Who's Clyde Hart?

[Soul Stream]

Listenin' to Bird on Tiny Grime's "Red Cross".... so Clyde Hart starts playing and is killing. Who is he?

[Chuck Nessa]

He's Clyde Hart.

[felser]

AMG says:

Clyde Hart's death just as the bop revolution was taking hold robbed him of the opportunity to be a major force in the music. Very active during his final year, Hart was an important transitional figure between swing and bop and would certainly have been on many significant sessions during the next five years had he lived.

Hart first worked with Gene Coy, Jap Allen (1930-31) and Blanche Calloway (1931-35). After a brief stint with the declining McKinney's Cotton Pickers, he settled in New York where he led his own quartet, arranged for Andy Kirk and made quite a few recordings (including with Billie Holiday and Red Allen) as a supportive pianist. Hart had stints with Stuff Smith (1936-38), Roy Eldridge, Lester Young, Frankie Newton and the John Kirby Sextet (1942-43) plus often jammed at Minton's Playhouse. He also played with Wilbur DeParis, Walter "Foots" Thomas and Tiny Grimes (1944). After working with Don Byas in early 1945 and recording with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie (including "Dizzy Atmosphere"), Hart contracted tuberculosis and died just as he was entering the prime of his career. Clyde Hart led three recording dates between Dec. 19, 1944 and Jan. 4, 1945 for Savoy and Continental with such notable sidemen as Parker, Gillespie, Byas, Trummy Young, Oscar Pettiford, Benny Harris and singer Rubberlegs Williams.

[Brad]

I would suggest Dizzy's Musicraft recording on which heappears which is in that Savoy 3 disc issue.

[Harold_Z]

Also the Lips Page Commodore session.

[Larry Kart]

I thought he was Herman Chittison.

[Alexander Hawkins]

Larry, I thought you were a cockney, and this your recording pseudonym.

[Brownian Motion]

I remember reading somewhere that someone (not sure who) once asked John Lewis whether he was influenced by Clyde Hart. Lewis had never heard of Hart, but their styles do resemble each other's. Hart appeared on many great swing recordings. He, Roy Eldridge, and Chu Berry, as John Chilton recounts it in his bio of Roy, used to travel around together after hours looking for cutting contests.