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The Band Leader

by Jack Fortes

The Band Leader, written by Jack Fortes is a novel of the Big Bands in the 40's:-"Peter Conrad Delaney's hands were made for a baton and a clarinet. As a child,he stood in front on 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 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-Route66--in 1941. The series of "one-nighters" in small towns like Kingman, Needles, Barstow, Tusumcari, and Shamrock brought the big band sounds of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsy, Benny Goodman,and Artie Shaw to these music-starved areas. Route 66 and the big bands come alive in

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