Bill Moody grew up in southern California but now makes his home near San
Francisco. After four years in the Air Force, he studied at the Berklee
College of Music in Boston, where he was literally plucked from the
classroom to join pianist Jr. Mance and legendary singer Jimmy Rushing.
In 1968, Moody was guest drummer with the Gustav Brom Jazz Orchestra at
the Prague International Jazz festival, and became caught in the Soviet
invasion later that summer. After two more years in Europe, touring and
recording with Maynard Ferguson, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross, Moody
returned to Los Angeles to join singer Lou Rawls, and later, pianist Earl
Fatha Hines.
For the next next twenty years, Moody played the hotel-casinos in Las
Vegas. While there, he began writing for such publications as Jazz Times,
Cadence, The Armchair Detective, Popular Culture Journal, and edited LV:
The Magazine of Las Vegas. Along the way, he earned an M.A. degree and
began teaching at UNLV. For eight years, he was also a Jazz DJ on the
university radio station KUNV-FM.
Moody's first published fiction was "The Resurrection of Bobo Jones," in
the anthology B Flat, Bebop, Scat (Quartet Books, London). Other short
stories include, "The Rehearsal", "Jazzline" in Ellery Queen Mystery
Magazine, and "Grace Notes" (Slow Dancer Press, London, 1999). The Jazz
Exiles: American Musicians Abroad, based on his experiences in Europe, was
published in 1993 by the University of Nevada Press.
Bird Lives! (Walker and Company, 1999) is the most recent in a series
featuring jazz pianist-sleuth Evan Horne, which began with Solo Hand
(Walker and Company, 1994), and was followed by Death of a Tenor Man
(Walker and Company, 1995) and The Sound of the Trumpet (Walker and
Company, 1997). Death of a Tenor Man has been optioned for film and is in
development with director Steve Jones.
Moody had appeared on NPR's "Sunday Morning" and makes frequent
appearances at mystery conventions around the country. He teaches creative
writing at Sonoma State University, and continues to be an active jazz
performer.
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