Milton Mesirow, much better known as Mezz Mezzrow (9 November 1899 - 5 August 1972) was an American Jewish jazz clarinetist and saxophonist from Chicago, Illinois. November 9 is the 313th day of the year (314th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 52 days remaining. ... 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... August 5 is the 217th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (218th in leap years), with 148 days remaining. ... 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1972 calendar). ... Jews (Hebrew: יהודים, Yehudim) are followers of Judaism or, more generally, members of the Jewish people (also known as the Jewish nation, or the Children of Israel), an ethno-religious group descended from the ancient Israelites and converts who joined their religion. ... Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted in Western music technique and theory, and is marked by the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. ... Two soprano clarinets: a B♭ clarinet (left) and an A clarinet (right, with no mouthpiece). ... A saxophonist is a musician who plays the saxophone. ... Nickname: The Windy City Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Official website: http://egov. ...

He helped organise and finance historic recording sessions with Tommy Ladnier and Sidney Bechet and recorded a number of times with Bechet. He briefly acted as manager for Louis Armstrong. Tommy (Thomas J.) Ladnier (May 28, 1900 - June 4, 1939) was an American jazz trumpeter. ... Sidney Bechet Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was a Jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. ... Louis Armstrongs stage personality matched his flashy trumpet as captured in this photo by William P. Gottlieb. ...

Mezzrow is, probably, the least technically competent musician to have achieved recognition in the history of jazz. This is, in part, because for all his incompetence on the clarinet (and he was even worse on sax), he organised some magnificent recording sessions involving the very best black musicians of the 1930's and 40's, including Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, Frankie Newton, Tommy Ladnier and - most importantly - Sidney Bechet. Mezz's superb 1938 sessions for the French jazz critic Hugues Panassie involved Bechet and Ladnier and helped spark the 'New Orleans revival'. However, his tenor sax solo on "When You and I Were Young, Maggie" from the Panassie sessions, must go down as one of the worst jazz solos ever recorded.

In the mid-1940's Mezz started his own record label, 'King Jazz', featuring himself in groups that usually included Sidney Bechet and, often, trumpeter Oran 'Hot Lips' Page. The results were excellent, mainly because of Mezzrow's top-rank musical partners and also because most of the material was twelve or sixteen-bar blues sequences - and Mezzrow, for all his limitations, knew how to play the blues.

He appeared at the 1948 Nice Jazz Festival and was a surprise hit. Following that, he made his home in France and organised many bands that included French musicians like Claude Luter as well as visiting Americans like Buck Clayton, Peanuts Holland, Jimmy Archey, Kansas Fields and even Lionel Hampton. In 1953, in Paris with ex-Basie trumpeter Buck Clayton, he made what is probably his best ever recording: a version of the Armstrong classic 'West End Blues' on which his mastery of the blues idiom eclipses his technical limitations on the clarinet.

However, he was more well-known for his drug-dealing than his musical prowess. In fact, he was so well-known in the jazz community for selling marijuana that "Mezz" became slang for marijuana. He was also known as the "Muggles King," the word "muggles" (also the title of a famous 1928 Louis Armstrong recording), being slang for marijuana at that time. Species Cannabis indica Cannabis ruderalis Cannabis sativa Cannabis is a genus of flowering plant that includes one or more species. ... Slang is the non-standard or non-dialectal use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... Muggles is the plural of the word Muggle, used to describe a person without magical abilities in J. K. Rowlings Harry Potter fantasy books and films. ...

He praised and admired the African-American style. In his autobiography "Really The Blues", Mezzrow writes that from the moment he heard jazz he "was going to be a Negro musician, hipping [teaching] the world about the blues the way only Negroes can." An African American is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... Really The Blues is the 1946 autobiography of Mezz Mezzrow. ...

Mezzrow married a black woman and lived in Harlem and called himself a "voluntary Negro." When he served a prison sentence for dealing marijuana, he insisted to the guards that he was black and was transferred to the segregated prison's black section. He wrote (in "Really the Blues"): This article is about the Harlem neighborhood in New York City. ... The term Blacks is often used in the West to denote race for persons whose progenitors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa. ...

"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 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 French jazz critic Hugues Panassié and consequently spent the last 20 years of his life in Paris. Mezzrow's autobiography, Really the Blues, co-authored by Bernard Wolfe and published in 1946 may prove to be his most important legacy: a picaresque, amusing, and highly unreliable insight into the jazz world of the late 1920's. Hugues Panassié (1912-1974) was a French jazz critic and producer. ... The Eiffel Tower, the international symbol of the city, with the skyscrapers of La Défense business district 5 km/ 3 mi behind. ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

Eddie Condon said of him ('We Called It Music', London; Peter Davis 1948): "When he fell through the Mason-Dixie line he just kept going".

See also

• Jazz