Amazon A Love in Scarlet Amazon.com Createspace.com Category:  Mainstream Publisher: Create Space ISBN-10:  1484933222 Type: Fiction Pages: 422 Copyright: May 13, 2013 ISBN-13: 9781484933220 The Virtuoso is a story of a young musical aspirant from the streets of New Orleans to the great venues of Concert Halls. From his first love, jazz, he finds himself up against forces that change his direction. This struggle, mixed with his great love for a woman 14 years his senior and a prostitute, finds Jack Dupree exploring life over a twenty year period that is filled with temptations played out in convoluted sub-plots that make for some interesting story lines. The Virtuoso is a story of love and lust, weakness and strength.  It is a story of ego and the human condition. Simply put, a story of one man and one woman against a backdrop of music and prostitution. A young, wanna be jazz musician with a singular drive - music, enjoys the pleasures and favors of women as they provide him with paths in life to find his way; his Tao.     Young Jack Dupree spent his early years in a "Big Easy" lower socioeconomic environment, not unlike so many others. No story would be complete without a complimentary force that can both help and hinder us along the way. Such a force in our protagonist’s life is that of the very attractive Sophia Berry, fifteen years his senior.     From puppy love at seventeen, through an elicit affair that leads to matrimony; a deepening bond between them that vacillates from love to lust,  then seeming indifference as their lives unfold in a fate that spans some 20 years.  Almost a symbiotic relationship, she is his safety net in his early formative years, but eventually time, the pain of a relationship that has ended and directions in life, separates them as his career grows and takes him further away from her.     He becomes the darling of the sophisticated concert set; a world so different from his beginnings, yet a world still finding him dependant on the fairer sex for pleasure as well as salvation.  Now, at the age of thirty-seven, the love and wit he finds in a twenty two year old concert violinist presents him with renewed hope to share his life with someone special. The two seem to travel in opposite directions around the world, punctuating the relationship with sweet reunions and bitter departures that seem to be the hallmark between them.  The price paid for two virtuosos with different schedules. A love found and a love seemingly lost as concert virtuoso John Dupree disappears at the height of his career while his fiancée, Laura De Gravolet, struggles to find him.       The mystery that ensues during this period deals with, kidnapping, murder, deception and the unraveling of a horrible tale of guilt set against a backdrop of music.  It is truly a flight from the pain of an incestuous pronouncement glued to the dark corners of a mind.  It lingers until the dawn of  a new day arrives, releasing the truth and setting John free.   Excerpt Uncle Cotton slowly turned to the band and gave a solemn nod to Jack, who acknowledged it with a slight bow. Jack then played the pickups to “Just a Closer Walk With Thee”, setting an emotional dirge-like tempo, with the rhythm section laying down an irresistible two/four beat, and the trumpet and trombone building a subtle back-up riff. Jack embellished on the beautiful melody; enhancing, enriching it - starting in the warm, rich chalumnae - the lower range of the clarinet, and gradually building, phrase by phrase, into the clarion range - the brilliant upper range, with golden tones that rang forth throughout the bar. But Jack wouldn't let go. This was no time to let go. There were other levels to reach, golden plateaus. The band was firmly behind him, pacing themselves, holding back just a little to let Jack know he could keep pushing, despite reaching musical climax after climax there was still the unexplored on which to build. The room, the audience, the band, was throbbing with the magic of the music; there was a delicious ache in Jack's kidneys from the adrenalin that was gushing through his body. He no longer was conscious of his body, he felt he had become the music, every cell, every atom, was resonating, was singing, was filling the room, lifting every listening soul. His body had become the clarinet and was playing its self; the notes pouring forth in an endless necklace of glowing orbs. Jack was riding it like a rocket to the stratosphere. The band's relentless, hypnotic pulse; the sweet brilliance of the brass that urged Jack on and on - until the Heavens opened up with that ultimate plateau of excitement - that place where there is freedom from all pain, worry, and the external world; that place where perfect peace and fulfillment abound. . . The Ultimate Climax - Nirvana.The final silvery notes echoed away to oblivion; from the audience, frozen in trance-like stillness, there gradually came sobs, then murmurs, then shouts, then screams, then bedlam as people jumped up and down, hollering yelling, crowding the stage. On the stage was Uncle Cotton, now on his knees, facing the band, head bowed, hands clasping his hat over his head, moving to and fro ever so slightly - eyes spilling tears. He was not alone. Jack and many others were sharing the moment with wet eyes and not least was Sophia, sobbing, trying hard to stifle her tears.

Lifelong jazz aficionado . . .
"George Walmsley has been a lifelong jazz aficionado, listener, fan and intimate friend of dozens of famed jazz musicians throughout the country. Few writers could capture the authentic ‘voice’ of these improvisers, their love of jazz, the struggle for musical ‘legitimacy,’ the unbelievable difficulties of the business, and their quest for personal, romantic and professional acceptance and happiness. In "The Virtuoso," George Walmsley has created something of an epic, with more twists and turns than the most complex Charlie Parker solo." -- Dr. Bruce H. Klauber
Dr. Bruce H. Klauber is the author of "World of Gene Krupa" (Pathfinder Publishing), "Gene Krupa: The Pictorial Life of a Jazz Legend" (Alfred Publishing), producer/writer/creator of the Warner Brothers and Hudson Music "Jazz Legends" DVD series, and a professional jazz musician and recording artist since childhood.

Neapolitan G. P. Walmsley provides a racy, colorful entertainment . . .
“Neapolitan G. P. Walmsley provides a racy, colorful entertainment with his first novel, The Virtuoso: A Love Story in Scarlet.
The story takes readers through about three decades, tracing the life of John (Jack) Dupree from his days as a wartime New Orleans street kid of eleven through his ups-and-downs as a musician, friend, lover, and human being.
The part of the portrait that illumines Jack's coming of age in the 1950s, a section that includes his service in the Korean War, is even better at capturing the feel of a decade than the delineation of the other periods - and this sense of time and place (including St. Louis and New York) is always keen.
Jack's early education takes place in the saloons and jazz clubs of his native city, and his passion for jazz, still mainly the province of black musicians, is matched only by his passion for women.
His sexual experience begins early and it continues to define him through the decades that follow. Walmsley draws this formative New Orleans milieu quite convincingly and along the way he probes the racial tensions of the times. He also probes the dynamics by which racial barriers give way to mutual respect among dedicated, skilled musicians in the world of blues and jazz.
The world of nightclubs, whether sleazy or posh, is interwoven with the world of prostitution. Jack lives in that world as well. When his mother dies, Jack moves on to live with an aunt, who is a madam in St. Louis.
Soon enough, he meets her friend, Sophia, also in that trade, with whom he has a most passionate and complex relationship. Sophia supports, marries, and occasionally torments the much younger hero, helping him to realize his dreams of becoming a top-level musician.
Along the way, Jack is transformed into John, and he temporarily puts aside the jazz clarinet for the classical piano. Private tutors, Julliard, minor league competitions and concerts, and an ambitious agent-manager, all bring Dupree to the threshold of fame and fortune.
Though Sophia tries to bury her past and develops a successful Manhattan boutique, criminal prosecutions for prostitution and tax evasion threaten her - and thus threaten her husband's chance at the gold ring.
Partly for this reason they decide to divorce, but the reader learns of other motives as well. Incidentally, Walmsley's background in law enforcement adds credibility to several aspects of his plot.
As much as he cares for Sophia, Jack/John Dupree is tempted by other women and he strays. Sophia has secrets as well, which I'll leave for readers to discover.
What Walmsley does best is project the ecstatic moments of creative release - those times when an artist achieves a transcendent state.
Both implicitly and explicitly, Walmsley likens this ultimate euphoria to sexual release. There's nothing new in this comparison, but the author evokes it with skill and force.
He also does a fine job in creating a rich collection of minor characters, including Cotton Blanchard, a wise, caring black musician, who becomes Dupree's mentor and father figure. Dupree's Aunt Clara is also well-drawn, as is Sophia's lawyer and a young female violinist named Laura.”