Hazel scott biography
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Hazel
Who is the great Hazel Scott?
Hazel Scott, referred to as the “Darling of Café Society” was a Trinidad-born multitalented woman who left her reckoning force in music, television, and politics. Hazel Dorothy Scott was born in Port-au Spain, Trinidad on June 11, Following the separation of Hazel Scott’s parents, she moved to Harlem, New York City in with her mother and grandmother where she was raised.
Early Beginnings
The only child of R. Thomas Scott, a West African scholar from England, and mother Alma Long Scott, a classical-trained pianist, Hazel Scott was raised with vast intelligence and art and destined to embody it. At the young age of just 3 years old, Scott began playing piano amazingly accompanied by her talented ear. Hazel once described that she would scream anytime one of her mother’s piano students hit a wrong note and was able to start playing piano by ear. Instead of becoming the concert pianist she thought she desired, Alma Scott soon decided to
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Hazel Scott
The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist, from Café Society to Hollywood to HUAC
ByKaren Chilton
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The first biography of an important but overlooked African American pianist, singer, actor, and civil-rights advocate
- Author Photo .jpg. Photo by Hoebermann Studio.
- Photo 1 .jpg. "Little Miss Hazel Scott" at the age of three or four. Courtesy of Adam C. Powell III.
- Photo 2 .jpg. At the age of nineteen, the “Darling of Café Society." Photo in the author's collection, Bruno of Hollywood.
- Photo 3 .jpg. Great pianists gathered around the piano at Café Society-Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Hazel Scott, Duke Ellington, and Mel Powell. Courtesy of Adam C. Powell III.
- Photo 4 .jpg. Promotional ad for the Hazel Scott Show, circa Photo in the author's collection.
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Jazz pianist and singer Hazel Scott was not only the first African-American woman to host her own television show, but she also bravely stood up to the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Hollywood studio machine. The gifted and popular performer dazzled audiences in the U.S. and abroad with her jazzy renditions of classical works.
Hazel Dorothy Scott was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad on June 11, She was the only child of R. Thomas Scott, a West African scholar from England, and Alma Long Scott, a classically trained pianist and saxophonist. Scott displayed her talents for music at an early age and, by the age of three, Scott could play the piano by ear. When her mother’s music students would hit a wrong note, Scott would yelp with displeasure.
Scott’s parents separated and she moved with her mother and grandmother to New York City in Scott's mother played in several all-women bands to earn a living. Scott and her mother were extremely close, and Scott called her moth