for hazel scott (9)

for hazel scott

1920 -- 1981

i'm a woman

phenomenally.

phenomenal woman,

that's me.

maya angelou

sitting bronze, bare-shouldered & beautiful

at the piano, café society, new york’s first

integrated nightclub, held its collective 1939

breath as nineteen yr old hazel scott confidently
sashayed like a stunningly attractive woman

accustomed to admiring eyes thru the

pronounced lyricism, expressive breadth &
structural ingenuity of the opening movements

of rachmaninoff’s valse in d flat major to suddenly

translate along an aural axis away from the

plane of familiar focus thru a looking glass of an

african gumption; into the tonic/chordal striations

of stride, the seductive left hand decadence of

boogie & the emotional modulations of the blues.
[she would later break national sales records for

decca with her “bach to boogie”repertoire.]

her music was the space wherein she kept the
source of her power hidden in plain sight. a

cyclonic force to reckoned with, neither racism,

husband adam clayton powell nor the vicious
slanders of the petty little men of the house

un-american activities committee could stop her

from cresting, from drawing attention to her

unabashed genius for fifty odd years. when one

door closed,she kicked another wide open &

crossed its threshold like a trinidad carnival

street parade. Not even death, the midnight

robber, nor jab molassie could stop her --

was just another threshold to cross; were just

two more in a long line of characters to get by.

©Joseph McNair;2010