Really the blues. Introduction by Ben Ratliff

Mezzrow, Mezz / Wolfe, Bernard

Published by Review Books, New York, 2016

About this Item

DETAILS: PAPERBACK, cover price $17.95, attractive copy, near fine. MEZZROW, MEZZ / WOLFE, BERNARD. Really the blues. Introduction by Ben Ratliff. New York: Review Books, 2016, of this edition, 1st printing number line ending in 1, xiii, 435pp., . Series: New York Review Books classics First published in 1946. - Mezz Mezzrow was a boy from Chicago who learned to play the sax in reform school and pursued a life in music and a life of crime. He moved from Chicago to New Orleans to New York, working in brothels and bars, bootlegging, dealing drugs, getting hooked, doing time, producing records, and playing with the greats, among them Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Fats Waller. Really the Blues, the jive-talking memoir that Mezzrow wrote at the insistence of, and with the help of, the novelist Bernard Wolfe, is the story of an unusual and unusually American life, and a portrait of a man who moved freely across racial boundaries when few could or did, "the odyssey of an individualist . . . the saga of a guy who wanted to make friends in a jungle where everyone was too busy making money." - CONTENTS: Book one (1899-1923) : A nothin' but a child. Don't cry, Ma ; Not too far tangent ; The Band House, The Band House ; Quit foolin' with that comb -- Book two (1923-1928) : Chicago, Chicago. They found the body in a ditch ; Them first kicks are a killer ; Tea don't do you that way ; Got the heebies, got the jeebies ; Forgottenest man in town -- Book three (1928-1935) : The Big Apple. If you can't make money ; Vo-do-de-o and a Minsky pizzicato ; Tell a green man something ; Once more, again, and another time ; Tough scuffle, Mezzie ; Crawl 'fore you can walk -- Book four (1935-?) : Basin Street is the street. God sure don't like ugly ; Out of the gallion -- Appendices. 1. New Orleans and Chicago : the root and the branch ; 2. Translation of the jive section ; 3. A note on the Panassié recordings ; 4. Glossary. ISBN 9781590179451.

Seller Inventory # 501290

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Really the blues. Introduction by Ben Ratliff
• Publisher: Review Books, New York
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• Binding: paperback
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Weight: 17 ounces
• Seller catalogs:
  • Music-Jazz