This is the story of a white boy who fell in love with black culture, learning the clarinet in the clubs frequented by Al Capone, accompanying Bessie Smith in her heyday - a white Jew exploring the world of jazz. It is a searching autobiography, written in the 1940s but with the directness and power of today's most streetwise language. The book tells of Mezz Mezzrow's tough experiences in reform school, his paranoia when he realizes he's been dating a big hoodlum's girl, and the nights spent on the bandstand and the days spent living outside America's conservative norms.