Clora Larea Bryant (May 30, 1927 – August 25, 2019) was an American jazz trumpeter. She was the only female trumpeter to perform with

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...

and

Charlie Parker Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...

and was a member of the

International Sweethearts of Rhythm The International Sweethearts of Rhythm was the first integrated all-women's band in the United States. During the 1940s the band featured some of the best female musicians of the day. They played swing and jazz on a national circuit that incl ...

Early life

Bryant was born in

Denison, Texas Denison is a city in Grayson County, Texas, Grayson County, Texas, United States. It is south of the Texas–Oklahoma border. The population was 22,682 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. Denison is part of the Texoma region and is one ...

to Charles and Eulila Bryant, the youngest of three children. Her father was a

day labor Day labor (or day labour in Commonwealth spelling) is work done where the worker is hired and paid one day at a time, with no promise that more work will be available in the future. It is a form of contingent work. Types Day laborers (also kn ...

er and her mother was a

homemaker Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a hous ...

who died when Clora was only 3 years old. When Bryant was a young child, she learned to play piano with her brother Mel. As a child, Bryant was a member of the choir in a Baptist church. When her brother Fred joined the military, he left his trumpet, which she learned how to play. In high school she played trumpet in the marching band.

Career

Bryant turned down scholarships from

Oberlin Conservatory The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is a private music conservatory in Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. It was founded in 1865 and is the second oldest conservatory and oldest continually operating conservatory in the United States. It is one of t ...

and

Bennett College Bennett College is a private historically black liberal arts college for women in Greensboro, North Carolina. It was founded in 1873 as a normal school to educate freedmen and train both men and women as teachers. Originally coed, in 1926 it ...

to attend Prairie View College in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

starting in 1943, where she was a member of the Prairie View Co-eds jazz band. The band toured in Texas and performed at the

Apollo Theater The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a not ...

in New York City in 1944. Her father got a job in Los Angeles, and she transferred to

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in 1945. Bryant heard

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...

for the first time on Central Avenue. In 1946 she became a member of the

, an all-female jazz band, earned her

union card Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

and dropped out of school.

became her mentor and provided her with work. She joined the black female jazz band the Queens of Swing as a drummer, and went on tour with the band. In 1951 she worked in Los Angeles as a trumpeter for

Josephine Baker Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...

and

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop si ...

. Two years later she moved to New York City. The Queens of Swing performed on television in 1951 as The Hollywood Sepia Tones, in a half-hour variety program on

KTLA KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is the seco ...

. They were the first women's jazz group to appear on television. After six weeks the show was dropped due to lack of a sponsor. During filming Bryant was about seven months pregnant. After her daughter's birth she was called onto

Ada Leonard Ada Leonard (July 22, 1915 – November 29, 1997) was an American bandleader. She was the leader of the All-American Girl Orchestra, the first all-female band to tour with the USO during World War II. The big-band leader was a performer with a ...

's all-girl orchestra show; however, she only stayed for a week after calls demanding to "get that nigger off there". In 1954 she briefly moved to New York because she had lost inspiration from playing in bands. In 1951, she was a member of an all-female sextet led by

Ginger Smock Emma Smock (4 June 1920– 13 June 1995), better known as Ginger Smock, that was broadcast for six weeks on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

. Bryant recorded her first and only album, ''Gal with a Horn'', in 1957 before returning to the life of a traveling musician. She worked often at clubs in Chicago and Denver. In Las Vegas she performed with

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

and

Harry James Harry Haag James (March 15, 1916 – July 5, 1983) was an American musician who is best known as a trumpet-playing band leader who led a big band from 1939 to 1946. He broke up his band for a short period in 1947 but shortly after he reorganized ...

. She toured with singer Billy Williams and accompanied him on ''

The Ed Sullivan Show ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' is an American television program, television variety show that ran on CBS from June 20, 1948, to March 28, 1971, and was hosted by New York City, New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in Septembe ...

''. During the 1960s and 1970s, she toured around the world with her brother Mel, who was a singer, and they had a TV show in Australia. In 1989 Bryant became the first female jazz musician to tour in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

after writing to

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

. After a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery in 1996, Bryant was forced to give up the trumpet but she continued to sing. She also began to give lectures on college campuses about the history of jazz, co-edited a book on jazz history in Los Angeles titled ''Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles'', and worked with children in Los Angeles elementary schools. In 2002, she received a lifetime achievement award (the

Mary Lou Williams Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and ...

Women in Jazz Award) from the

Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...

in Washington, D.C. Two years later a documentary about her was released. In an interview with ''

JazzTimes ''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store. Coverage After a decade of growth ...

'', Bryant said, "Nobody ever told me, 'You can't play the trumpet, you're a girl.' Not when I got started in high school and not when I came out to L.A. My father told me, 'It's going to be a challenge, but if you're going to do it, I'm behind you all the way.' And he was."

Personal life and death

Bryant married bassist Joe Stone in the 1940s and the couple had two children, April and Charles Stone. That marriage ended in divorce. Bryant had two additional children from her relationship with drummer Leslie Milton; Kevin and Darrin Milton. Bryant died at

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a nonprofit, tertiary, 886-bed teaching hospital and multi-specialty academic health science center located in Los Angeles, California. Part of the Cedars-Sinai Health System, the hospital employs a staff of over 2 ...

in Los Angeles on August 25, 2019, after suffering a heart attack at home. At the time of her death, she had nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Discography

* ''Gal with a Horn'' (1957)

Filmography

* 1968: ''The

Rosey Grier Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier (born July 14, 1932) is an American actor, singer, Protestant minister, and former professional football player. He was a notable college football player for Pennsylvania State University who earned a retrospective plac ...

Show'' (TV show) season 1, episode 18 "Clora Bryant, Sam Fletcher" includes a featured guest appearance by Bryant * 2000: ''

Mysteries and Scandals ''Mysteries and Scandals'' (also known as ''Mysteries & Scandals'') is an American television program hosted by A.J. Benza. The series was originally broadcast on the E! network from March 1998 until February 2001. Synopsis The series detail ...

'' (TV show) season 3, episode 25 "Humphrey Bogart" includes a segment with Bryant * 2005: ''Trumpetistically, Clora Bryant'' (video short directed by

Zeinabu Irene Davis Zeinabu irene Davis (born April 13, 1961) is an American filmmaker and professor in the Department of Communication

) with Bryant as featured subject * 2010: ''

Leimert Park Leimert Park (; ) is a neighborhood in the South Los Angeles region of Los Angeles, California. Developed in the 1920s as a mainly residential community, it features Spanish Colonial Revival homes and tree-lined streets. The Life Magazine/Lei ...

Voices'' (documentary film co-directed by Paul Calderon and Alan Swyer) includes interview segment with Bryant * 2011: ''The Girls in the Band'' (documentary film directed by Judy Chaikin) includes Bryant as a featured musician * 2014: ''Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story'' (documentary film directed by N.C. Heiken) includes appearance by Bryant

References

External links

Central Avenue Sounds: Clora Bryant.
Interviewed by Stephen L. Isoardi, Department of Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.
Interview with Clora Bryant
part o
Central Avenue Sounds Oral History Project
, Center for Oral History Research, UCLA Library Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.
Clora Bryant Interview
NAMM Oral History Library (2003)
Clora Bryant at The Girls in the Band – The Official Site of the Music Documentary

''Los Angeles Times'' article on Bryant
(1992)
International Sweethearts of Rhythm Collection Spotlight, Because of Her Story, Smithsonian Institution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryant, Clora 1927 births 2019 deaths 20th-century trumpeters 20th-century American women musicians 21st-century trumpeters 21st-century American women musicians American women jazz musicians American jazz trumpeters Bebop trumpeters International Sweethearts of Rhythm members Jazz musicians from Texas People from Denison, Texas Prairie View A&M University alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni 20th-century African-American women singers Musicians from Los Angeles Women trumpeters 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American musicians