The top female jazz trumpeter of her time
Clora Bryant, who has died aged 92, was a jazz trumpeter — or, as she preferred, “trumpetiste.”
For years she was one of the few women anywhere to play the instrument professionally.
Clora Larea Bryant was born in Texas on May 30, 1927. She picked up her older brother’s trumpet when he left home to join the army and took to it at once.
She won musical scholarships to several colleges, choosing the one with its own all-girl swing band, the Prairie View Co-Eds. She became a featured soloist with them, and in 1944 toured as far as New York, including an appearance at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
The following year the family moved to Los Angeles, where the jazz scene along Central Avenue was hot. Always carrying her trumpet in its case, to show she meant business, Bryant became a familiar figure around the jazz clubs.
On one memorable night she played alongside Charlie Parker, an experience she would recount in detail for the rest of her life.
In 1946 she joined the 16-piece International Sweethearts of Rhythm, America’s most popular female band. (“International” was included in their name to cover the delicate fact that it was a mixed-race group.) Next, she joined the Queens of Rhythm. When their drummer suddenly left, Bryant took over. She made an act of playing trumpet with one hand and drums with the other hand and both feet.
The early 1950s found her with a house band at L.A’s Club Alabam, accompanying visiting stars, including Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker.
Dizzy Gillespie, who was both impressed and bemused by what he heard, said that “If you close your eyes, you’d think it was a man!” This prompted rolled eyes from Bryant, but they became close friends.
One night in Las Vegas, while she was on stage giving her impression of Louis Armstrong, the man himself appeared as if from nowhere, together with his whole band, and joined in.
She was also a featured act in the singer Billy Williams’ travelling variety show.
Bryant recorded only one album. Gal with a Horn, in 1957.
She gave a series of concerts in the newly opened Russia. In her sixties she returned to UCLA to complete the degree she had abandoned 40 years earlier.
In 1996, following a heart attack, she gave up the trumpet but continued singing and teaching music and jazz history.
She is survived by three sons and a daughter.