John Maurice Hartman (July 3, 1923 – September 15, 1983)[1] was an American jazz singer, known for his rich baritone voice and recordings of ballads.

Born to an African American family in Louisiana and raised in Chicago, Hartman began singing and playing the piano by the age of eight.

[2] He sang as a private in the Army's Special Services during World War II, but his first professional break came in September 1946 when he won a singing contest at the Apollo Theater, earning him a one-week engagement with Earl Hines, which lasted a year.

After the Hines orchestra broke up, Dizzy Gillespie invited Hartman to join his big band for an eight-week tour of California in 1948.

After leaving Gillespie, Hartman worked for a short time with pianist Erroll Garner before beginning as a soloist early in 1950.

With the 1970s being difficult times for singers working from the American songbook, Hartman turned to playing cocktail lounges in New York City and Chicago.

Recording with small, independent labels such as Perception and Musicor, Hartman produced music of mixed quality as he attempted to be viewed as a more versatile vocalist.

In the early 1980s, Hartman gave several performances at jazz festivals and for television and radio before succumbing to lung cancer at the age of 60.

[6] More than a decade after he died, Clint Eastwood featured four songs from the then out-of-print album Once in Every Life for the dreamy, romantic scenes in The Bridges of Madison County (1995).

A biography, The Last Balladeer: The Johnny Hartman Story by Dr. Gregg Akkerman, was published in June 2012 by Scarecrow Press as part of their "Studies in Jazz" series.