The Jazz Man-the Musical Life of Fred Riley

The Jazz Man is the lively story of Dr. Fred Riley, a kid from Keyser, West Virginia who began playing music professionally in the tenth grade, launching a career that cast a net of positive influence over five generations of students and fans of jazz, classical and modern compositions.Here are stories that will make you smile-libations, women, and song were never far away from the bandstands of Riley's youth, where beer bottles were common ammunition for roadhouse critics and inebriated fans. Dr. Riley leaned this way and that to duck flying pilsner bottles while steering hundreds of middle school, high school, and college students toward a serious, and at time elite, musical education.You'll learn of the "Honker" in this book-a gifted musician who entertained from table tops and played by ear any song he ever heard. Then, there's the clarinetist New York bands coveted, even though he often awakened after an evening's gig, prodigious amounts of alcohol in his system, on a living room couch in a home he mistakenly thought was his.College band road trips found "Whacky Tobaccy" residue discharged through bus windows, and a rowdy brawl following an evenings musical performance brought police cruisers skidding into a road house parking lot to prevent a lynching.Fred Riley rode the wave of practical experience to his doctorate at The Ohio State University and a degree in music. His drive propelled him onto a national stage in both education and professional music venues. The journey took him to multiple states and varied climes-fighting humidity in Ohio, freezing in Antartica temperatures in Minnesota-and, finally, returning to Almost Heaven-West Virginia-leaving his snow plow behind.This is a story of love of family and music-and the incredible personalities of Dr. Riley's musical odyssey. You'll be entertained, because that's what musicians do-entertain. And no one has done it better than Dr. Riley, The Jazz Man!