Mick Carlon

As a veteran public school teacher, I am overjoyed that my two novels--RIDING ON DUKE'S TRAIN and TRAVELS WITH LOUIS--are being adopted by more and more schools in the U.S. and even in Spain. The letters I receive from kids all say different things--but then they say the same thing: "Since reading your books, I am now listening to Duke Ellington's and Louis Armstrong's music." My new novel, GIRL SINGER (Leapfrog Press) will be published in November. The novel's first person narrator, Avery Hall, is hired to sing with Count Basie's Orchestra in 1938 after Billie Holiday leaves the band. The "characters" include Basie, Lester Young, Jo Jones, Herschel Evans, Jimmy Rushing, Buck Clayton, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. Says the dean of jazz critics, Nat Hentoff: "Mick Carlon's books are creating a new generation of jazz fans. Nothing like these novels has been attempted in the history of jazz, and these books will live on for generations."