long ago and I've been wondering when you'd get here. We need a good leader for our band and I think you're just the man for the job'. He slipped me a card with 'Block Six' written on it. I felt like I'd got a reprieve.
Mezzrow was lifelong friends with the French jazz critic Hugues Panassié and spent the last 20 years of his life in France.[citation needed] He was preceded in death by his wife, Johnnie Mae Mezzrow, and was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The couple were survived by their son Mezz Jr.
In 2015, a Greenwich Village jazz club called Mezzrow was named in his honor.[8]
Selected discography
- 1947: Really the Blues, Jazz Archives (France)
- 1951: Mezz Mezzrow & His Band Featuring Collins & Singleton, Blue Note
- 1954: Mezz Mezzrow
- 1954: Mezz Mezzrow with Frankie Newton, Victor Records
- 1954: Mezz Mezzrow's Swing Session, X Records
- 1954: Mezzin' Around, RCA
- 1955: Mezz Mezzrow, Disques Swing
- 1955: Paris 1955, Vol. 1, Disques Swing
- 1955: Mezz Mezzrow in Paris, 1955, Jazz Time Records
- 1956: Mezz Mezzrow a La Schola Cantorum, Ducretet-Thomson Records
- 1995: Makin' Friends, EPM
- 2007: Tells the King Jazz Story, Crisler
- 2012: Mezzrow and Bechet Remastered, Gralin Music
References
- ^ a b "Mezz Mezzrow | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
- ^ ISBN 0-85112-580-8.
- ^ "Jazz Art & Education - SmallsLIVE Foundation". Smallslive.com. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
- ^ Brothers 2014, pp. 238–239.
- ^ Brothers 2014, p. 218.
- ^ a b "Mezz Mezzrow Discography". Jazzdisco.org. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
- ISBN 0-8071-2571-7.
- ^ a b c Kilgannon, Corey (July 11, 2015). "Son of Mezz Mezzrow Finds His Father's Legacy Lives in a Jazz Club in the Village". The New York Times. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
- ^ Wald, Gail. Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture. Quoted by Rogovoy, p. 16.
- ISBN 978-1-6189-3140-5.
- ^ Rogovoy, Seth (2015). "The Original Rachel Dolezal Was a Jew Named Mezz Mezzrow". Forward, June 26. p. 16.
- ^ Brothers 2014, pp. 307–308.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-393-06582-4.