Mezz Mezzrow

After playing club dates in and around Chicago during the '20s, clarinettist Mezz Mezzrow moved to New York where he became an infamous local figure, partly owing to his sideline as a supplier of marijuana. In the '30s he recorded with Sidney Bechet and Tommy Ladnier, and in the '40s formed his own King Jazz record label to record Bechet and other important jazz artists. In the '50s he moved to France, touring from a Paris base with visiting musicians (including Lionel Hampton, Lee Collins and Zutty Singleton), enjoying a level of adulation he had never achieved in his own country. A vehement anti-segregationist, Mezzrow boldly formed multiracial bands during a period when such groups were rarely seen or heard.