Welcome again to the following chapter of BOSSIP’s Black History Hidden Gems, our weekly Black History Month collection devoted to uncovering missed Black figures, moments, and milestones. This collection spotlights tales that historical past almost erased, however legacy refused to overlook.
Recognizing Black achievement throughout Black History Month is just not solely about honoring triumph, however about reclaiming narratives of resilience, mind, and humanity that had been, in some instances, intentionally buried. Visionary virtuoso Hazel Scott’s expertise blazed trails throughout Broadway, movie, and her personal landmark TV present earlier than Oprah was even born. Yet her title isn’t remembered with friends like Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne. Scott’s epic profession was lower quick for confronting Hollywood and the U.S. authorities about segregated crowds, racist portrayals of Black individuals, and political persecution a decade earlier than the Civil Rights Movement.
A Piano Prodigy Becomes A Star
Born in Trinidad on June 11, 1920 to West African scholar R. Thomas Scott and classically skilled pianist Alma Long Scott, evidently Hazel Scott’s meteoric rise to the highest of leisure and liberation actions was future. By the age of three, she grew to become an area legend for taking part in piano by ear.
According to PBS’s American Masters, Scotts moved to Harlem, New York, in 1924 on the top of the Harlem Renaissance. Scott’s mom took her to audition at Juilliard at eight, half the celebrated college’s minimal age. She improvised Rachmaninoff to compensate for palms too small to succeed in all the keys, convincing Walter Damrosch to grant her a particular admission and scholarship. At 13, Scott followed her mother’s musical footsteps to play in Alma Long Scott’s All-Girl Jazz Band.
By 16, Scott hosted her personal radio present on WOR, the place she flexed complicated classical piano performances. She shared the stage with the Count Basie Orchestra and made her 1938 Broadway debut in “Sing Out the News.” During her gig at Manhattan’s Yacht Club, the 18-year-old perfects a signature model to “Swing the Classics” with jazz’s pace and syncopation.
Hazel Scott Finds Her Big Break And Musical Home At The Café Society
At the progressive Café Society, the primary desegregated nightclub within the U.S., Billie Holiday gave Scott her huge break to interchange the “Strange Fruit” singer as headliner. Her star continued rise at one of many hottest and most progressive venues within the nation. Scott’s first album, “Swinging the Classics,” grew to become a critically acclaimed and record-breaking success in 1940.
This fame and fortune grew to become leverage to struggle for equality as she continued to climb. With followers like Paul Robeson, Sinatra, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, and Eleanor Roosevelt, Scott had the ability to demand in her contracts that she by no means carry out for segregated crowds. Scott famously cancelled an Austin, Texas present when she noticed the venue wasn’t built-in. “Why would anybody come to listen to me, a Negro, and refuse to take a seat beside somebody identical to me?” she requested Time journal.
Breaking Down Barriers In Hollywood
Scott didn’t change when Hollywood got here calling. Despite being a newcomer, Scott turned down 4 movie roles as a singing maid. While the trade diminished Black actors to servants, villains, and prostitutes, the triple menace’s contract stipulated she would solely play herself. While Hattie McDaniel couldn’t discover reprieve from segregation lengthy sufficient to gather her historic Academy Award, Scott demanded ultimate approval of her tune choice and provided her personal elegant wardrobe.
Scott grew to become the primary Afro-Caribbean lady in main Hollywood roles like I Dood It (1943), Broadway Rhythm (1944), and Rhapsody In Blue (1945). Big display success didn’t final lengthy after filming The Heat’s On (1943). Scott and Lena Horne had been the one Black stars on an all-white forged, the place rampant racism compelled the outspoken advocate to take a stand.
Scott halted manufacturing for 3 days over a efficiency the place Black ladies wearing soiled aprons despatched their males off to struggle. She known as it unrealistic and demanded a wardrobe true to the satisfaction of her individuals. She gained the battle, however a studio govt vowed that the prolific pianist would by no means guide one other movie once more.
Hazel Scott Makes History With Her Own TV Show & Makes An Enemy Of The U.S. Government
After marrying progressive pastor-turned-New York Councilman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in 1945, Scott stopped acting at nightclubs and Café Society. The energy couple welcomed a son, Adam Clayton Powell III. She went on a 35-week nationwide tour, nonetheless demanding forfeiture for any bookings at segregated golf equipment, together with the Jim Crow South. According to PBS, Martin Luther King Jr. later advised Scott her efficiency was “the primary time I sat in a non-segregated viewers within the south was at one in all your live shows.”
In 1950, Scott grew to become the primary Black broadcast TV host with the “Hazel Scott Show” on the Dumont Television community. No recordings of her present survived, however it was so widespread that it expanded to a nationwide airing thrice every week.
That similar yr, McCarthyism pressured Scott to decide on between preventing for freedom and newfound success when the “Red Channels” listed her as a Communist. She was one of many few entertainers to insist on testifying earlier than the House Un-American Committee (HUAC) to clear her title.
She denied what she believed had been misconceptions primarily based on her affiliation with the Café Society. However, essentially the most damning “Un-American” factor Scott did was defy racism at each flip, together with a landmark 1949 lawsuit for discrimination when a Pasco, Washington restaurant refused to serve her. Scott denounced the checklist of suspected sympathizers, HUAC, and any platform that conceded by taking part within the blacklisting.
“The actors, musicians, artists, composers, and all the women and men of the humanities are keen and anxious to assist, to serve. Our nation wants us extra at this time than ever earlier than. We shouldn’t be written off by the vicious slanders of little and petty males,” she bravely stated in a 14-page assertion.
Once Blacklisting Ends Hazel Scott’s U.S. Career, She Starts Over In Paris
One week later, the community canceled her hit present as sponsors pulled out. Scott left for Europe as blacklisting ruined her U.S profession, befriending Black ex-pats like James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, and Dizzy Gillespie. As Scott’s marriage declined, her profession revived with a European live performance tour. In 1955, she recorded one of the vital essential jazz albums of the twentieth century, Relaxed Piano Moods, with Max Roach and Charlie Mingus.
In 1963, she and James Baldwin organized an indication of African-Americans on the U.S. embassy in Paris to assist the March on Washington. Scott quickly returned to the States, solely to seek out Motown and Rock changed Jazz and Blues.
Scott targeted on her son’s rising household and continued to play golf equipment and live shows. She quickly recorded three albums in 1979: “Always,” “After Thoughts,” and “After Hours.”
In 1981, Hazel Scott died of pancreatic most cancers. In addition to a loving household, she left behind an incomparable legacy of genius, innovation, advocacy, and bravado within the face of overwhelming oppression and injustice. Tragically, too few keep in mind Scott’s title and contributions. Alicia Keys put her again within the highlight on the 61st Grammy Awards with an homage of enjoying two pianos directly, like Scott famously did with mesmerizing class and ease.
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