Clora Bryant

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Clora Bryant (born May 30, 1927 in Denison, Texas) was a jazz trumpeter who has been called a "pioneer" for women trumpeters.

She started in music as a singer in her Baptist church, but took up the trumpet after her brother left it on going to the military. She proved to have a talent for it and by the early 1940s did tours of Texas with an all-female band. Later she attended UCLA where she became influenced by bebop and gained the attention of Dizzy Gillespie. Later she toured with singers Billy Daniels and Billy Williams. In 1957 her album The Gal With The Horn came out. Then in the mid-1960s she briefly did duo work with her brother who was a vocalist. That stated she had an on/off career where she took time off to spend raising her four children.

She also had some notice in television, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. In later life she became the first American female jazz musician to play in the Soviet Union on a request from Mikhail Gorbachev.

After her heart attack in 1996 she became unable to play, but still sings and lectures on jazz.