Willie Bryant

William Stevens Bryant, born in Chicago, Illinois on August 30, 1908, was an American jazz bandleader, vocalist, disc jockey, and Broadway performer who became widely known as the "Mayor of Harlem." He died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California on February 9, 1964.

Bryant's entry into entertainment came through dance. As a child he studied trumpet, though without lasting success, and turned instead to tap dancing. In 1926 he took his first professional job performing with the Whitman Sisters Show, after which he spent several years working in vaudeville. By 1934 he had appeared in Chocolate Revue alongside Bessie Smith.

That same year, Bryant assembled his first big band, whose rotating membership included musicians such as Teddy Wilson, Cozy Cole, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Eddie Durham, Ram Ramirez, Taft Jordan, and Johnny Russell. The ensemble recorded 26 sides across six sessions between 1935 and 1938, with Bryant providing vocals on 18 of those recordings.

His Broadway career spanned 1939 to 1945. He appeared in Mamba's Daughters in 1939 and returned for its revival in 1940, and he starred in Blue Holiday. After his band disbanded, Bryant shifted his focus to acting and disc jockeying. He recorded rhythm and blues in 1945 for Apollo Records, and in 1996 Delmark Records issued Willie Bryant: Blues Around the Clock, a compact-disc reissue collecting 10 of the Apollo recordings made between 1945 and 1949. He led another big band from 1946 to 1948.

Bryant maintained a prominent presence in radio and television broadcasting. In the summer of 1946 he served as master of ceremonies on Night Life, broadcast on CBS radio. In September and October 1949 he hosted Uptown Jubilee, a short-lived all-Black variety program on CBS-TV that aired Tuesday nights. During the 1950s he worked as emcee at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. In 1954 he was dismissed from his disc jockey position at radio station WHOM; Bryant attributed the firing to his refusal to pressure Harlem business owners into purchasing more Knickerbocker Beer, while the station's vice-president cited a desire for change. On September 28, 1956, Bryant opened the Orchid Room at the Red Mill in the Bronx, partnering with nightclub operators Herman and Charlie Kaye; the ABC radio network broadcast live from the venue on Saturday nights. He later served as master of ceremonies on Show Time at the Apollo, a musical television series that began airing on Channel 11 in New York City on September 21, 1963.