Had she been a singer, she might have been an American star. But Clora Bryant played the trumpet, and reputation came slowly. Bryant, a barrier breaker who stood firm in her determination to be a respected jazz trumpet player despite the open sexism (性别歧视) that shadowed her, died on August 25, in 2019, in Los Angeles, when she was 92. Life as a jazz trumpeter was an uphill battle, said her son Darrin. "It was a man's world, and that made it hard for her. But that only fueled her fire, and made her more resolved."
Bryant played the trumpet with such passion and she became a mainstay in the growing jazz scene in the 1940s. Dizzy Gillespie once told Times jazz critic Leonard Feather that Bryant was the most underrated (低估) trumpet player in L.A.
But by 1992, she was living on Social Security, staying at a son's Long Beach, in California, apartment, and two of her trumpets were in the pawnshop (典当铺). "A lot of clubs have closed." she told the Times. "And how many female trumpet players do you see working?"
Bryant and her brothers were raised by their father, a patient man who encouraged his children to think big. She wanted to be in the high school marching band, but Charles Bryant warned his daughter she'd likely face resistance. "But anything you want to do, I'm behind you," she recalled. It was her father who encouraged her to do whatever she wanted to do that made her stronger and stronger.
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