Jonathan Kellerman

A few years ago the following story took place.

Visitors, new on this blog, should know that I have a wide interests about a lot of subjects. Since I was a teen-ager my passions are history and jazz music. The latter expresses in my projects, like the Hit of the week - Durium project and the the project about the life and musical heritage of Oscar Aleman.

Well, the story is about Oscar Aleman.

Now and then people contact me if they have to ask me something about one of my projects. A few years ago I got a message from a lady who lived in Groningen ( a city in the northern part of the Netherlands) who asked me where she could buy an Oscar Aleman recording. She told me, she bought a book to relax, each year, for her holidays period. Her favorite author was Jonathan Kellerman. Jonathan Kellerman writes detective / thriler like books and he always introduces the readers to certain musicians. In one of his books, she had forgotten wich ones, he had talked about Oscar Aleman and, as she had form a habit to obtain the music Kellerman suggested, she wanted to know where she could obtain a CD of Oscar Aleman.

I responded to this lady, gave her some CD suggestions and asked her about the title of the book, but, unfortunally she had given the book to a good friend.

Each time, when I was at Vroom & Dreesman, a well known Dutch department store, I glanced through the books of Kellerman, but never found the Aleman ones .......


This morning I found a message from David W. Littlefield. He wrote me:

Hi Hans.
Found a reference to Oscar Aleman in the following novel:
Jonathan Kellerman "Flesh and blood", Ballantine Books, 2002, p.326 (Chapter 29). This is a paperback edition, so the page well might be different in the hard cover edition.

"I ran the tape deck as I slumped in the front seat. Old recording of Oscar Aleman riffing on a shiny silver National guitar in some thirties Buenos Aires nightclub. Aleman and the band peeling off a ha-ha rendition of 'Besame Mucho' that would have done Spike Jones proud, but no mistaking the artistry."

Kellerman writes excellent detective novels. I haven't had a chance to listen to the double CD I bought this year, (Accoustic Disk ACD-29), but it has "Besame mucho" so now I have a specific tune to hear.

I first learned about Aleman from your 78-l posts.

Cheers D.W.L.

Isn't that funny? The Jonathan Kellerman puzzle has been solved - The title of the book is known. I will visit the library this afternoon to have a look it they have got it for me.

If you click on the title bar you hear a fragment of Besame Mucho as played by Oscar Aleman.

This contribution is also posted at my Keep swinging web log