Remembering 'forgotten jazz virtuoso' Hazel Scott: Dance Theatre of Harlem set for Hanover

Jazz and classical pianist and singer Hazel Scott (1920-81) moved with her mother from Trinidad to Harlem when she was 4. It wasn't long before she was making herself heard.

A piano prodigy, she studied at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York when she was 8. She performed at Café Society, New York City's first integrated nightclub, appeared in movies, toured Europe to entertain troops during World War II, and was the first Black American performer with a network television program.

Scott stood up for fellow Black performers, refused to perform to segregated audiences, fervently supported civil rights, and married crusading U.S. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. She was a performer and celebrity with charm and style, but at the height of McCarthyism, she didn't go unnoticed by other forces. She appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and lost her TV show. Scott moved to France and was also divorced. She later returned to the United States, living in New York City, performing in clubs and appearing occasionally on TV until dying of pancreatic cancer in 1981 at 61.

Through it all, however, she "lived her life with integrity and joy," said choreographer Tiffany Rea-Fisher.

Unfortunately, Scott has been called "the forgotten jazz virtuoso," but the sights and sounds of Scott take to the stage and re-mesmerize and echo in "Sounds of Hazel," a new ballet by Dance Theatre of Harlem choreographed by Rea-Fisher and based on Scott's life and legacy.

"Sounds of Hazel" will be have its regional premiere as part of a program performed by the Dance Theatre of Harlem at 7:30 p.m. May 4 at The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts, presented by Music Worcester.

"Sounds of Hazel" has also been co-commissioned by Music Worcester along with Washington Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.), Gaillard Center and International African American Museum (Charleston, South Carolina), and Seattle Theatre Group, with additional residency support provided by Chautauqua Institution (Chautauqua, New York) and the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire).

In the audience May 4 will be Scott's grandson, Adam C. Powell IV, associate professor of mechanical and materials engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The family contingent will also include Powell's father and Scott's son, Adam Clayton Powell III, executive director, USC Election Cybersecurity Initiative, who helped Dance Theatre of Harlem with its research and provides a voice to a couple of the ballet's scenes.

"It's pretty exciting," said Adam C. Powell IV. "It's great to see something like that coming to Worcester. I'm very much looking forward to it."

Powell III and Powell IV will give a preconcert talk May 4 moderated by Deborah Hall, CEO of the YWCA Central Massachusetts and founder of the Worcester Black History Project, at 6:30 p.m. in the Jeanne Y. Curtis Room at The Hanover Theatre Conservatory.

Paying Homage

Dance Theatre of Harlem, a professional ballet company and school based in Harlem, came to Worcester and The Hanover Theatre for a performance presented by Music Worcester in 2019 as it was celebrating its 50th anniversary. This time Music Worcester is the co-commissioner of a work and Dance Theatre of Harlem will be spending some time in the city putting on workshops.

"Music Worcester is beyond thrilled to have this engagement of Dance Theatre of Harlem not just serve as an occasion for the company's return, but also as the regional premiere of 'Sounds of Hazel,' where we joined co-commissioners from across the country to acknowledge and celebrate the legacy of Hazel Scott," said Music Worcester Executive Director Adrien C. Finlay.

"So often as a presenter, Music Worcester welcomes artists for very short periods of time, sometimes even less than 24 hours. Having Dance Theatre of Harlem in Worcester for several days of educational workshops leading up to the May 4 performance, when combined with the years of involvement through the commissioning process for 'Sounds of Hazel,' makes this engagement feel unprecedented," Finlay said.

Dance Theatre of Harlem commissioned Rea-Fisher, executive artistic director of EMERGE125 in New York, to choreograph "Sounds of Hazel." EMERGE125 is a Black female-led hub for dance performance, creation, and education.

Rea-Fisher said that Adam Clayton Powell III, now living in Washington, D.C., has been involved with Washington Performing Arts, which had the idea of performing a piece to celebrate his mother Scott's 100th birthday in 2020.

Washington Performing Arts reached out to co-commission Dance Theatre of Harlem to create, produce and perform the ballet.

'Virginia Johnson (Dance Theatre of Harlem's artistic director) called me," Rea-Fisher said. "And I asked her what the parameters were."

They included that the piece shouldn't just be a "a ballet of music and they didn't want a bio pic. They wanted a composite of her life," Rea-Fisher said.

"It was a huge task but it was joyful," she said of putting together "Sounds of Hazel."

To help the research there was input from Adam Clayton Powell III and Karen Chilton, who wrote the biography of Scott, "Hazel Scott: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist from Cafe Society to Hollywood to HUAC."

Adam Clayton Powell III "really humanized her for me," Rea-Fisher said. Rea-Fisher brought in composer, DJ and sound designer Erica "Twelve45" Blunt.

The "Sounds of Hazel" ballet that Rea-Fisher has choreographed includes musical recordings by Scott, new music by Blunt and a radio speech/interview by Scott, "Say it Loud: Black, Immigrant & Proud" from WFIL Radio Philadelphia Recording (courtesy of New York Public Radio). In her radio talk Scott says that "America is a great land for many reasons" and "bigots don't belong in this country. It's too great for them. Too good for them."

Rea-Fisher said she was glad the parameters were broad enough to give her a certain carte blanche.

"For me, a Black choreographer, it was a dream. I was really grateful. I had that bigger task to bring her spirit into the room. I'm a creature of joy and and it seems like she was too," she said.

A Personal Connection

Adam C. Powell IV said, "I was just 11 years old when my grandmother passed away so I would say I got to know her as a grandmother but not so much as an artist."

He has a clear memory. "I remember a very warm and loving grandmother," Powell IV said.

Since then he's listened to recordings of grandmother playing and talked with his father and Chilton about Scott.

"My grandmother was a child prodigy," he said. "She began really as a classical pianist." But audiences would not accept a Black classical pianist, and so Scott divided her shows into one-half classical, and one-half jazz. She toured the country and impressed the audiences with an athletic style of playing," Powell IV said. She sometimes played two pianos on the stage back and forth.

Meanwhile, "she refused to play for segregated audiences," Powell IV said. His grandmother had it in her contract that she would still be paid if she should end up refusing to perform for segregated audiences. This led some venues "to reluctantly allow audiences to mingle."

Scott's television show, on the DuMont Television Network, was "partly music, partly talk," Powell IV said. But her name appeared in Red Channels: A Report on Communist Influence in Radio and Television in June 1950, and it wouldn't be long before the show was cancelled despite her voluntarily appearing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and denying being "ever knowingly connected with the Communist Party or any of its front organizations."

By the time Powell IV knew his grandmother, she had returned from France and was back living in New York City.

"She took us all around the city to the zoo," he said of his younger brother and himself.

In Scott's home, she had a sign, "If Mommy Says No, Ask Grandma."

Powell IV remembers a visit to the Waldorf Astoria Ballroom where Scott was performing.

"She would call up my brother and me and have us join her on her knees playing the piano. She still had that athletic style. It was a lot of fun to be with her and spend time with her."

Scott spent time with famous music figures such as Leonard Bernstein and Dizzy Gillespie. "I got to meet some of these people. She would play with them, not on a regular basis, but Dizzy Gillespie three or four times. She was still a celebrity," Powell IV said.

"I was a very avid piano player myself. I asked her to give me lessons. She taught me a couple of riffs. I never got her to spend a lot of time teaching me, but I think I had frustrated piano teachers." Powell IV said he would try to play pieces that were more difficult than he could handle.

Scott died relatively young at 61. The pancreatic cancer "was caught very late. Then even more than now pancreatic cancer was difficult to stop," Powell IV said.

Powell IV lives in Newton and has been teaching at WPI for about five years, he said. "I'm really focused on technologies that can focus on climate mitigation."

Some different kind of research regarding his grandmother's papers have revealed an outline for a ballet that Scott was contemplating, Powell IV said.

"It wasn't a fully formed and choreographed work by any stretch at that point," he said.

'I wanted to celebrate Black joy'

Rea-Fisher said she was made aware of the discovery but "that is not what I worked from." Scott's ballet outline "wasn't about her, and in this ballet ('Sounds of Hazel') we wanted to celebrate her," she said.

For her approach "I had the piece go to geographical locations," Rea-Fisher said - Trinidad, Harlem, Paris.

Among the cast of 10 dancers there is one a "in a gold gown. That was her (Scott's) uniform."

Meanwhile, Rea-Fisher said that although there were trials and tribulations, Scott was "never down." In Paris she maintained "a warm living environment."

Indeed, the Beatles came to her home in Paris when they were feeling gloomy about things one day and "she sat them down and said, 'You need to pull it together,' " Rea-Fisher said.

"I wanted to celebrate Black joy. I wanted it to be a celebration," she said of "Sounds of Hazel."

To end the "Sounds of Hazel" Rea-Fisher has a finale of the dancers dancing to a recording of "The Jeep Is Jumpin’" by Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges, performed by Hazel Scott.

"It's just a fun, uplifting piece. It's really exciting to end on that high note," she said.

Some people these days may draw a blank when the name Hazel Scott is mentioned.

"Ultimately, she just never got the praise she was owed, even though she was a celebrity in her day," Rea-Fisher said.

"Sounds of Hazel" may change that.

"There is an educational element that doesn't exist with a lot of ballets," Rea-Fisher said. And to bring her alive to people, "is exciting."

Also, the subject has a son and grandchildren, and "not only are they here they're in the audience."

Rea-Fisher said speaking with Adam Clayton Powell III, "I wanted this to be a piece that felt true to him and represented her. I asked would she have felt proud? He said, 'Yes.' "

The pandemic delayed work on "Sounds of Hazel" so it missed Scott's 100th birthday.

However, the the world premiere of Sounds of Hazel" was last fall at Washington Performing Arts. The New York City premiere was held at New York City Center on April 19 and 22. From there, Dance Theatre of Harlem will tour with "Sounds of Hazel," with the first stop in Worcester.

"Now it's out to the world - spread its wings and go where it's got to go," Rea-Fisher said.

Dance Theatre of Harlem: "Sounds of Hazel" — Presented by Music Worcester

When: 7:30 p.m. May 4; preconcert talk at 6:30 p.m. in the Jeanne Y. Curtis Room at The Hanover Theatre Conservatory.

Where: The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts, 2 Southbridge St., Worcester

How much: $39, $45, $55 and $65 depending on seat location; student and youth, $25. Box office, (877) 571-7469; www.thehanovertheatre.org; www.musicworcester.org.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Dance Theatre of Harlem brings 'Sounds of Hazel (Scott)' to Worcester