The Search for my father, Louis Prima

Alan Gerstel’s career has run the gamut from actor to stage manager to filmmaker to television news anchor.  But his first love has always been music…though he never fully understood why.  Alan was adopted soon after birth and suffered the pangs of rejection through his formative years even though he was raised in a warm, loving household.  That nagging rejection prompted the unrelenting search for his birth parents when he reached his late 20’s.  To compensate for feelings of rejection, many adoptees are known to fantasize that their birth parents were famous people.  Alan’s decades-long investigation revealed that his birth father certainly fit the bill.  Louis Prima was a huge star…and a married man…when he had a fling with a pretty, young woman who yearned to be a singer in his band.  Alan was the product of their short-lived liaison.  SWING takes the reader on an adventure that centered on 52nd Street in New York City during World War II when it was known as “Swing Street.”  Alan’s birth mother was a “hostess” at many of the jazz clubs that made 52nd Street also known as “The Street That Never Sleeps.”  Her heartless act after giving birth to Alan crushed one couple’s hopes while setting up impediments that would frustrate Alan’s investigation many years later.  SWING is a tale of dogged determination.  It is a story of private investigators, of payoffs and bribes, of good people and some very bad people.  Louis Prima was a show business headliner and one of the good people.  He created a monumental musical legacy that is not fully appreciated today.  Alan is proud to call Louis Prima his birth father.