Scott’s arc was fixed in the stars from that moment on. Her grandmother woke thinking, not wrongly, that she was witnessing a miracle. 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. 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. She had been rehearsing for this moment her entire life.īorn in Trinidad, Scott was raised on music. Speaking with a voice that simultaneously conveyed clarity and nuance, strength and warmth, she knew what she was doing.

She told the committee’s members, “Mudslinging and unverified charges are just the wrong ways to handle this problem.” With the same poise she brought to the stage as a musician, she testified that “what happens to me happens to others and it is part of a pattern which could spread and really damage our national morale and security.”Ĭhin up, shoulders back, she warned against “profiteers in patriotism who seek easy money and notoriety at the expense of the nation’s security and peace of mind,” and that continuing down this road would transform America’s artists from a “loyal troupe of patriotic, energetic citizens ready to give their all for America” into a “wronged group whose creative value has been destroyed.” She believed she had a responsibility to stem the tide of paranoia that gained momentum by the day. But her appearance at HUAC had a greater purpose than personal exoneration. Failure to respond would be seen as an admission of guilt. The publication “Red Channels” had accused Scott - along with 150 other cultural figures - of communist sympathies. 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.

Hazel Scott by Susan Engle