In my opinion, Mezz Mezzrow’s recollections are unreliable. He had serious psychological problems. He was a white Jew who wished he had been born black, and lived in a world of fantasy and drugs. Here is some evidence for my contention.
In his own words, “Really the Blues,” p. 18, Mezzrow writes, ”By the time I reached home, I knew I was going to spend all my time from then on sticking to Negroes. They were my kind of people. And I was going to learn their music and play it for the rest of my days. I was going to be a musician, a Negro musician, hipping the world about the blues the way only Negroes can. I didn’t know how the hell I was going to do it, but I was straight about what I had to do. Most of my skullbusters got solved at The School [the reformatory Mezzrow was sent to]. I went in there green but I came out chocolate brown.”
Mezrow’s obsession with blacks and their music and what he believes is their superiority in how to face life is clearly enunciated in “Really the Blues”, p. 14, “The white man is a spoiled child, and when he gets the blues he goes neurotic. So when the blues get him [the Negro] he comes out smiling and without any evil feeling. When he [the white man] is brought down, he gets ugly, works himself up into a fighting mood and comes out nasty. The colored man doesn’t often get sullen and tight-lipped and evil because his philosophy goes deeper and he thinks straight.” Pretty amazing generalizations about white and black men!
My interpretation of what Nick has quoted regarding Mezzrow’s account of Bix’s views of the blacks is a “transfer” of Mezzrow’s own views into Bix’s. Clearly, Mezzrow has an admiration for Bix’s music. Therefore, in Mezzrow’s twisted mind, Bix must be like Mezzrow himself: the black man is so much superior to the white man. So according to Mezzrow, Bix told him, ” ‘Hell, you even feel better physically in a colored cafe. The people seem to be enjoying everything in a real way. The band always has something that keeps your ear cocked all the time. The dancers always feel the music, and the expression on their faces when somebody’s playing up to par tickles me. Darn, those people know how to live.” Doesn’t that sound like Mezzrow, as I quoted him above? Bix, according to Mezzrow, “Those people know how to live.” Mezzrow in his own words, “his [the black man’s ] philosophy goes deeper and he thinks straight.” Maybe Bix felt more comfortable in a nightclub where the musicians and the audience were black. But I would not rely on Mezzrow’s words to support such a notion. Mezzrow carries too much “baggage”, his prejudice against whites and in favor of blacks taints everything he writes. Certainly, Bix was such a great musician that he would appreciate other great musicians - black and white. I have no problem with Bix enjoying and admiring the music of King Oliver and Jimmy Noone and Louis Armstrong. But Mezzrow's assertion that Bix viewed white musicians as being corny is in contradiction with Bix's own words. Bear with me.
The comment about white musicians being “corny” is repeated in “Really the Blues.” ”Boy, he [Bix] told me another time, “it’s such a relief to get to the South Side and hear Joe Oliver and Jimmy Noone and Bessie. I miss those old riverboat bands down around Davenport.” He got serious for a moment. “I wonder,” he said, thinking hard, “why white musicians are so corny.” Is this Bix speaking or, as I believe is more likely, Mezzrow putting words in Bix’s mouth? I believe Bix had a lot of respect for the musicianship of several of his fellow white musicians, Eddie Lang, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Miff Mole, Adrian Rollini, Bill Rank, Don Murray, Hoagy Carmichael, etc. Read Bix’s own words in his letter of Dec 15, 1925 to Hoagy, ”I’m now playing with Frank in St. Louis and we have absolutely the hottest band in the country. We’re playing at the Arcadia here nightly and are panicking the town. If that bunch at Ind. Think the Wolverines and Goldkette were hot I’d like to hear them when they hear this band.” Are those the words of a man who thinks that the white musicians in Frank’s band are corny? Did Bix think that the New Orleans Rhythm Kings or the Original Dixieland Jazz Band guys were corny? What about the letter of Bix to Nick LaRocca on Nov 20, 1922. “All I knew was that you were the best band in the country.” I remind you that at this time, Bix had heard King Oliver earlier in the year. I would rather believe Bix’s own words than those that Mezzrow ascribes to Bix.
In summary, I view Mezzrow’s accounts about Bix in the same light as I view Ralph Berton’s: unreliable, fabricated (intentionally or unconsciously, I cannot tell which) historical and personal information about Bix Beiderbecke.