Transcript for the Piece Audio version of WNYC's Fishko Files: Hazel Scott as Herself

“Hazel Scott as Herself” Script

If Hazel Scott is remembered now, it tends to be for her ‘moment’ in the film “Rhapsody in Blue,” the George Gershwin story, made in 1945. Gershwin, played by Robert Alda, strides into a Paris nightclub, dressed to kill in black tie, and flush with international success. Who should welcome him but... entertainer Hazel Scott, resplendent in silk fringe and diamonds. She’s at the piano, seemingly a fixture at this Paris club. It’s pretty much all fiction, supposedly based on the life of Gershwin. Except for Hazel. She’s playing her actual self, with her own name and her own style. And that, by the way, was by contractual agreement. Ms. Scott, a glamorous, accomplished woman of color, was not about to play a maid or a bit part at a time when Hollywood was inclined to cast minorities in that direction -- she would only play herself.

Karen Chilton: ...and I thought, where does she get this from that she can’t stand injustice to the point where she’s willing to risk her career, her reputation and put everything on the line? And that’s what she did.

Karen Chilton is author of “Hazel Scott, the Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist from Cafe Society to Hollywood to HUAC.” Chilton has dug around in Scott’s journals and essays to find a woman with a curious career -- starting with her early piano studies...

Karen Chilton: ...she was told, playing the piano is a gift, you have a gift. This is not some luxury, this is not, you know, a form of refinement, you’ve got to play for pay…and go out there and do your very best.

The curious part is how all that played out. Scott –having been born in Trinidad in 1920 and come to New York with her family – found herself auditioning at the Juilliard School at age 8, playing Rachmaninoff. She was accepted as one of the youngest students ever to attend the school, and certainly one of the few African-American students AND one of the few females. But what she seemed to enjoy most was seeing them squirm. In those days, all it took was a little game-playing with the classics to raise eyebrows. So began the gimmick that made Scott a star: jazzing the classics. Others had done it before her: she’d start off with a known piece by Chopin or Liszt...and then rock the boat. Oddly, this made her incredibly famous...she had her own radio program by age 14...and by 19 she was a major draw at Cafe Society, the politically progressive New York club where Billie Holiday and so many others made headlines. The critics, of course, were divided...

Chilton: The straight ahead jazz critics, they said: this is not jazz, This is fun, this is great to listen to, but this is not serious jazz!

And that was certainly true. But when she was compared unfavorably to other more serious jazz players of the time, she said: I play the way I play...

Chilton: ...and she brushed it off. She said: you know, I just can’t help myself, I really love doing this. And there were plenty of critics who loved it.

Along with this came her incredible presentation of self: a gorgeous, ebullient woman with a radiant smile, she favored furs and strapless gowns showing lots of chest and shoulder, and she piled on diamond bracelets sometimes three or four to an arm.

Chilton: ...and when you see her perform, all of that is part of the Hazel Scott experience. Her sensuality was just as much a part of her playing as anything. And she was criticized for it, but she didn’t care; She didn’t stop.

Hollywood, of course, never afraid of diamonds and strapless gowns, LOVED Hazel’s image, hence her deal to ‘play herself’ in a series of films in the ‘40’s, including the aforementioned Gershwin biopic. It was right around that time that she was courted and ultimately won over by Adam Clayton Powell, the New York Congressman with a charisma of his own. Powell and Scott married and became a highly publicized, glamorous couple in the 40’s, fighting political and civil rights battles and conquering audiences in equal measure.

Still rising, in 1950 Hazel Scott began to appear on TV, in telethons and other entertainments, and then in “The Hazel Scott Show” -- the first regular series named for and hosted by a black woman.

Chilton: It surprised the network how well it was doing. It started out as once a week, and then they changed it to maybe twice a week, and she kept increasing the fan base, the advertisers were really happy...

That’s when Scott’s early “Cafe Society” past came back to haunt her. Her name appeared in Red Channels, the list of 151 artists considered unemployable in broadcasting due to their political actions and associations. Never one to back away, Scott demanded a hearing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and told them off. In a lengthy testimony, she called Red Channels itself vile and un-American. But she was on that list. She was 31 at the time.

Chilton: Bookings started to dry up, people started to renege on contracts, and then the advertisers got scared, snatched their support from the show and the show quickly got cancelled.

Cancelled, but not defeated. In her second act, Scott climbed out of her ermine and jewels into more serious clothes, and played more serious music. This is from a record she made in 1955 with Charles Mingus and Max Roach:

Loren Schoenberg: ...and suffice it to say, I mean that is the deep water....

Musician and bandleader Loren Schoenberg is the Executive director of the International Jazz Museum in Harlem..

Schoenberg: ...you don’t play with Max and with Charlie Mingus unless you really know what you’re doing...[laughs]... there’s no fools on those record dates and there’s no lightweights, and here we hear her with the kind of rhythm section that Bud Powell recorded with; that Thelonious Monk would have fit in with...and here she is! with no apologies necessary.

It was a musical high point. But her career never fully rebounded. She went to Paris, as some blacklisted people did, struggled with the expatriate life, and then returned to a 1960s America that had moved on, musically and politically. She died in 1981. She’s all but forgotten now.

Chilton: I remember going to the book store and looking in the women’s biography section and I said: Where is Hazel Scott in this?

Schoenberg: I think it’s time that Hazel Scott gets her moment in the sun, and this seems to be the moment, thankfully so...

This book would be her Act III. Never too late.

From the Fishko Files, I’m Sara Fishko

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