Casper Reardon

Although few jazz enthusiasts today recognize his name, Casper Reardon holds a singular place in the music’s past as history’s first and only major male jazz harpist—distinct from harmonica players—and he preceded the celebrated Adele Girard. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, he devoted the early and greater portion of his professional life to classical performance, appearing with both the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. While based in Cincinnati, however, he began broadcasting jazz harp on radio under the pseudonym Arpeggio Glissandi. His earliest discs found him at the piano, backing tap dancers; his debut as a jazz harpist on record came in 1934 alongside Jack Teagarden. Additional guest appearances took him into the bands of Paul Whiteman, the Casa Loma Orchestra, and Abe Lyman. In 1936 he joined Teagarden’s Three T’s Band and later fronted his own ensembles at New York hotels. Reardon died at the age of thirty-three. Between 1936 and 1940 he led sessions that yielded a dozen jazz-focused titles, none of which have yet appeared on LP or CD.