Background

STARRING HAZEL SCOTT: TAKING A SWING AT SEGREGATION

BACKGROUND

Hazel Scott’s childhood and family catalyzed her career and worldview.

Hazel Scott was born on June 11, 1920 in Trinidad. Her father was a scholar and her mother, Alma Long Scott, a classical pianist turned music teacher when pain ended her career.


“Hazel amazed her mother by picking out melodies on the piano before she’d had any coaching in its mysteries. Grandma had the honor of hearing the infant Hazel’s first . . . concert. She was awakened by music in the parlor. Tiptoeing in, she discovered Hazel perched precariously on an unabridged dictionary mounted atop the piano stool. She was playing her own arrangement of the lullabies that were nightly sung to her—a medley of Rockaby [sic] Baby and Gentle Jesus.” [1]

[2]


Her distant father already in the United States, Hazel and her mother immigrated to Harlem, New York in 1924.
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​The formerly middle-class Scotts each reacted to US racism differently. Hazel’s mother worked hard wherever she could. Hazel’s father sought and was repeatedly denied work that matched his education, attracting him to Black nationalist Marcus Garvey, whom he saw with Hazel during their few interactions.

“Garvey was exclaiming that he was a man, an announcement which prompted the young girl to ask her father if the remark was not unnecessary since anyone could see he was a man. ‘I remember my father’s eyes filling with tears as he told me,’ Hazel recalls, ‘That’s just it, my child, I’m afraid there are people who cannot see that he is a man.”’” [3]

As Hazel sought the piano as refuge, her mother began to formally train her. By age eight, Hazel was winning contests and her mother arranged a Juilliard audition.

“Professor Paul Wagner of the Juilliard School of Music was privileged to hear Hazel's rendition of the Rachmaninoff Prelude. And it was indeed a privilege, even though Hazel, finding that her childish fingers couldn't handle the octaves in the piece, cut it down to her size and played it in sixths. When she had finished, Wagner put his hand on her head and quietly remarked, ‘I am in the presence of genius.’ . . . Wagner explained that Hazel was too young for a regular Juilliard scholarship but added that he'd be glad to teach her himself.” [1]

Ascent

Needing employment during the Great Depression, Hazel’s mother learned saxophone.

“Mrs. Scott . . . took the first available job as saxophonist in Mrs. Louis Armstrong's all-girl band. Before long she organized her own women's orchestra, and naturally enough, Hazel popped up as pianist.” [1]

Hazel’s performances gained visibility, furthered by concert opportunities, a radio contract, Broadway performances, and having her own band.


Hazel’s talent began to be noticed as she confronted racism.

[4]


Header images: Scott playing in I Dood It, 1943, YouTube
[1] Luther Davis and John Cleveland, "Hi, Hazel!" April 18, 1942
[2] "Little Miss Hazel Scott' at the age of three or four," University of Michigan Press
[3] Louie Robinson, "Hazel Scott Comes Home to the 'Action,'" Ebony, March 1968
[4] Hazel Scott at 13, 1933, Swann Auction Galleries

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Anita Dinakar
Starring Hazel Scott: Taking a Swing at Segregation
Senior Individual Website
Website Word Count: 1200
Multimedia Length: 2 minutes and 59 seconds
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