Renowned jazz vocalist and “trumpetiste” Clora Bryant will provide musical entertainment on Sunday, November 4, 2012 at 12:30 p.m. during the Umoja Karamu Fellowship Reception at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church as part of the African American Cultural Awareness Ministry’s annual celebration of National Black Catholic History Month. Ms. Bryant is a long-time parishioner of Holy Name of Jesus.

Bryant was born in Denison, Texas in 1927. The 85 year old music pioneer began playing the trumpet at age 14 and declined a scholarship from Oberlin College in favor of Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical College because of their jazz band program. She has broken barriers as the only woman musician to perform with Charlie Parker, and as the first American woman jazz musician to play in the Soviet Union. Bryant is legendary among the many musicians of the famed 1940s African American jazz scene on Los Angeles’s Central Avenue. She released an album, Gal With a Horn, in 1957 and co-edited the book, Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles, published in 1999 by University of California Press. Bryant has not played the trumpet since 1996, after experiencing a heart attack. However, she continues to sing and lecture on jazz.