Red Cross is a contrafact composed by guitarist Tiny Grimes, built on the chord changes of George Gershwin's I Got Rhythm. First recorded on September 15, 1944, for Savoy Records, the tune was cut during Grimes' debut session as a leader, shortly after his departure from the Art Tatum Trio and amid the lifting of the American Federation of Musicians recording ban. The session featured a quintette with Charlie Parker on alto saxophone, Clyde Hart on piano, Jimmy Butts on bass, and Doc West on drums. Red Cross is an upbeat instrumental that reflects Grimes' position at the crossroads of swing and early bebop, with his electric guitar style drawing on the influence of Charlie Christian while the ensemble interplay anticipates the small-group bop recordings that would follow. The tune appeared alongside other Grimes originals such as Tiny's Tempo from the same date, and has been reissued on compilations including the 2002 collection Tiny Grimes 1944-1949. Red Cross is not a widely covered standard in the jazz repertoire, but it holds historical interest as an early example of Parker's sideman work and as a snapshot of the transitional moment when swing-era musicians began incorporating bebop's rhythmic and harmonic vocabulary into their own compositions.
