BOSSIP’s Black History Hidden Gems: Piano Prodigy…
Welcome back to the next chapter of BOSSIP’s Black History Hidden Gems, our weekly Black History Month collection devoted to uncovering neglected Black figures, moments, and milestones. This collection spotlights tales that historical past almost erased, but legacy refused to overlook.
Recognizing Black achievement during Black History Month shouldn’t be only about honoring triumph, but about reclaiming narratives of resilience, mind, and humanity that had been, in some instances, intentionally buried. Visionary virtuoso Hazel Scott’s expertise blazed trails across Broadway, movie, and her own landmark TV show before Oprah was even born. Yet her identify isn’t remembered with friends like Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne. Scott’s epic profession was cut short for confronting Hollywood and the U.S. authorities about segregated crowds, racist portrayals of Black people, and political persecution a decade before the Civil Rights Movement.
Source: iOne / inventive providers
A Piano Prodigy Becomes A Star
Born in Trinidad on June 11, 1920 to West African scholar R. Thomas Scott and classically educated pianist Alma Long Scott, it appears that Hazel Scott’s meteoric rise to the top of leisure and liberation actions was future. By the age of three, she grew to become a local legend for taking part in piano by ear.
According to PBS’s American Masters, Scotts moved to Harlem, New York, in 1924 at the peak of the Harlem Renaissance. Scott’s mom took her to audition at Juilliard at eight, half the distinguished college’s minimal age. She improvised Rachmaninoff to compensate for palms too small to attain all of the keys, convincing Walter Damrosch to grant her a particular admission and scholarship. At 13, Scott adopted her mom’s musical footsteps to play in Alma Long Scott’s All-Girl Jazz Band.
By 16, Scott hosted her own radio show on WOR, where she flexed advanced 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 fashion 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 revolutionary Café Society, the first desegregated nightclub in the U.S., Billie Holiday gave Scott her big break to change the “Strange Fruit” singer as headliner. Her star continued rise at one of the most popular and most progressive venues in 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 combat 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 never carry out for segregated crowds. Scott famously cancelled an Austin, Texas show when she noticed the venue wasn’t built-in. “Why would anyone come to hear me, a Negro, and refuse to sit beside someone just like me?” she requested Time magazine.
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 industry lowered Black actors to servants, villains, and prostitutes, the triple menace’s contract stipulated she would only play herself. While Hattie McDaniel couldn’t discover reprieve from segregation long enough to accumulate her historic Academy Award, Scott demanded remaining approval of her tune choice and provided her own elegant wardrobe.
Scott grew to become the first Afro-Caribbean girl in major Hollywood roles like I Dood It (1943), Broadway Rhythm (1944), and Rhapsody In Blue (1945). Big screen success didn’t last long after filming The Heat’s On (1943). Scott and Lena Horne had been the only Black stars on an all-white forged, where rampant racism compelled the outspoken advocate to take a stand.
Scott halted manufacturing for three days over a efficiency where Black ladies dressed in soiled aprons despatched their males off to struggle. She called it unrealistic and demanded a wardrobe true to the pleasure of her people. She received the battle, but a studio government vowed that the prolific pianist would never guide another movie again.
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 performing at nightclubs and Café Society. The energy couple welcomed a son, Adam Clayton Powell III. She went on a 35-week national tour, still demanding forfeiture for any bookings at segregated golf equipment, including the Jim Crow South. According to PBS, Martin Luther King Jr. later told Scott her efficiency was “the first time I sat in a non-segregated audience in the south was at one of your concerts.”
In 1950, Scott grew to become the first Black broadcast TV host with the “Hazel Scott Show” on the Dumont Television community. No recordings of her show survived, but it was so in style that it expanded to a national airing thrice a week.
That same 12 months, McCarthyism compelled Scott to select between combating for freedom and newfound success when the “Red Channels” listed her as a Communist. She was one of the few entertainers to insist on testifying before the House Un-American Committee (HUAC) to clear her identify.
She denied what she believed had been misconceptions based on her affiliation with the Café Society. However, the most damning “Un-American” factor Scott did was defy racism at every flip, including 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 in the blacklisting.
“The actors, musicians, artists, composers, and all of the men and women of the arts are eager and anxious to help, to serve. Our country needs us more today than ever before. We should not be written off by the vicious slanders of little and petty men,” she bravely said 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 show 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 most important jazz albums of the twentieth century, Relaxed Piano Moods, with Max Roach and Charlie Mingus.
In 1963, she and James Baldwin organized a demonstration of African-Americans at the U.S. embassy in Paris to assist the March on Washington. Scott soon returned to the States, only to discover Motown and Rock changed Jazz and Blues.
Scott targeted on her son’s growing 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 cancer. In addition to a loving household, she left behind an incomparable legacy of genius, innovation, advocacy, and bravery in the face of overwhelming oppression and injustice. Tragically, too few bear in mind Scott’s identify and contributions. Alicia Keys put her back in the highlight at the 61st Grammy Awards with an homage of taking part in two pianos at once, like Scott famously did with mesmerizing class and ease.
The post BOSSIP’s Black History Hidden Gems: Piano Prodigy Hazel Scott Was The First Black TV Star & Blacklisted For Battling Racism Decades Before Civil Rights appeared first on GWN.
