Clyde Bernhardt was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 trombonist.

Bernhardt was born in North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 and raised there and in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

. He started playing trombone at age 17, and in the 1920s played with a variety of lesser-known ensembles, such as Bill Eady's Ellwood Syncopators, Tillie Vennie, Odie Cromwell's Wolverine Syncopators, Charlie Grear's Original Midnite Ramblers, the Richard Cheatham Orchestra, the Whitman Sisters, Honey Brown's Orchestra, and Ray Parker. He worked with King Oliver in 1931, and through the middle of the decade did stints with Alex Hill

Alex Hill

Alex Hill was an American jazz pianist.Hill was a child prodigy on piano, which he learned from his mother. While studying at Shorter College he met Alphonse Trent, and began arranging material for him. He graduated in 1922 and played in various territory bands, including Terrence Holder's...

, The Alabamians, Billy Fowler, Ira Coffey's Walkathonians, and Vernon Andrade

Vernon Andrade

Vernon Andrade was an American jazz bandleader active primarily in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s.Andrade played violin as a teenager and moved to New York in the early 1920s, holding a position in Deacon Johnson's orchestra. He picked up double-bass in 1923 and became a bandleader around...

.

In 1937 he joined Edgar Hayes

Edgar Hayes

Edgar Hayes was an American jazz pianist and bandleader.Hayes attended Wilberforce University, where he graduated with a degree in music in the early 1920s. In 1922 he toured with Fess Williams, and formed his own group, the Blue Grass Buddies, in Ohio in 1924...

's orchestra, remaining there through 1942, then worked with Jay McShann

Jay McShann

Jay McShann was an American Grammy Award-nominated jump blues, mainstream jazz, and swing bandleader, pianist and singer....

, Cecil Scott

Cecil Scott

Cecil Scott was an American jazz clarinetist, tenor saxophonist, and bandleader....

, Luis Russell

Luis Russell

Luis Russell was a jazz pianist and bandleader.Luis Carl Russell was born on Careening Cay, near Bocas del Toro, Panama, in a family of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. His father was a music teacher, and young Luis learned to play violin, guitar, trombone, and piano...

, Leonard Feather

Leonard Feather

Leonard Geoffrey Feather was a British-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer who was best known for his music journalism and other writing.-Biography:...

, Pete Johnson

Pete Johnson

Pete Johnson was an American boogie-woogie and jazz pianist.Journalist Tony Russell stated in his book The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray, that "Johnson shared with the other members of the 'Boogie Woogie Trio' the technical virtuosity and melodic fertility that can make this the most...

, Wynonie Harris

Wynonie Harris

Wynonie Harris , born in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American blues shouter and rhythm and blues singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. With fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952, Harris is generally considered one of rock and roll's forerunners, influencing Elvis Presley...

, Claude Hopkins

Claude Hopkins

Claude Driskett Hopkins was an American jazz stride pianist and bandleader.-Biography:Claude Hopkins was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1903. Historians differ in respect of the actual date of his birth. His parents were on the faculty of Howard University...

, and Paul

Paul Bascomb

Paul Bascomb was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, noted for his extended tenure with Erskine Hawkins. He is a 1979 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame....

 and Dud Bascomb

Dud Bascomb

Wilbur Odell "Dud" Bascomb was an American jazz trumpeter best known for his tenure with Erskine Hawkins. He is a 1979 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame....

. He led his own ensemble, called the Blue Blazers, before returning to play with Russell from 1948-51. He recorded as a leader between 1946 and 1953, and on some of the recordings he sings under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Ed Barron.

From 1952 to 1970 he played part-time with Joe Garland

Joe Garland

Joseph Copeland "Joe" Garland was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and arranger, best known for writing "In the Mood"....

's Society Orchestra, also working outside of music during this time. Following this he led the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band between 1972 and 1979; his sidemen included Doc Cheatham, Charlie Holmes

Charlie Holmes

Charlie Holmes was an alto jazz saxophonist of the swing era. He also played clarinet in jazz and oboe for the Boston Civic Symphony Orchestra in 1926....

, Happy Caldwell

Happy Caldwell

Albert W. "Happy" Caldwell was an American jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist....

, Tommy Benford

Tommy Benford

Thomas "Tommy" Benford was an African American jazz drummer.Tommy Benford was the younger brother of tuba player Bill Benford. He studied music at the Jenkins Orphanage located in South Carolina. He went on tour with the school band including traveling to England in 1914.In 1920, he was working...

, and Miss Rhapsody. Bernhardt's heath began to fail in 1979, and he gave up leadership of the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band but played in Barry Martyn

Barry Martyn

Barry Martyn is an English born jazz drummer, active principally on the New Orleans jazz revival circuit....

's Legends of Jazz until his death in 1986. Shortly before his death he published an autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 co-written with Sheldon Harris entitled I Remember.