Really the Blues (Flamingo modern classic) - Softcover

Mezzrow, Mez; Wolfe, Bernard

4.16

524 ratings by Goodreads

9780006546917: Really the Blues (Flamingo modern classic)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006546919 ISBN 13: 9780006546917

Publisher: Flamingo, 1993

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This is the story of a white boy who fell in love with black culture, learning the clarinet in the clubs frequented by Al Capone, accompanying Bessie Smith in her heyday - a white Jew exploring the world of jazz. It is a searching autobiography, written in the 1940s but with the directness and power of today's most streetwise language. The book tells of Mezz Mezzrow's tough experiences in reform school, his paranoia when he realizes he's been dating a big hoodlum's girl, and the nights spent on the bandstand and the days spent living outside America's conservative norms.

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From the Back Cover:

'Really the Blues' is the story of a white Jewish kid who fell in love with black culture, who learnt the clarinet in the clubs frequented by Al Capone, accompanied Bessie Smith in her heyday – exulted in the world of jazz. A stunning portrait of Chicago, New Orleans and New York of the 30s and 40s, this is 'the' classic chronicle of street life, smoky clubs, roadhouse dances and reefer culture.

Written in the 1940s but with the directness and power of today's most streetwise language, Mezz Mezzrow's adventures are the stuff of fiction – his tough experiences in reform school, his understandable paranoia when he realizes he's been dating a big hoodlum's moll, the nights on the bandstand, the days living outside America's conservative norms. 'Really the Blues' records the youth revolution that happened thirty years before the Sixties started to swing.

"This quite superb, perfectly marvellous book conveys a powerful, vital message of unadulterated joy. I should like millions of people to read this book and receive the message it contains. A great book"
HENRY MILLER

"A great American autobiography...the masterpiece of the counterculture's most characteristic literary medium: the slang-laced, jazz-enrhythmed, long-breathed rhapsodic street rap and rave-up'
ALBERT GOLDMAN

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