Hazel Scott biography and career timeline
Hazel Scott was an incredible pianist, singer, actor and advocate. After emigrating from Trinidad, Scott became known as the “little girl pianist” playing in churches across Harlem. At just 19 years old, she arrived onto the national stage through her association with a now-legendary nightclub in New York, Café Society, the first entertainment venue in the city to observe a strict policy of racial integration. In addition to her entertainment draw, Scott was pioneering a new and unprecedented image of Black women in America.
Years before the civil rights movement, Hazel Scott resisted social and political oppression. She refused to play in front of segregated audiences and led a strike in Hollywood when a director tried to put Black actresses in dirty clothes. She was the first Black woman to have her own TV show, a full four years before Oprah was even born, married the first African-American Congressman elected from the state of New York, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and when the Red Scare took hold of the country and ensnared her, demanded to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee to defend herself against false accusations. For decades, she had been able to surmount the endemic racism—and sexism—that defined America under Jim Crow, to become one of the most successful Black women in entertainment history.
This timeline explores Hazel Scott’s life and the major milestones in her career.
EARLY LIFE
Hazel Scott is born to Alma Long Scott and R. Thomas Scott in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Alma was a concert-trained teacher of piano and her father was a linguist and teacher.
Hazel reveals her piano virtuosity and shortly after, begins playing in public.
Hazel Scott and her mother move to Harlem with her extended family at the height of the Harlem Renaissance.
JUILLIARD
At age eight, Hazel’s mother takes her to Juilliard for an audition, although students at that time were required to be at least 16. Hazel plays Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C Sharp Minor.” But her eight-year-old hands are not broad enough to reach the keys, so she paraphrases, and Dr. Damrosch, then the head of Julliard is incensed, until he sees her and says, “I am in the presence of genius.”
Hazel holds her first formal concert in New York and is billed as “the child wonder pianist.”
Her estranged father, Thomas Scott, dies in Long Island.
Hazel is cast in her first Broadway show “Sing Out the News.” She also plays as intermission pianist for Frances Faye at “The Yacht Club” on 52nd St. This is where Hazel, in frustration at the restrictions imposed by Miss Faye’s repertoire, began to “Swing the Classics,” at just 18-years-old.
CAFÉ SOCIETY
Billie Holiday leaves Café Society, deliberately creating an opening for Hazel Scott. Within short order, she becomes the club’s premiere headliner. Time magazine called her “the hot classicist.”
Café Society Uptown opens at 128 East 58th St. Hazel has top billing at the Uptown and is noticed and praised by the national press. She gets a pay raise to $1500 a week and becomes the family breadwinner.
FIRST ALBUM
Hazel records her first solo album for Decca Records, featuring her Café Society repertoire. “Swinging the Classics” is a huge success, breaking record industry sales records.
Hazel releases her second album, “Hazel Scott: Piano Solos with Drums.”
Hazel returns to Broadway for a six-month run in “Priorities of 1942,” a vaudevillian revival.
FIRST FILM
Director Gregory Ratoff offers Hazel a small part her first film, “Something to Shout About,” about a group of vaudevillians. Hazel, with manager Josephson, have already laid out conditions for her movie career—she would not appear in any role demeaning to her race, and if the wardrobe she was provided was not flattering, she would wear her own clothes.
Hazel’s second film, “I Dood It,” is released. She and Lena Horne perform a big musical number, which won praise from critics, but could be edited out for screening in Jim Crow communities.
ON-SET TURMOIL
“The Heat On” produced one of Hazel’s most iconic film scenes and currently, the most viewed clip of her performances on YouTube. In a white gown, Hazel is seated between two pianos, and proceeds to burn the keys up on both.
During the shoot, Hazel, realizing that the Black female dancers were dressed in dirty aprons, staged a three-day strike until the costumes were changed. This on-set dispute resulted in the end of her film career.
Hazel weds New York Councilman and pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. The reception is held at Café Society.
At Adam’s insistence, citing concerns of his Baptist congregation, Hazel agrees to give up nightclubs and Café Society for a life on the concert stage. Hazel’s contract states that she will not perform before a segregated audience anywhere, including in the Jim Crow states, a highly unusual request by performers at that time. Martin Luther King later told her that “the first time I sat in a non-segregated audience in the south was at one of your concerts.” She was promptly booked for a 35-week tour.
Hazel’s beloved mother, Alma Scott dies of pneumonia at age 46.
Hazel gives birth to her only child, Adam Clayton Powell III. Six months later, she returns to the concert stage.
Hazel performs a sell-out solo concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall, featuring her original composition “Caribbean Fete.”
On tour in the south, Hazel arrives at University of Texas, Austin, to find her audience was to be segregated. Per her contract, she refused to perform, resulting in a on-campus riot and the Dean being burned in effigy. “Why would anyone come to hear me, a Negro, and refuse to sit beside someone just like me?”
“The Hazel Scott Show” launches on the Dumont Television network. Hazel becomes the first Black American to host a network television show. She opened each show playing Art Tatum’s version of “Tea for Two,” clad in an elegant ball gown, with a set representing a Manhattan penthouse terrace. Within weeks, the network expanded the show to a national program airing three times a week.
HOUSE UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE
In June of 1950, “Red Channels,” a tract written by ex-FBI and Military Intelligence Officers purports to “out” Communists working in U.S. broadcasting. Hazel Scott is among those accused.
She voluntarily testifies before HUAC on September 22, 1950 in the belief that she could clear her name, arguing that many appearances during WW2 which appeared to support the Soviet Union (then an American ally) were at the behest of her manager Barney Josephson.
Despite growing audience numbers, sponsors pull their support from “The Hazel Scott Show” and the show is officially canceled on September 29, 1950. Hazel loses other American opportunities and she is blacklisted.
After being blacklisted in the U.S., the Powells leave for Europe, where Hazel has an extensive European concert tour booked.
Hazel and Adam separate, and Hazel moves to Paris with Adam III to return to the nightclub circuit.
Hazel plays a small role in the film “Le Desordre et la Nuit” with French star Jean Gabin. She also produces an album of solo piano and French vocals called “Hazel Scott: Joue et Chante.”
RETURN TO U.S.
By the mid 60s, her work in Europe had dried up and Hazel suffered financially. Like many jazz musicians of her era, she found the times had moved on.
She returns to the U.S. at her son’s behest to find a society roiled by profound change, one which had no knowledge of the role she had played during the pre-civil rights era, and no respect for those early defiant pioneers. Still, she writes, “Those who are for the right must take heart. There is no need to falter, there is no place for self-doubt…”
With the author James Baldwin, Hazel helps to organize a public demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy in Paris to coincide with the March on Washington.
Adam Clayton Powell III marries Beryl Slocum. Shortly after, Hazel becomes a grandmother to two boys, Adam IV and Sherman.
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. dies of prostate cancer.
Hazel is inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.
Hazel records three albums in quick succession, “Always,” “After Thoughts” and “After Hours.”
Hazel is offered a gig at Kippy’s Pier 44 for as many weeks a year as she wished to play.
Hazel is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Hazel Scott dies at age 61.
The post Hazel Scott biography and career timeline appeared first on American Masters.