Taking A Chance On Love: Hazel Scott

Hazel Dorothy Scott (June 11, 1920 – October 2, 1981) was a jazz and classical pianist and singer. She was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago and raised in New York City from the age of four. She performed extensively on piano as a child, then trained at the Juilliard School. She appeared in the production Priorities of 1942 and performed numerous times at the famed Carnegie Hall.
Her motion picture career included the films Something To Shout About, I Dood It, Broadway Rhythm, The Heat's On, and Rhapsody in Blue.
She was known for improvising on classical themes and also played boogie-woogie, blues, and ballads. She was the first woman of color to have her own television show, The Hazel Scott Show, which premiered on the DuMont Television Network on July 3, 1950. However, due to her public opposiiton to McCarthyism and racial segregation, the show was canceled in 1950 when she was accused of being a Communist sympathizer; the final broadcast was September 29, 1950.

Above: Hazel's address in 1930

Her album Relaxed Piano Moodson the Debut Record label with Charles Mingus and Max Roach, is the album most highly regarded by critics today.
She was married to U.S. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. from 1945 to 1956, by whom she had one child before their divorce, Adam Clayton Powell III.
She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 on October 2, 1981 at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

Taking A Chance On Love: Jane Monheit

Jane's from Long Island and now lives in Manhattan

Jane Monheit was raised in Oakdale, New York on Long Island. She began singing professionally while attending Connetquot High School in Bohemia,N.Y. from which she graduated in 1995. As a child, Jane spent her summers as a student at the Usdan Center For the Creative and Performing Arts, and is a recipient of their distinguished alumna award. As a student at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, she studied voice under Peter Eldridge. Jane graduated with honors from the Manhattan School of Music in 1999, earning a BA in music and receiving the William H.Borden Award for outstanding accomplishment in Jazz. Along with Tierney Sutton and Roberta Gambarini, she was a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Vocal Competition in 1998, losing to Teri Thornton. She and her husband, drummer Rick Montalbano, currently reside in New York. They have one child.

Taking A Chance On Love: June Christy