About Me
I was born Milton Mesirow November 9, 1899 in Chicago and died August 5, 1972 in Paris. Most cats know me by Mezz Mezzrow. You can read about my life in my book "Really the Blues," which is one of Tom Waits's favorite reads. But I'll lay a bit down for you now, and throw a few highlights at ya:
I learned to play the sax in reform school. I was really digging jazz back then. Learned a few things when I was locked in the pen as well. Back then I was really into cats like Freddie Keppard, Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong and Jimmy Noone. Al Capone dug me and the boy got me a few gigs.
I got my name Mezz since liked smoking Mezz, which is reefer. You dig? I sold stuff for a while too. Also spent some time in Harlem opium dens.
I could go on and on, but if you want some more dirt, check out my book.
I leave you with this:
To all the hipsters, hustlers and fly cats tipping along the Stroll. [Keep scuffling]
To all the cons in all the houses of many slammers, wrastling with chinches. [Short time, boys.]
To all the junkies and lushheads in two-bit scratchpads, and the flophouse grads in morgue iceboxes. [R.I.P.]
To the sweettalkers, the gumbeaters, the highjivers, out of the gallion for good and never going to take it low again. [You got to make it, daddy.]
To Bessie Smith, Jimmy Noone, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Zutty Singleton, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet and Tommy Ladnier. [Grab a taste of millennium, gate.]
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Poppa, have you any idea how a man took to jazz in the early days? Do you know how he spent years watching the droopy chicks in cathouses, listening to his cellmates moaning low behind bars, digging the riffs the wheels were knocking out when he rode the rods--and then all of the sudden picked up a horn and began to tell the whole story in music? I'm going to explain about that. And about how he fought across no-man's land between the races, outing Jim Crow as he went, to get where he had to go. And how it felt when he got there. I'll tell about that, too, especially that. Listen hard, now. This is a story that happened in the U.S. of A.
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Read more excerpts from Really the Blues here .
