Dave Schildkraut 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...

 alto saxophonist.

Schildkraut first played professionally with Louis Prima

Louis Prima

Louis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...

 in 1941. Following this he played with Buddy Rich

Buddy Rich

Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...

 (1946), Anita O'Day

Anita O'Day

Anita O'Day was an American jazz singer.Born Anita Belle Colton, O'Day was admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer"...

 (1947), Stan Kenton

Stan Kenton

Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....

 (1953-54), Pete Rugolo

Pete Rugolo

Pietro "Pete" Rugolo was an Italian-born jazz composer and arranger.-Life and career:Rugolo was born in San Piero Patti, Sicily, Italy. His family emigrated to the United States in 1920 and settled in Santa Rosa, California...

 (1954), Oscar Pettiford

Oscar Pettiford

Oscar Pettiford was an American jazz double bassist, cellist and composer known particularly for his pioneering work in bebop.-Biography:...

 (1954), Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

 ("Solar

Solar (composition)

"Solar" is a musical composition attributed to Miles Davis on the studio album Walkin , considered a modern jazz standard. There is disagreement concerning the exact pronunciation of the tune, whether it was intended as or...

", 1954), George Handy

George Handy

George Handy was a jazz music arranger, composer and pianist whose musical beginnings were fostered under the tutelage of pianist Aaron Copland...

 (1955), Tony Aless

Tony Aless

Anthony Alessandrini, better known by his stage name Tony Aless was an American jazz pianist....

 (1955), Ralph Burns

Ralph Burns

Ralph Burns was an American songwriter, bandleader, composer, conductor, arranger and bebop pianist.-Early life:...

, Tito Puente

Tito Puente

Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...

, Johnny Richards, and Kenton again in 1959. From the 1960s, he played freelance in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where he appeared regularly with Eddie Bert

Eddie Bert

Eddie Bert is an American bebop jazz trombonist.His first job as a musician came in 1940 when he joined the Sam Donahue Orchestra, and then joined up with Red Norvo in 1941, later performing also with the bands of Stan Kenton and with Benny Goodman's bebop orchestra.He also recorded extensively as...

 at the West End Cafe. Later in his life he went into semi-retirement.

Schildkraut's playing was fluid and brilliant in pure bebop

Bebop

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

 style: so much so that, during a blindfold test

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:...

 for Down Beat

Down Beat

Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...

, Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...

 mistakenly identified him as Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

.

In year 2000, the label Endgame Records published his only recording as a leader, "Last Date".