Rick,

Amazing that (as you said) Mezz idolized and worked with Sidney Bechet. I always felt Bechet's style sounded more like a Klezmer clarinet than anything else. And Mezz's tremolo seemed to be trying to reproduce that too. (To pick up extra cash these guys sometimes did the Bar Mitzvah circuit -- like I always did with schools shows and nursing home gigs.)

I've got an amazing LP that I purchased the only time I ever saw it for sale anywhere. It is a jam session at New York's ST. REGIS HOTEL (1938-'39). A radio show done to broadcast only in England through the facilities of the BBC. The host-/-commentator for the show, who literally does a blow-by-blow description of what was going on, was a very young and avid jazz buff named ALISTAIR COOKE whose comments intrude all over the music--often unnecessarily. He wanted to make sure his ininformed British listeners knew exactly who was playing solos at any given moment; "who had the puck" - so to speak. Mezz Mezzrow was there --- and so were guys like Chu Berry, Bud Freeman, Harry James, Hot Lips Page, Jack Teagarden, Marty Marsala, Bobby Hackett, Pee Wee Russell, Jess Stacy, Eddie Condon, Dave Tough, Zutty Singleton, Sidney Bechet, Joe Bushkin, Carmen Mastren, Yank Lawson, Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Teagarden, Teddy Wilson, George Wettling and John Kirby (bass) !!! At one point, Cooke gets so enthralled he just blurts out, "That's Zutty Singleton--the greatest colored drummer alive !!!"

I'm glad I've got it !

Art Thieme