By Jack Brummet, American Music Ed.

I am reading Mezz Mezzrow's autobiography, "Really The Blues." This Jewish kid fell in love with black culture, and in particular, the music. What a crazy life (at one point Mezz was a common slang word for reefer), from the reformatory to playing with and managing people like Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong. It's a highly idiomatic book, filled with heartbreaking tales of facing down Jim Crow (de jure in the south and de facto in the north) and most of all, stories of the great blues and jazz they made despite the law and prevailing racism.
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