John Hardee 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...

 tenor saxophonist.

Hardee toured with Don Albert

Don Albert

Albert Dominique, better known by his stage name Don Albert was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader....

 in 1937-38 while he was still in college; he graduated in 1941. He directed a local Texas school band and served in the Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. In 1946 he played with Tiny Grimes

Tiny Grimes

Lloyd "Tiny" Grimes was an American jazz and R&B guitarist. He was a member of the Art Tatum Trio from 1943 to 1944, was a backing musician on recording sessions, and later led his own bands, including a recording session with Charlie Parker...

 and then recorded as a bandleader

Bandleader

A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....

 for Blue Note

Blue note

In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the...

 between 1946 and 1948, issuing eight releases. Later in the 1940s and early 1950s he played with Clyde Bernhardt

Clyde Bernhardt

Clyde Bernhardt was an American jazz trombonist.Bernhardt was born in North Carolina and raised there and in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania...

, Cousin Joe

Cousin Joe

Cousin Joe was an American blues and jazz singer, later famous for his 1940s recordings with clarinetist Sidney Bechet and saxophonist Mezz Mezzrow....

, Russell Procope

Russell Procope

Russell Procope , an American clarinettist and alto saxophonist, was known best for his long tenure in the reed section of Duke Ellington's orchestra, where he was one of its two signature clarinet soloists....

, Earl Bostic

Earl Bostic

Earl Bostic was an American jazz and rhythm and blues alto saxophonist, and a pioneer of the post-war American Rhythm and Blues style. He had a number of popular hits such as "Flamingo", "Harlem Nocturne", "Temptation", "Sleep", "Special Delivery Stomp", and "Where or When", which showed off his...

, Billy Kyle

Billy Kyle

William Osborne "Billy" Kyle was an American jazz pianist.-Biography:Kyle was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began playing the piano in school and by the early 1930s worked with Lucky Millinder, and later the Mills Blue Rhythm Band. In 1938, he joined John Kirby's band, but was drafted in...

, Helen Humes

Helen Humes

Helen Humes was an American jazz and blues singer.Humes was successively a teenaged blues singer, band vocalist with Count Basie, saucy R&B diva and a mature interpreter of the classy popular song.-Career:...

, Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and since 1994, he was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in...

, and Lucky Millinder

Lucky Millinder

Lucius Venable "Lucky" Millinder was an American rhythm and blues and swing bandleader. Although he could not read or write music, did not play an instrument and rarely sang, his showmanship and musical taste made his bands successful...

. In the 1950s he essentially retired from music and became a schoolteacher.