"Tiny's Tempo" is an up-tempo instrumental composition credited to guitarist Tiny Grimes, recorded on September 15, 1944, for Savoy Records in New York City. The tune emerged from one of the most historically significant recording sessions in early bebop: a date organized by Savoy at the Downbeat Club on 52nd Street that produced the first commercially released recordings featuring Charlie Parker as a sideman. Grimes, a self-taught guitarist who had previously worked with Art Tatum's trio, led a quintet on this session that included Parker on alto saxophone, Clyde Hart on piano, Jimmy Butts on bass, and Harold "Doc" West on drums. The session yielded four sides, two instrumental and two vocal, with "Tiny's Tempo" and Parker's "Red Cross" representing the instrumental half. "Tiny's Tempo" is a swinging, riff-based number that showcases the transitional moment between swing and bebop, with Grimes's electric guitar carrying the main theme while Parker's alto solo displays the harmonic daring and rhythmic ingenuity that would soon revolutionize jazz. Clyde Hart's piano solo on the track also merits attention, as Hart was among the first pianists to adapt bebop vocabulary to the instrument before his early death in 1945. The recording was originally issued on Savoy 78 rpm singles and has since been reissued on numerous compilations, most notably The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes. While "Tiny's Tempo" never became a widely played jam session standard, it holds an important place in the Parker discography as a document of his earliest studio work.
