The Band Leader

About the Book

Peter Conrad Delaney's hands were made for a baton and a clarinet.  As a child, he stood in front of the family's Atwater Kent radio, holding a stick, "directing" the music of a big band in the early   thirties. As he grew older, he learned about Benny Goodman's first successful engagement at Hollywood's Palomar Ballroom in 1935, and Pete knew he would be a part of the big band scene and even be a bandleader someday.  Playing in a "little big band" in high school and a college dance band, Pete takes a band "on the road," the most famous road in America--Route 66--in 1941.  The series of "one-nighters" in small towns like Kingman, Needles, Barstow, Tucumcari, and Shamrock brought the big band sounds of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Artie Shaw to these music-starved areas.  Route 66 and the big bands come alive in "The Band Leader."

About the Author

Jack Fortes was born in Miami, Florida, and completed high school in Orlando. He enlisted in the Navy in 1942 and served three and a half years during World War II. After the war, he enrolled at the University of Florida and received a degree in journalism in 1950. He worked for newspapers in Central Florida, was head of public relations for Pan Am's Guided Missiles Range Division at Cape Canaveral, and retired after 24 years as a fund raiser for Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. He has been active in the West Volusia Historical Society, DeLand Naval Air Station Museum, and the YMCA. This is his first fiction work. He and his wife, Irene, live in DeLand. They have a son, a daughter, and two grandchildren.