This is the story of lifelong musician Buzzy Martin, music teacher to the hardened criminals inside the walls of San Quentin Prison-and what he learned, note by incredible note.

The author describes his stint as a music teacher inside San Quentin, discussing the connections he made with inmates through music and the advice he gave his at-risk students on the outside about the harsh reality of prison life.

“Make Air, Not War” is the personal motto of Dan Crane, the musician who decided to put his “there” guitar aside and reinvent himself as Björn Türoque: the take-no-prisoners future of competitive air guitar. Jeopardizing love and livelihood to join the ruthless international circuit of the World Air Guitar Championships, Björn Türoque (pronounced “b-yorn too-RAWK”) began a three-year odyssey to secure what was rightfully his (and America’s!)—the air guitar world crown. To Air is Human is the riotous tale of one man’s journey through a world of wheelchair-bound Christian air rockers, spandex-jumpsuit fittings, Finnish stunt wolves, catatonic ‘80s guitar heroes, air groupies, Aireoke™, Air Supply, dry-ice injuries, and ultimately, good vs. evil (in the form of Björn’s rival pretender to the air guitar throne). But it is also a sincere and penetrating account of the pursuit of an elusive, intangible, and perhaps nonexistent goal: to achieve “airness”—that is, when air guitar transcends the “real” art that it imitates and becomes an art form in and of itself. “Björn Türoque is so good that people with real guitars now have contests to see who can do the best imitation of his air guitar imitation.”—Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point

Assuming a secret identity, Josiah Wolfe investigates a slew of thefts that are leaving the local ranchers of Corpus Christi angry as hell. After four long months away from home, Josiah will have to bring the leader of the raids to justice if he ever wants to return home to his family.

This book willserve as the basic work on the rise and development of bop in jazz. Engendered by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, bebop, now known as bop, quickly became the most powerful musical force in modern jazz. Today it is still the main musical language of jazz musicians. Over a ten-year period, Ira Gitler interviewed more than 50 of the seminal figures in jazz history to preserve for posterity their recollections of how jazz moved from the big band era in the late '30s and '40s into the modern jazz period. The musicians interviewed recreate not only their own experiences but also evoke the legendary figures of bop who where so influential in its development but were never recorded, people like Clyde Hart and Freddie Webster. Swing to Bop shows how the music first established itself in jam sessions in Harlem and then spread to New York's famed 52nd Street and beyond. Separate chapters describe how young musicians in major cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit became swept up in the movement. Along with the music and the personalities who made it, the book vividly recreates the atmosphere of the country in the '30s and '40s: traveling on the ballroom theather curcuit; racial attitudes and interaction; extra-musical pastimes; the relationship to World War II; and the influence of drugs. Thus Swing to Bop reveals not only how the music evolved but the environment in which it flourished and what effect in turn the music had on that environment and the music to follow. About the Author Ira Gitler is the author of Jazz Masters of the '40s and The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies. He was previously Professor of Jazz History at City College of New York and Associate Editor of Downbeat.

In the new edge-of-your-seat adventure from national bestselling author Nick Petrie, Peter Ash pursues one case--and stumbles into another--in the City of the Blues. Iraq war veteran Peter Ash is restless in the home he shares with June Cassidy in Washington State. June knows Peter needs to be on the move, so she sends him to Memphis to help her friend Wanda Wyatt, a photographer and war correspondent who's been receiving peculiar threats. When Peter arrives in Memphis, however, he finds the situation has gone downhill fast--someone has just driven a dump truck into Wanda's living room. But neither Wanda nor Peter can figure out why. At the same time, a young homeless street musician finds himself roped into a plan to rob a jewelry store. The heist doesn't go as planned, and the young man finds himself holding a sack full of Rolexes and running for his life. When his getaway car breaks down, he steals a new one at gunpoint--Peter's 1968 green Chevrolet pickup truck. Peter likes the skinny kid's smarts and attitude, but he soon discovers that the desperate musician is in far worse trouble than he knows. And Wanda's troubles are only beginning. Peter finds himself stuck between Memphis gangsters--looking for Rolexes and revenge--and a Mississippi ex-con and his hog-butcher brother looking for a valuable piece of family history that goes all the way back to the Civil War.