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The Beginning .  .  .

        The Virtuoso is a story about love.  A love for music from a young man with strong romantic notions about becoming a jazz artist and his path toward that goal.  On the well worn streets of the "Big Easy", Jack Dupree grows musically under the tutelage of his mentor, Uncle Cotton Blanchard, a captivating older gentleman and dear friend.  Against the frantic days of World War II, women, children and older men populated the homefront while many of the able-bodied were in uniform.   Jack's longing for jazz was possibly sparked by a now elusive father that played Rag Time piano in his past. Our young man joins us in the story at age eleven.  He spends much of his free time playing music with jazz and blues players in the tenderloin of New Orleans.

        While our young man explores music, he also explores his loins; finding a very intimate relationship at the tender age of fourteen with a married young lady of twenty one.  The thrill of lost virtue as he explores this new experience  with this young, experienced lady adds depth to his pursuits and expansion to his ego - a commodity that all artists find useful in life.  She gives  him something else as well; a daughter, Laura Beth. How does this impact Jack's life? How do they handle this?  This is not the last time a woman will shape our protagonist's life. He is blessed - or cursed, with such events throughout his life.

Death of Jack's mother

        But time marches on.  At age sixteen, Jack tastes the heartache of loss as the death of his ailing mother leaves him an orphan.  His one living relative, Clara Peachmont, his mother's sister,  saves him from an orphanage by taking him to live with her in Saint Louis.  A strong willed, but generous woman, she provides an obstacle to his pursuit of jazz as a career, persuading him instead to pursue a career in the classics, "A field of endeavor with respect, unlike street music!" she would say. The dance between these two in a test of wills finds him the loser, yet the winner. You will enjoy the interaction.

The meeting of Sophia, Jack's first great love

By now our young man is almost eighteen with sights on Juilliard School of Music at New York City. Our story is really about to move forward with Jack's meeting of Miss Sophia Berry, his aunt's dearest friend from New York City.  She is beautiful, she is sexy, she is fourteen years older than he, but no surrogate for a mother. She is the very successful proprietress of Whispers, a preeminent escort service that some would say is simply a cover for a call girl service.  She is more than helpful in providing him a home while he attends Juilliard. This was at his aunt's arrangement with Sophia  Already smitten with each other, little time goes by before intimacy engulfs them as a couple.

The unfolding of their lives

The story takes on momentum as he moves forward in learning the career of a concert pianist while she deals with,"the business". Their lives grow in mutual respect and love through the trials and tribulations that beset them.  Our young, budding musician, once no longer a student at Juilliard, is swept up in the draft. The Korean War is a path that will dramatically impact his life. You will not see it coming!  Sophia eventually moves into a new career, but the law threatens to exact its tribute, impacting their lives further.

Endings and beginnings and things that go bump in the night!

Launching his career as a young concert pianist is what lies ahead for our protagonist and his sometime tumultuous romance with Sophia. Will Sophia's other life, that of prostitution, destroy his career?  John has long since changed his name from Jack to his Christian name of John. A"more befitting" name for a career in the Classics," his Aunt Clara reasoned.

Exciting climaxes - Exciting anti-climaxes

What follows is intriguing, captivating moments against a blanket of uncertainty. In the years that unfold for John Dupree and Sophia Berry, life will touch them and you in the story of, "The Virtuoso". Truly, a story of love, brushed with just a few strokes of scarlet behavior.

©The Virtuoso
Naples, Florida 2010