Before b
ecoming best known as a civil rights activist, wife of Adam Clayton Powell and TV show host, Trinidad-born Hazel Scott (1920-1981) was an accomplished pianist, crossing the lines and sometimes blurring the lines, of classical and jazz. This three disc, 59 song collection covers her earliest days of 78s in the late 1930s to material from her impressive and mature albums of the mid 1950s.
She was classically trained, and she was one of the first artists to meld the genres of jazz and classical together, demonstrated in duets with bassist JC heard on ‘Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2”, “Valse In D Flat Minor” and “Two Part Invention In A Minor” from 1940. She spent some time in the 1940s with Toots Camarata’s Orchestra which included Pee Wee Erwin/tp, Hymie Schertzer/sax, Carl Kress/g and Yank Lawson as she sings and plays piano on “C Jam Blues” and is lovely on “Body and Soul”.
On solo piano, Scott stuns on “Nocturne In B Flat Minor” and “Fantasie Impromptu” while showing she can swing on “Hazel’s Boogie Woogie” and ”Hallelujah”, with the fingers flying on “Dark Eyes”. Teamed up in a trio setting with Charles Mingus/b and Max Roach/dr, Scott is bopping for ‘The Jeep Is Jumpin’” cheerful on “Mountain Greenery” and luminous on A Foggy Day” while a quartet gathering in 1956-57 with Everett Barkdale/g, Sandy Block/b and Jimmy Crawford/dr deliver a thoughtful “’Round Midnight” and dreamy “In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning”.
There is a booklet that fills in the personal details of Ms. Scott’s life, and it’s a full one, with the music holding up as well if not better than any political movement.