Scott and Powell married the following summer, amid great scandal (he divorced his previous wife just days earlier) and great fanfare (the glamorous couple was the subject of intense media interest). In 1944, Powell became the first African American elected to Congress from New York. Scott returned to New York City from Hollywood, where she began an affair with Harlem preacher and politician Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Scott’s fame and talent helped too: by 1945 she was attracting large audiences and earning today’s equivalent of over one million dollars per year. Scott credited her courage to the example her mother set for her as a proud and independent woman. She was one of the first performers to refuse to play before segregated audiences, including the stipulation in all her contracts. It was not just in Hollywood that Scott took a stand against racial prejudice. But standing up to the studio’s demands brought her film career to an end by 1945. ![]() She instead appeared as herself in five films, a sophisticated woman with immense musical talents, and insisted on the appropriate credit: “Hazel Scott as Herself.” She also called for pay equal to that of her white counterparts. She turned down the first four roles offered to her, all for singing maids. However, she immediately came up against the racist strictures of Hollywood. Her “Bach to Boogie” recordings on the Signature and Decca labels broke sales records.Īfter appearing in several Broadway productions, Scott moved to Los Angeles and signed with RKO, a major movie studio. She was a talented singer as well, possessing a vibrant and full-bodied voice. She was not the first put a jazz spin on the classics, but the combination of her classical training, her early exposure to top jazz musicians, and her natural talent enabled Scott to astonish listeners with her stylings. ![]() ![]() She would begin by playing familiar classical piece, then would improvise, adding jazzy runs and flourishes to their melodies. When the run was up, Scott was the "Darling of Café Society” and the club’s new headliner.Īudiences found Scott’s penchant for “jazzing the classics” irresistible. When singer Billie Holiday ended her standing engagement there three weeks early, she insisted on Scott as her replacement. Café Society was New York’s first fully integrated nightclub and the city’s hot spot for jazz. It was her 1939 performances at Café Society in Greenwich Village that pushed Scott’s career to the next level. Despite her demanding musical career, Scott graduated high school with honors. She won a local competition to host her own radio show and, in 1938, made her Broadway debut in the musical revue Sing Out the News. At 15, Scott made her individual stage debut opposite Count Basie’s big band at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. At the age of 13, she joined her mother’s jazz band, Alma Long Scott’s American Creolians. Scott’s rendition of Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C-Sharp Minor” convinced professor Oscar Wagner of Scott’s “genius” and he arranged a scholarship so that he could instruct her privately.īy the time she was a teenager, Scott was performing professionally throughout the city. Her mother’s musical connections made it possible for Scott to audition for the prestigious Juilliard School of Music at the unheard-of age of eight (students were supposed to be 16). Scott and her mother were extremely close, and Scott called her mother “the single biggest influence in my life.” Alma became friends with prominent African-American musicians, which gave Scott the opportunity to learn from a variety of musical greats, such as Art Tatum, Lester Young, and Fats Waller. Scott's mother played in several all-women bands to earn a living. Scott’s parents separated and she moved with her mother and grandmother to New York City in 1924. When her mother’s music students would hit a wrong note, Scott would yelp with displeasure. Scott displayed her talents for music at an early age and, by the age of three, Scott could play the piano by ear. Thomas Scott, a West African scholar from England, and Alma Long Scott, a classically trained pianist and saxophonist. Hazel Dorothy Scott was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad on June 11, 1920. and abroad with her jazzy renditions of classical works. The gifted and popular performer dazzled audiences in the U.S. Jazz pianist and singer Hazel Scott was not only the first African-American woman to host her own television show, but she also bravely stood up to the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Hollywood studio machine.
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