Hazel Scott - Relaxed Piano Moods (1955)

2017-06-24T13:03:07Z

Hazel Scott - Relaxed Piano Moods (1955)


1. Like Someone in Love
2. Peace of Mind
3. Lament
4. The Jeep Is Jumpin'
5. Git Up from There
6. A Foggy Day
7. Mountain Greenery 
8. Git Up from There [Alternate Take] 
9. Lament [Alternate Take]

Bass – Charles Mingus
Drums – Max Roach
Piano – Hazel Scott

Hazel Scott's impressive bop piano was just one facet of talents that extended to playing classical music on the concert stage, singing and acting on-stage and onscreen, and hosting her own radio and television shows. A child prodigy, Scott entered Juilliard at the age of eight and made extensive concert tours of Europe, Africa, and the Near East before recording this date for Debut Records in 1955. For the set, she is accompanied by Debut's founders bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach. Given her talent and training, it's no surprise that Scott has technique to burn. Her energetic presence and personality and easy authority at the piano are amply demonstrated on the up-tempo numbers "The Jeep Is Jumpin'," "A Foggy Day," and "Mountain Greenery," and on the smouldering mid-tempo of Scott's "Git up From Here." The two ballad tracks are not quite so distinctive, although Scott's attractive performance of "Like Someone in Love" is elegantly detailed and nuanced. The alternate takes of "Git up From Here" and "Lament" are tentative compared to the main takes. Mingus and Roach are generally heard in supporting roles -- which they perform to perfection -- but they also get in some nice four- and eight-bar vignettes here and there. This music is also part of the Mingus boxed set The Complete Debut Recordings. ---Jim Todd, AllMusic Reviews

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Hazel Scott - Swinging The Classics. Swing Style Piano Solos With Drums - Volume 1 (1949)

2019-04-06T11:53:49Z

Hazel Scott - Swinging The Classics. Swing Style Piano Solos With Drums - Volume 1 (1949)


A1 	De Falla - Danse Rituelle Du Feu
A2 	Johann Sebastian Bach - Invention En 2 Parties En La Mineur
A3 	Rachmaninoff -Prelude En Ut Dièse Mineur
A4 	Percy Grainger - Country Gardens
B1 	Franz Liszt - Rapsodie Hongroise No. 2 En Ut Dièse Mineur
B2 	Frédéric Chopin - Valse En Ré Bemol Majeur, Op. 64 No. 1
B3 	Les Yeux Noirs 	
B4 	Clifford Grey, Leo Robin, Vincent Youmans - Hallelujah !

Hazel Scott - piano

The subtitle of this compact and engaging book provides a bare thumbnail sketch for the narrative arc of the life of Hazel Scott, who was clearly a pioneer on several fronts. But certainly there is much more to her story and Karen Chilton does an excellent job telling it in succinct and lucid fashion. Scott was born in Trinidad but early in her life moved to Harlem with her mother, a frustrated concert pianist, who later became a jazz saxophonist. Scott was clearly a prodigy, enrolling as a private student at Julliard by the time she was eight and performing concerts shortly thereafter. Scott’s home life was difficult at least in part because of the intense demands on her at a young age, but Chilton doesn’t engage in the sort of literary psychoanalysis which has become de rigeur in modern biography. Instead she simply stays in the moment with her subject and readers can draw their own conclusions about the origin of Scott’s unique determination and pride. That pride led her to many a confrontation in the Jim Crow days when she came to prominence and that determination enabled her to take real action, via lawsuits, boycotts and public condemnation-all strategies which would in time be staples in the playbook for the Civil Rights movement that was to follow. Chilton smartly doesn’t feel the need to provide too much historical context for that time.

Likewise, Chilton doesn’t get bogged down with explaining the genesis of swing and bebop, with which Scott became immersed. Scott was personally mentored by Fats Waller and Art Tatum, and her own piano style would draw heavily on those men and on her classical training. Indeed, Scott became known for a particular sort of piano-playing that was quickly labeled “Swinging the Classics” and Chilton deftly describes that musical approach (and others) in layman’s terms. Thanks to a regular gig at Café Society and subsequent appearances in Hollywood films (always playing herself), Scott became a glamorous and world-renowned performer. A fixture on the New York jazz scene of the 40s and 50s, her friends included Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Mary Lou Williams (who became perhaps Scott’s longest and closest friend). Indeed, Scott’s home became a salon for some of the most creative artists of the 20th century.

Her own career sagged after a tumultuous marriage to Adam Clayton Powell, Jr, the larger-than-life Baptist minister and congressman. After their somewhat bitter split and an unyielding appearance before the Red-baiting HUAC, Scott emigrated to Paris and struggled though financial, emotional and physical issues, yet never lost that pride. Her letters to Williams and other friends vividly illustrate Scott’s discomfort with accepting the financial help that she desperately needed at that time. Throughout the book, relying on access to Scott’s unpublished memoirs, Chilton lets Scott’s words punctuate the events of her storied life.

Perhaps the highest compliment one can pay to this fine biography is that during the first 150 pages the reader is wondering why Scott isn’t better known, at least in the jazz world. But by the story’s end in 1981 with Scott’s death from pancreatic cancer, the same reader knows exactly why, but is still likely to be singing her praises as a true trailblazer in African-American culture. ---Karen Chilton, jazztimes.com

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Hazel Scott - Relaxed Piano Moods (1955)

Hazel Scott - Swinging The Classics. Swing Style Piano Solos With Drums - Volume 1 (1949)