Biography
During the swing period, Buster Harding ranked among the leading independent arrangers, displaying enough versatility to compose progressive scores amid the bop years as well. His upbringing took place in Cleveland, where he directed a personal ensemble as a young man in the opening years of the 1930s. Following engagements alongside Marion Sears in Buffalo and a twelve-month stay north of the border, he contributed arrangements while serving as the secondary pianist in Teddy Wilson's Orchestra from 1939 to 1940. Additional writing duties came for Coleman Hawkins during the brief existence of that leader's large ensemble, after which Harding directed a four-piece group before taking on the role of staff arranger with Cab Calloway between 1941 and 1942. Subsequently he supplied material to numerous prominent orchestras on a freelance basis, among them those fronted by Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman (for whom he penned "Scarecrow"), Cab Calloway (including "Jonah Joins The Cab"), Earl Hines, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Dizzy Gillespie, plus further clients such as Billie Holiday in 1954. Activity diminished in his later years, though he provided services to Jonah Jones throughout a stretch in the 1960s. Notably, this skilled yet underrecognized craftsman Buster Harding never fronted a recording session under his own name.