I can admire Bechet's genius but, like Stringsinger, the vibrato on his soprano gets on my nerves and I can only listen to a few bars of his playing. Some of my older musician friends met Mezzrow when he visited London in the 1950s or 1960s. He made an appearance at Dobell's jazz record shop in the Charing Cross Road. He was peddling his "Really The Blues" book and acting like a superstar, apparently. I'm sure he appeared to be a colourful character to the British jazzers, though word had it he was not a particularly great musician. A curious man who tried his hardest to be black rather than Jewish, and spent a large part of life peddling marijuana.
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