Hazel Scott was a piano prodigy who wowed the worlds of music, TV, and film. But when she stood up for her rights, the establishment took her down.
On a rainy September morning in 1950, jazz pianist Hazel Scott stood in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee hoping to clear her name.
The publication “Red Channels” had accused Scott — along with 150 other cultural figures — of communist sympathies. Failure to respond would be seen as an admission of guilt. But her appearance at HUAC had a greater purpose than personal exoneration. She believed she had a responsibility to stem the tide of paranoia that gained momentum by the day.
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Born in Trinidad, Scott was raised on music. As Karen Chilton recounts in her biography, Hazel Scott: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist, from Cafe Society to Hollywood to HUAC, Scott’s whole family played and her mother, Alma, an aspiring concert pianist, taught music to help make ends meet. Unbeknownst to her family, Hazel Scott absorbed everything she heard until one day she woke her grandmother from a nap by playing a familiar hymn on the piano, two-handed and with perfect pitch. Her grandmother woke thinking, not wrongly, that she was witnessing a miracle.
Hazel Scott w/Charles Mingus and Rudy Nichols. "Foggy Day"
Hazel Scott, Jazz and Classical Pianist, Performs Liszt
In a performance filmed for World War II soldiers, Hazel Scott begins with a section from Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" and ends with a jazzy tune (Army / Navy Screen Magazine).