It All Started With Billie Holiday: A Memoir of Jazz

It All Started with Billie Holiday chronicles the discovery of jazz by a young Greek boy through his adult years. This is his personal odyssey revealing rewarding relationships with noteworthy jazz musicians, singers, and the many characters who inhabited the colorful jazz life. It takes you inside jazz clubs, backstage before and after those remarkable performances that defined a musical genre of such incredible singers. This is the remarkable story of how a Greek American boy from New Hampshire, a child of immigrants, discovered this culture of expression from everyday interaction with these artists. This is a unique opportunity to learn about the soul, sadness, and joy of Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McRae, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Annie Ross and others, and how their poignant life experiences translated into such powerful, heart-stirring music, which has been called America's classical music by many critics and avid listeners.

Gene Chronopoulos was born and raised in New Hampshire. He attended Los Angeles City College where he pursued a career in music and film. He works today as an actor and director of numerous live musical theatrical productions in Los Angeles and has a strong interest in the history of jazz.