The Jazz Buyer

From Acrophobia to Oratorio to Public Sex, the themes found in Hal Howland’s collection of short stories are eclectic. What do you do when your CIA dad disappears is the question posed in “Dad Fakes His Death and Goes West.” The island paradise of Key West gets a new sexual awakening in “The Southernmost Erection.” The frustrations of loving a 19-year-old beauty are explored in “The Younger Woman’s Wordplay.” And international intrigues come to the forefront in the novella “After Jerusalem.” Also, folded in among several other stories is the dazzling title piece about one Ike Ireton of Radius Records, “The Jazz Buyer.”

Hal Howland is the author of After Jerusalem: A Story and Two Novellas, Cities & Women: Short Fiction, The Human Drummer: Thoughts on the Life Percussive, and Landini Cadence and Other Stories, a finalist in the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and a recipient of the 2012 Eric Hoffer Award for excellence in independent publishing. Cities & Women earned an honorable mention in the 2014 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. Howland has released three award-winning, critically acclaimed jazz recordings, The Howland Ensemble, Reiko, and 10 Years in 5 Days, and has received a jazz fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Virginia, Europe, and the Middle East, Howland lives in Key West, Florida.