What have you learnt about jazz pianist, singer, actress, and activist Hazel Scott? I’m sorry to confess that I didn’t know rather a lot, however the PBS “American Masters: The Disappearance of Miss Scott” program took care of that. Whereas the 90-minute documentary on her life aired on PBS this previous weekend, it’s nonetheless obtainable to stream by mid-March at www.pbs.org and on the PBS app in honor of Black Historical past Month.
The documentary is fantastically executed. It options Sheryl Lee Ralph narrating excerpts from Scott’s unpublished autobiography, together with interviews with nation star Mickey Guyton, actresses Amanda Seales and Tracie Thoms, jazz musicians Camille Thurman and Jason Moran, and Adam Clayton Powell III — her son with politician and minister Adam Clayton Powell Jr. There are black-and-white and colour scenes of her performing with vitality, precision, and ease as she performs a piano — or two pianos concurrently.
Watching this documentary supplies an excellent sense of delight as you behold taped performances of Scott taking part in piano, singing jazz, and internet hosting her personal tv present — making her the primary Black particular person to take action — after which seeing her efficiency in Paris after she was blacklisted in the course of the “Pink Scare” within the U.S. of the Fifties.
Scott was a baby prodigy pianist in Trinidad, first launched to the instrument by her mom. Her household quickly moved to New York the place, on the age of 8, she auditioned for Julliard.
Scott grew up within the Nineteen Twenties in Harlem. At 15, she was taking part in classical music and including jazz accents to it. She hung round and carried out with individuals like Billie Vacation, who was a mentor to her. Scott grew to become so well-known as a jazz performer that by the age of 19, she was a brownstone proprietor and took care of her mom and grandmother. She was such an outstanding expertise that the Cafe Society Uptown was her membership. That’s when she obtained the eye of Hollywood. When she obtained there, she refused to do any unfavorable, stereotypical roles. Once more, her commanding respect for Blacks in movies price her a movie profession.
As an grownup, Scott was on the forefront of the Civil Rights Motion. She spoke out in opposition to Jim Crow. When she had a chance to be in a Hollywood film at Columbia Footage and didn’t like the best way that the costume designer was dressing the opposite Black girls in a scene the place their Black husbands have been going off to battle, she spoke up and held up manufacturing for 3 days. As soon as she completed the image, that ended her movie profession — nobody anticipated a Black particular person in these days, when segregation was alive and thriving, to talk out in opposition to the stereotypical belittling of African Individuals, particularly African American girls.
This proficient and lovely girl might play two pianos on the identical time; the documentary exhibits highly effective moments of her doing simply that, with grace and ease. It additionally tells the story of her youth, her dad and mom, and the love of her life — Powell , who she finally married.
This program doesn’t maintain again any punches. You see the bias, blacklisting, disrespect, and disappointment that this girl needed to endure.
As Scott toured, she informed venues within the segregated South that her exhibits should be desegregated, and if that was not the case, she wouldn’t carry out. Golf equipment that had at all times been segregated desegregated simply to get her to carry out. She stated in her autobiography that when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. got here to see her carry out, he confided in her that this was his first time in a desegregated membership.
In 1950, Scott made historical past as the primary Black particular person with their very own tv present, “The Hazel Scott Present,” during which she performed piano and sang. When the Blacklist Pink Channels accused her of being a communist, she went earlier than the Home Un-American Actions Committee and declared her innocence. Her present ended.
Adam Clayton Powell III shared numerous the household’s background and the difficulties they confronted with Scott performing rather a lot in Europe and his father being untrue. Scott discovered, as many Black performers discovered in the course of the years of segregation, that they have been handled with respect and dignity in Europe. She appreciated how a lot the individuals in Paris regarded her expertise and talents.
The documentary supplies an in depth timeline of Scott’s life and her struggles in a nasty marriage that included greater than infidelity.
Scott got here again to Harlem in 1967 and was taking part in jazz golf equipment. By 1968, music modified and she or he didn’t discover many job alternatives. Who would think about this baby prodigy, actress, singer, attractive girl and activist would discover herself struggling, coming again to Harlem the place she started?
“American Masters: The Disappearance of Miss Scott” is one thing everybody ought to watch. She made Black individuals really feel seen. Her son shared his mom’s legacy: “In the event you’re proper, don’t again down. In the event you’re proper, battle for what is true.”
The documentary was produced and directed by filmmaker Nicole London, who additionally produced previous American Masters packages “Miles Davis: Start of the Cool,” “Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me,” and “Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On.”
“The Disappearance of Miss Scott” is a manufacturing of 4th Act Factual in affiliation with American Masters Footage, ITVS, Black Public Media, the Heart for Unbiased Documentary Inc., and Storyline Leisure. Sheila MacVicar is the manager producer and Bettina Hatami is supervising producer. For “American Masters,” Michael Kantor is government producer, Julie Sacks is collection producer, and Joe Skinner is digital lead.
For more information, go to www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters.
