#BHM Black Women in Music: Hazel Scott
A musical prodigy accepted to Juilliard at age eight makes #HazelScott truly one of a kind. Her resume includes hosting her own radio show, performing on Broadway, appearing in films, contractually refusing segregated rooms, and being the first Black American to have her own television show!
After watching the #PBS #AmericanMasters program on the life of the virtuoso pianist #HazelScott, I was reminded that I have her album "Relaxed Piano Moods" in my LP collection.
What's really interesting about this album apart from it's delightful sound is that while Scott is the lead player, her "backup" players for #MaxRoach & #CharlesMingus who (at the time (1955) were just emerging as two of the greatest #ModernJazz (#PostBop) musicians of the era who have since become legends of jazz.
Roach had only started playing with #Brownie (#CliffordBrown) in 1954 (who tragically died in a car accident just 2 years later) and it was only a year later in 1956 that #Mingus released his epic album "Pithecanthropus Erectus."
It is also notable the #DebutRecords which was the label that released this recording was founded by Roach & Mingus in 1952 (& went out of business in 1957) and that they thought so highly of Scott that they presumably volunteered to serve as her sidemen on the album!
#Jazz #Classical #Music #BlackWomen #CivilRights #WomensRights
I just watched a very interesting bio of #HazelScott on #PBS #AmericanMasters.
Scott was a #Black woman who was a #MusicalProdigy who was enrolled at #Julliard at a very young age, who mastered the classics but who made a living mainly playing jazz & #popular music w/crossovers to classical music.
Hazel was married (for a time) to #AdamClaytonPowell, had the 1st TV show in the 50's staring a #Black performer before #NatKingCole got one, made a few movies on her own terms before being #BlackListed from the #movies & from #TV because she stood up for the herself & the rights of others & who lived for a time in #Paris, like a lot of Black creative people did to escape the discrimination they felt in the #US.
If any of this interests you, I recommend that you watch the episode which you can find in the link below:
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/hazel-scott-documentary/35137/
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