Jimmy Scott

Jimmy Scott, born James Victor Scott on July 17, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, was an American jazz vocalist and Broadway performer whose career spanned several decades. The third of ten children born to Arthur Claude Scott and Justine Hazel Stanard Scott, he first encountered music at the family piano alongside his mother and later sang in a church choir. His mother was killed by a drunk driver when he was thirteen, leaving him orphaned. Scott appeared on Broadway in 1930 in the play Mr. Gilhooley.

Scott's distinctive voice was the result of Kallmann syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that also restricted his height to four feet eleven inches until age thirty-seven, when he grew an additional eight inches. The condition prevented him from undergoing typical puberty, producing a high natural contralto voice with an unusual timbre. Lionel Hampton, noting his slight build and youthful appearance, gave him the nickname "Little Jimmy Scott." Hampton's band provided Scott his first major platform, and he served as lead vocalist on "Everybody's Somebody's Fool," recorded in December 1949, which became a top-ten R&B hit in 1950. Despite his contribution, the label credited the track to "Lionel Hampton and vocalists," leaving Scott uncredited. A comparable situation arose when his vocal on "Embraceable You," recorded with Charlie Parker for the album One Night in Birdland, was attributed to female vocalist Chubby Newsom.

His artistry attracted admiration from Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, Frankie Valli, and Nancy Wilson. In 1963, his girlfriend Mary Ann Fisher, a vocalist with Ray Charles, helped him secure a contract with Tangerine, Charles's label, resulting in the album Falling in Love Is Wonderful. The album was withdrawn while Scott was on his honeymoon due to a prior contract he held with Herman Lubinsky, and it would not be reissued for forty years. Lubinsky had previously loaned Scott to Syd Nathan at King Records, where he recorded forty-five tracks between 1957 and 1958. A subsequent album, The Source, recorded in 1969 and released in 1970, was similarly suppressed when Lubinsky threatened Atlantic Records with a breach-of-contract claim; the album went out of print before being reissued in 2001.

By the late 1960s Scott's career had faded, and he returned to Cleveland, where he worked as a hospital orderly, shipping clerk, and elevator operator. His return to music began in 1989 when manager Alan Eichler arranged for him to share a late-night bill with Johnnie Ray at New York's Ballroom. His performance at the funeral of songwriter Doc Pomus further revived his public profile. In 1991, Scott performed "Sycamore Trees" in the final episode of the original Twin Peaks, and the following year Lou Reed invited him to contribute backup vocals to "Power and Glory" on Reed's album Magic and Loss.

Seymour Stein, founder of Sire Records, was also present at the Pomus funeral and subsequently signed Scott to the label. The resulting 1992 album All the Way, produced by Tommy LiPuma and featuring Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, and David "Fathead" Newman, earned Scott a Grammy Award nomination. He followed it with Dream in 1994 and Heaven in 1996. His 1998 album Holding Back the Years, produced by Gerry McCarthy and Dale Ashley and released in the United States by Artists Only, peaked at number fourteen on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart and won the Swing Journal Award for Best Jazz Album of the Year in Japan in 2000. The album featured cover art by Mark Kostabi, liner notes by Lou Reed, and included interpretations of songs by Prince, John Lennon, Elvis Costello, Elton John, Bernie Taupin, and Simply Red. The title track marked the first time Scott had overdubbed his own harmony vocal tracks.

In 1999, his early Decca recordings were released on compact disc, along with a three-disc box set collecting his Savoy recordings from 1952 to 1975. Beginning in 2000, Scott signed with Milestone Records and recorded four albums produced by Todd Barkan, featuring guests including Wynton Marsalis, Renee Rosnes, Eric Alexander, Lew Soloff, George Mraz, and Lewis Nash. He also released two live albums recorded in Japan. Between 2003 and 2004, PBS aired the documentary Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew, produced and directed by Matthew Buzell, which received film festival recognition and the Independent Lens award. Scott's final recording session took place on May 10, 2014, in his Las Vegas home, where he recorded a track for Grégoire Maret's album Wanted titled "The 26th of May," a song Maret wrote specifically for him.

Scott performed at the presidential inaugurations of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 and Bill Clinton in 1993, singing "Why Was I Born?" on both occasions. Among his honors were the NEA Jazz Masters award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2007, the Living Legend Award from the Kennedy Center, the Pioneer Award from the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Foundation of America in 2010. On August 17, 2013, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the R&B Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University. Scott and his wife Jeanie resided in Las Vegas after purchasing a home there in 2006, having previously lived in Euclid, Ohio, for ten years. He died in his sleep at his Las Vegas home on June 12, 2014, at the age of eighty-eight, and was buried at Knollwood Cemetery in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. The following month, a portion of East 101st Street in Cleveland was renamed Jimmy Scott Way in his honor.