Hazel Dorothy Scott (June 11, 1920 – October 2, 1981) was an American pianist and singer who played jazz and classical music. She strongly opposed unfair treatment based on race and separation of people by race, and she worked to help more Black Americans be seen in movies.

She was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and moved to New York City with her mother when she was four years old. Scott was a young musical talent, and at age eight, she received scholarships to study at the Juilliard School. During her teenage years, she performed at a famous club called Café Society while still in school. She also played music on the radio.

Scott was active as a jazz singer during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, she became the first Black American to host her own television show, The Hazel Scott Show. Her career in the United States suffered after she gave testimony to a committee that investigated people suspected of being unpatriotic during a time known as McCarthyism.

Scott later moved to Paris, France, in 1957 and performed in Europe. She did not return to the United States for ten years, until 1967.

Early life

Hazel Dorothy Scott was born on June 11, 1920, in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. She was the only child of R. Thomas Scott, a West African scholar from Liverpool, England, and Alma Long Scott, a classically trained pianist and music teacher. In 1924, the family moved to the United States and settled in Harlem, New York City. At this time, Scott’s parents had separated, and she lived with her mother and grandmother.

By this time, Scott could play any music she heard on the piano. Her mother taught her and helped her learn advanced piano techniques. Because of her skill, Scott was called a child prodigy. When she was eight years old, she began studying with Professor Oscar Wagner from the Juilliard School of Music. In 1933, her mother started a music group called Alma Long Scott’s All-Girl Jazz Band. Scott played the piano and trumpet in this band.

Career

By the time she was 16, Hazel Scott often played music on radio shows for the Mutual Broadcasting System. She became known as the "hot classicist" because she combined classical music with lively styles. In the mid-1930s, she also performed at the Roseland Dance Hall with the Count Basie Orchestra. Her early work in musical theater in New York included the Cotton Club Revue of 1938, Sing Out the News with Will Geer, June Allyson, and Maude Simmons, and The Priorities of 1942.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Scott played many types of music, including jazz, blues, ballads, Broadway songs, boogie-woogie, and classical music, in nightclubs. Barney Josephson, who owned the black and tan club Café Society, hired her. From 1939 to 1943, she was a top performer at both the downtown and uptown branches of Café Society. Her performances helped make the practice of "swinging the classics" famous nationwide. By 1945, Scott earned $75,000 a year, which would be worth about $1,341,266 today.

Along with Lena Horne, Scott was one of the first Black women to have important roles in major Hollywood films. She refused to take roles that made her play a "singing maid," so she turned down the first four offers she received. When she started acting in Hollywood films, she insisted on having the final say about how she was shown on screen. She performed as herself in the films I Dood It (MGM, 1943), Broadway Rhythm (MGM, 1944) with Lena Horne, The Heat's On (Columbia, 1943), Something to Shout About (Columbia, 1943), and Rhapsody in Blue (Warner Bros, 1945). She appeared in five Hollywood films total, always requesting the credit line "Miss Hazel Scott as Herself" and wearing her own clothes and jewelry to protect her image. Her final disagreement with Columbia Pictures' Harry Cohn involved a costume she believed made Black people look stereotypical. In the 1940s, she also performed in Café Society's From Bach to Boogie-Woogie concerts at Carnegie Hall in 1941 and 1943.

Scott was the first person of African descent to have her own television show in America, The Hazel Scott Show, which began on the DuMont Television Network on July 3, 1950. Variety magazine said, "Hazel Scott has a neat little show in this modest package," with Scott herself being the most engaging part. The show became very popular and soon aired three times a week. On the show, Scott performed with jazz musicians Charles Mingus and Max Roach, who were part of her supporting band.

Activism and blacklisting

Scott was dedicated to civil rights. She refused to perform in places that separated people by race during her tours. Once, Texas Rangers escorted her out of Austin, Texas, after she refused to perform because black and white audience members were seated separately. "Why would anyone come to hear me, a Negro," she asked Time magazine, "and refuse to sit beside someone just like me?"

In 1949, Scott filed a lawsuit against the owners of a restaurant in Pasco, Washington, after a waitress refused to serve her and her companion, Mrs. Eunice Wolfe, because "they were Negroes." Her success helped African Americans challenge racial discrimination in Spokane and inspired civil rights groups to push the Washington state legislature to pass the Public Accommodations Act in 1953.

During the Red Scare in the television industry, Scott’s name appeared in Red Channels: A Report on Communist Influence in Radio and Television in June 1950. To prove her innocence, she chose to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) on September 22, 1950, and read a prepared statement. She denied being connected to the Communist Party or its groups. She also mentioned supporting Benjamin J. Davis’s campaign for City Council, explaining that Davis had support from socialists, who had long opposed Communists. She criticized the spread of false accusations against entertainers and suggested using "democratic methods" to stop unfair claims. She ended her statement by asking that entertainers not be unfairly judged before proving their loyalty to the United States.

A week after her HUAC appearance, on September 29, 1950, her television variety program, The Hazel Scott Show, was cancelled. (Her program began six years before Nat King Cole’s show.) In 1951, Scott experienced a nervous breakdown. After recovering, she continued performing in the United States and Europe, including occasional television appearances on shows like Cavalcade of Stars and a guest role on Faye Emerson’s Wonderful Town. Her short-lived television show offered hope to African American viewers during a time of racial bias and economic challenges for jazz musicians. Scott remained against McCarthyism and racial segregation throughout her career.

To avoid political problems in the United States, Scott moved to Paris in 1957. She appeared in the French film Le désordre et la nuit (1958). In 1963, she joined other African-American expatriates, including James Baldwin, in marching to the U.S. Embassy in Paris to support the upcoming March on Washington.

Scott returned to the United States in 1967, after the Civil Rights Movement led to laws banning racial segregation in housing and public spaces and protecting voting rights. She continued performing in nightclubs and on daytime television until her death. In 1970, she made her television acting debut as Dolly Martin in the NBC drama The Bold Ones: The New Doctors. In 1973, she performed a wedding song for her onscreen "cousin" Carla Gray Hall on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live.

Personal life

In 1945, Hazel Scott married Adam Clayton Powell, a Baptist minister and U.S. Congressman. She was Catholic at the time. Their relationship caused controversy because Powell was already married when their relationship began. The couple had one child, Adam Clayton Powell III, but they divorced in 1960 after a period of separation.

On January 19, 1961, Scott married Ezio Bedin, a Swiss-Italian comedian who was 15 years younger than her. They divorced a few years later, before she returned to the United States.

Scott learned about the Bahá'í Faith from her longtime friend Dizzy Gillespie, who joined the religion in early 1968. After meaningful conversations with Gillespie, she joined the Bahá'í Faith in late 1968. Shortly after joining, she performed at an event where Vic Damone introduced her to the audience. Damone mentioned that Scott had recently attended a Bahá'í fireside (an informational meeting) at his home and had joined the faith. This moment made Scott emotional and brought her to tears.

In October 1970, Scott performed at an award dinner in New York. She sang songs including "When the World Was Young," "A Lonely Christmas," and "Put a Little Love in Your Heart." The event honored James L. Olivero, who received an International Education Year Award from Daniel Jordan of the Bahá'ís on behalf of the U.S. National Spiritual Assembly. Whitney Young, executive director of the National Urban League, praised her performance at the event.

In May 1971, a musicale titled The Sounds of a New World was held in Kingston, Jamaica, as part of a Bahá'í ship-and-shore conference. Scott co-presented the event with Dizzy Gillespie, Seals and Crofts, Linda Marshall, and others.

On October 2, 1981, Hazel Scott died of cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan at the age of 61. She is buried at Flushing Cemetery in Queens, New York, near other musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Johnny Hodges, and Dizzy Gillespie (who died in 1993).

Legacy

Hazel Scott was well-known as a skilled jazz pianist, as well as for her achievements in acting and classical music. She used her position as one of the most famous African-American entertainers of her time to draw attention to problems related to racial injustice and civil rights. She led recordings for several record companies, including Decca, Columbia, and Signature. These included a trio with Bill English and Martin Rivera, and another trio with Charles Mingus on bass and Rudy Nichols on drums. Her 1955 album Relaxed Piano Moods, released on the Debut label and featuring Mingus and Roach, is often considered her most critically praised work. Her unique musical style, which combined jazz and classical elements, kept her in demand for performances until the end of her life. Alicia Keys mentioned Hazel Scott as an inspiration for her performance at the 61st Grammy Awards, stating: "I've been thinking about people who inspire me; shout out to Hazel Scott, I've always wanted to play two pianos."

In 2020, a BBC World Service program titled Hazel Scott: Jazz Star and Barrier Breaker was broadcast as part of the series The Forum.

In When Women Invented Television, author Jennifer Keishin Armstrong includes Hazel Scott as one of four women who greatly influenced the development of television.

In 2022, the Dance Theatre of Harlem introduced a new ballet that tells the story of Hazel Scott's life.

On February 21, 2025, the American Masters documentary The Disappearance of Miss Scott was shown on PBS stations.

Selected discography

• Swinging the Classics: Piano Solos in Swing Style with Drums (Decca #A-212 [78rpm 3-disc album set], 1941; reissue: Decca #DL-5130 [10" LP], 1949)
• Her Second Album of Piano Solos with Drums, Accompanied (Decca #A-321 [78rpm 3-disc album set], 1942)
• A Piano Recital (Signature #S-1 [78rpm 4-disc album set], 1946)
• Great Scott! (Columbia #C-159 [78rpm 4-disc album set], 1947; reissue: Columbia #CL-6090 [10" LP], 1950)
• Two Toned Piano Recital (Coral #CRL-56057 [10" LP], 1952)
• Hazel Scott's Late Show (Capitol #H-364 [10" LP], 1953)
• Grand Jazz (Decca [Fr] #FM-133.529, 1954)
• Relaxed Piano Moods (Debut #DLP-16 [10" LP], 1955)
• 'Round Midnight (Decca #DL-8474, 1957)
• Hazel Scott Joue Et Chante (Polydor [Fr] #20 761 [7" EP], 1957)
• Le Desordre Et La Nuit (Polydor [Fr] #20 816 [7" EP], 1958)
• Viens Danser (Polydor [Fr] #20 842 [7" EP], 1958)
• Hazel Scott (Consul [Fr] #CM-2053 [7" EP], 1965)
• Always (Image Records #IM-307, 1979)
• After Hours (Tioch Digital Records #TD-1013, 1983)

• The Chronological Hazel Scott 1939-1945 (Classics #1308, 2003)
• The Chronological Hazel Scott 1946-1947 (Classics #1448, 2007)
• Relaxed Piano Moods 'Round Midnight (Jasmine #JASMCD-2667, 2020)

• Sextet Of The Rhythm Club Of London, "Calling All Bars" / "Mighty Like The Blues" (Bluebird B-10529, 1939)
• Sextet Of The Rhythm Club Of London, "Why Didn't William Tell?" / "You Gave Me The Go-By" (Bluebird B-10557, 1940)
• Charlie Parker, The Complete Birth of the Bebop (Stash #ST-260, 1986) [replacing Al Haig for "Embraceable You", 1946]
• Charlie Parker, The Complete Birth of the Bebop (Stash #STCD-535, 1991) [the above "Embraceable You" session, 1946]