Swinger!: A Jazz Girl's Adventures from Hollywood to Harlem

Judy Carmichael first made her name in the 1980s as a svelte, blonde bombshell who played stride piano-a virtuoso jazz style made famous in the '20s and '30s by Count Basie and Fats Waller. Jazz critic Gary Giddons commented, "How ironic that the last man standing is a woman, as this kind of playing was long considered the private, competitive domain of people who smoked cigars and wore derbies."Swinger A Jazz Girl's Adventures from Hollywood to Harlem is a collection of hilarious, moving autobiographical essays, in the David Sedaris tradition, about a California surfer-girl who dreamed of being a spy but instead became a beauty queen, an actress, a pool shark, a quarterback, and--eventually--a jazz musician. Judy Carmichael welcomes us into her wacky, maddening, thrilling creative life--from Carnegie Hall to camels in Ephesus, to performing for Richard Gere, Rod Stewart and Robert Redford, to a three hour lunch with Billy Joel, hors d'oeuvres with Yoko Ono and the creation of her NPR show, Jazz Inspired. Judy trudges through a Hawaiian rain forest with Sarah Vaughan, auditions as a rodeo rider, flirts with Mr. Big and gets a kiss from Paul Newman, and that's before she gets to Brazil, where things get seriously interesting.Swinger is a humorous, candid account of the creative life, the pursuit of one's dreams, of staying strong, and refusing to suffer. When, in her late forties, a doctor told Judy that he thought she had cervical cancer, she responded, "I'm a jazz musician, doctor. To tell you the truth, this isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me."