Gery Scott
Encyclopedia
Gery Scott was a jazz
and cabaret
entertainer and teacher, whose performing career spanned 26 countries and over 60 years. She was noted for her powerful stage persona and engaging delivery, with material ranging from the songbooks of Cole Porter
, George Gershwin
, Irving Berlin
, Harold Arlen
, Lorenz Hart
, Cy Coleman
and all the "standards" as well as Noel Coward
and some pop material. Whilst she was well known to British audiences during the later part of the Second World War, she achieved most of her fame outside the UK.
' - she made her first recording in Calcutta for Indian Columbia in 1942 singing "Stormy Weather" accompanied by Teddy Weatherford
and his band.
She then went on to work with various BBC
bands in London including Harry Gold and His Pieces of Eight and The Vic Lewis Big Band. Scott also spent the war years with the American Red Cross entertaining the American Armed Forces in Burma and India.
She was married three times: to the late World War II RAF pilot Pat Lofting (later personal pilot to the Raja of Bengal), to musical director and pianist Igo Fischer (now living in Germany) and finally, to oil magnate Tony Diamond, who was murdered in Scotland
in 1986.
, Bud Shank
, Chet Baker
and Gerry Mulligan
. This tour led to a seven year recording contract with Czech based Supraphon
, during which time she recorded eighty titles, released as either albums or singles, accompanied by orchestras under the direction of Gustav Brom
, Karel Vlach
and Dalibor Brazda
, with some arrangements written by her musical director and pianist, Igo Fischer.
Scott was the first Western jazz singer to tour the then Soviet Union, selling over three million records there in 1961 and was invited to sing "How High the Moon" during her concert at the Kiev Opera House, to coincide with the launch in 1961 of the Sputnik flight that would see cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
as the first human in space. Scott married her musical director, Igo Fischer at the British Embassy in Moscow that same year. Her Russian activities created headlines in Britain and saw her included in the BBC Panorama episode on Moscow.
signed her to Parlophone
, with hits including "This is Life", "The Dum de de Dum Song", "Summer Love" and "Stay With Me". Later that year she moved to Hong Kong and opened her own recording company, Orbit Records. That same year, she was appointed entertainment director for the Hilton Hotel Far East Chain and from 1966 to 1970 managed the Cats Eye and The Eye nightclubs in Bangkok and Singapore.
, Sydney
and Melbourne
. She appeared as "Alice" in the Australian television soap opera
Prisoner
in 1983. She was twice the recipient of the coveted Canberra Critics Circle Award, firstly in 1992 for her production of the CD Together by The Vocal Group and for her outstanding performances in Gery Scott Sings Mostly Coward and Particularly Porter at Queanbeyan's School of Arts Café, and then again in 2005 for services to entertainment and to teaching. 2002 marked her 60th anniversary in show business.
Scott attained a Masters in Music from the Canberra Institute of the Arts in 1998, where she had been head of the Vocal Jazz Department since 1985. She retired from that position at the end of 2002. One of her greatest achievements at the institute was the formation of the Vocal Jazz Ensemble, as well as the training of hundreds of students in singing and performance technique, many of whom are now well established in the Australian and international jazz scene.
's "Send in the Clowns". Dr David Schwartz, writing for Cabaret Hotline Online said in his review, "It is hard to describe her to you without sounding as if I were a little bit insane. Her performance provided me with one of those life-changing and totally defining cabaret experiences that was instantly committed to memory, along with my first exposure to Mabel Mercer
, Julie Wilson
, Sarah Vaughan
, Sylvia Syms
and a host of other greats. Gery Scott's set represented that rare moment in cabaret when the singer and her song are indistinguishable. This sort of alchemy comes only after many years; to witness it is to be blessed". She was also special guest in a 2003 Sondheim review, and two fund raising concerts for fellow performers in 2004.
Her last major expose was in the form of a biographical essay in The New Yorker
magazine, 18 & 25 August 2003 entitled "The Jazz Singer", by Larissa MacFarquhar.
At the age of 82 and in a wheelchair, Scott gave her very last performance on 9 October 2005 at the Hyatt
Hotel Canberra, accompanied by her longtime pianist in Australia, Tony Magee, where her wish to do 'just one more gig' was ably delivered with a sparkling opener of Got A lot Of Livin' to Do, and later in the concert, with pianist Wayne Kelly, a moving version of Body And Soul.
in Prague
in 1957.
LP records
EP / 45 rpm
CD's
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
entertainer and teacher, whose performing career spanned 26 countries and over 60 years. She was noted for her powerful stage persona and engaging delivery, with material ranging from the songbooks of Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
, George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
, Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...
, Lorenz Hart
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...
, Cy Coleman
Cy Coleman
Cy Coleman was an American composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist.-Life and career:He was born Seymour Kaufman on June 14, 1929, in New York City to Eastern European Jewish parents, and was raised in the Bronx. His mother, Ida was an apartment landlady and his father was a brickmason...
and all the "standards" as well as Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
and some pop material. Whilst she was well known to British audiences during the later part of the Second World War, she achieved most of her fame outside the UK.
Early life
Born Diana Geraldine Whitburn in Bombay, British India, in 1923 - a child of the 'RajBritish Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
' - she made her first recording in Calcutta for Indian Columbia in 1942 singing "Stormy Weather" accompanied by Teddy Weatherford
Teddy Weatherford
Teddy Weatherford was a jazz pianist, an accomplished stride pianist.Weatherford was born in Pocahontas, Virginia and was raised in neighboring Bluefield, West Virginia. From 1915 through 1920 he lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he learned to play jazz piano...
and his band.
She then went on to work with various BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
bands in London including Harry Gold and His Pieces of Eight and The Vic Lewis Big Band. Scott also spent the war years with the American Red Cross entertaining the American Armed Forces in Burma and India.
She was married three times: to the late World War II RAF pilot Pat Lofting (later personal pilot to the Raja of Bengal), to musical director and pianist Igo Fischer (now living in Germany) and finally, to oil magnate Tony Diamond, who was murdered in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1986.
Fame in the Eastern Bloc
From 1950 to 1957, she toured Europe performing with such artists as Woody HermanWoody Herman
Woodrow Charles Herman , known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders...
, Bud Shank
Bud Shank
Clifford Everett "Bud" Shank, Jr. was an American alto saxophonist and flautist. He rose to prominence in the early 1950s playing lead alto and flute in Stan Kenton's Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra and throughout the decade worked in various small jazz combos. He spent the 1960s as a first...
, Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
and Gerry Mulligan
Gerry Mulligan
Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophonists in jazz history – playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz – he was also...
. This tour led to a seven year recording contract with Czech based Supraphon
Supraphon
Supraphon Music Publishing is a Czech record label, it is oriented mainly towards publishing classical music, with an emphasis on Czech and Slovak composers.- History :...
, during which time she recorded eighty titles, released as either albums or singles, accompanied by orchestras under the direction of Gustav Brom
Gustav Brom
Gustav Brom, was a Czech big band leader, arranger, clarinettist and composer. He achieved fame in Europe and abroad from the 1940’s right through to his death in 1995...
, Karel Vlach
Karel Vlach
Karel Vlach was a Czech dance orchestra conductor and arranger.He founded his first orchestra in 1938. Many important composers, instrumentalists and arrangers of the Czech jazz scene gradually went through his band. In 1947-48 Vlach's orchestra cooperated with the V+W Theatre...
and Dalibor Brazda
Dalibor Brazda
Dalibor Brazda , was a Czech/Swiss music composer, arranger, and conductor.Born in Fryšták, Moravia, he studied at the conservatory in Brno and the Academy of Music in Prague...
, with some arrangements written by her musical director and pianist, Igo Fischer.
Scott was the first Western jazz singer to tour the then Soviet Union, selling over three million records there in 1961 and was invited to sing "How High the Moon" during her concert at the Kiev Opera House, to coincide with the launch in 1961 of the Sputnik flight that would see cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
as the first human in space. Scott married her musical director, Igo Fischer at the British Embassy in Moscow that same year. Her Russian activities created headlines in Britain and saw her included in the BBC Panorama episode on Moscow.
Parlophone
In 1962, Beatles manager George MartinGeorge Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
signed her to Parlophone
Parlophone
Parlophone is a record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch was formed in 1923 as "Parlophone" which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a leading jazz label. It was acquired in 1927 by the Columbia Graphophone Company which...
, with hits including "This is Life", "The Dum de de Dum Song", "Summer Love" and "Stay With Me". Later that year she moved to Hong Kong and opened her own recording company, Orbit Records. That same year, she was appointed entertainment director for the Hilton Hotel Far East Chain and from 1966 to 1970 managed the Cats Eye and The Eye nightclubs in Bangkok and Singapore.
Australia
Scott moved to Australia in 1980 and continued to perform to jazz and cabaret audiences in CanberraCanberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
. She appeared as "Alice" in the Australian television soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Prisoner
Prisoner (TV series)
Prisoner is an Australian television soap opera which was set in the Wentworth Detention Centre, a fictional women's prison. The series was produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation and ran on Network Ten for 692 episodes from 27 February 1979 to 11 December 1986.The series was inspired by the 1970s...
in 1983. She was twice the recipient of the coveted Canberra Critics Circle Award, firstly in 1992 for her production of the CD Together by The Vocal Group and for her outstanding performances in Gery Scott Sings Mostly Coward and Particularly Porter at Queanbeyan's School of Arts Café, and then again in 2005 for services to entertainment and to teaching. 2002 marked her 60th anniversary in show business.
Scott attained a Masters in Music from the Canberra Institute of the Arts in 1998, where she had been head of the Vocal Jazz Department since 1985. She retired from that position at the end of 2002. One of her greatest achievements at the institute was the formation of the Vocal Jazz Ensemble, as well as the training of hundreds of students in singing and performance technique, many of whom are now well established in the Australian and international jazz scene.
Final performances
Her final performances included the 2003 Sydney Cabaret Convention where she received two standing ovations for her performances of the jazz anthem "Something Cool" and Stephen SondheimStephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
's "Send in the Clowns". Dr David Schwartz, writing for Cabaret Hotline Online said in his review, "It is hard to describe her to you without sounding as if I were a little bit insane. Her performance provided me with one of those life-changing and totally defining cabaret experiences that was instantly committed to memory, along with my first exposure to Mabel Mercer
Mabel Mercer
Mabel Mercer was an English-born cabaret singer who performed in the United States, Britain, and Europe with the greats in jazz and cabaret. She was a featured performer at Chez Bricktop in Paris, owned by the hostess Bricktop, and performed in such clubs as Le Ruban Bleu, Tony's, the RSVP, the...
, Julie Wilson
Julie Wilson
Julie Wilson is an American singer and actress.Born in Omaha, Nebraska and first finding a musical outlet with local musical group Hank's Hepcats, Wilson headed to New York City during World War II and found work in two of Manhattan's leading nightclubs, the Latin Quarter and the Copacabana...
, Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, Sylvia Syms
Sylvia Syms
Sylvia M. L. Syms OBE is a British actress. She is probably best known for her roles in the films Woman in a Dressing Gown , Ice-Cold in Alex , No Trees in the Street , Victim and The Tamarind Seed...
and a host of other greats. Gery Scott's set represented that rare moment in cabaret when the singer and her song are indistinguishable. This sort of alchemy comes only after many years; to witness it is to be blessed". She was also special guest in a 2003 Sondheim review, and two fund raising concerts for fellow performers in 2004.
Her last major expose was in the form of a biographical essay in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine, 18 & 25 August 2003 entitled "The Jazz Singer", by Larissa MacFarquhar.
At the age of 82 and in a wheelchair, Scott gave her very last performance on 9 October 2005 at the Hyatt
Hyatt
Hyatt Hotels Corporation , is an international operator of hotels.Hyatt Center is the headquarters for Hyatt corporation...
Hotel Canberra, accompanied by her longtime pianist in Australia, Tony Magee, where her wish to do 'just one more gig' was ably delivered with a sparkling opener of Got A lot Of Livin' to Do, and later in the concert, with pianist Wayne Kelly, a moving version of Body And Soul.
Death
Gery Scott was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 2005. She died at Clare Holland House Hospice, Canberra, Australia, on 14 December 2005.The music continues
In September 2006, Czech recording label Producentské centrum Františka Rychtaříka released the CD Gery Scott & Gustav Brom, a reissue of selections recorded by SupraphonSupraphon
Supraphon Music Publishing is a Czech record label, it is oriented mainly towards publishing classical music, with an emphasis on Czech and Slovak composers.- History :...
in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
in 1957.
Discography
78 rpm discs- "Stormy Weather" 1942
LP records
- Listening to Gery Scott - Hit Parade 1963
- Modern Jazz Studio No 1 1964 (as guest)
- Modern Jazz Studio No 1/2 1986 (as guest)
EP / 45 rpm
- "Sings Cole Porter" 1950s
- "Sings..." 1950s
- "And Gustav Brom Vol 1" 1950s
- "Supraphon Plays" 1958
- "And Gustav Brom Vol 2" 1950s
- "Your Charleston" 1950s
- "Dixie and Charleston" 1950s
- "Sings with Karel Vlach Orchestra" 1957
- "Sings New Songs with Karel Vlach Orchestra" 1957
- "This is Life" / "The Dum de Dum Song" 1961
- "Summer Love" / "Stay With Me" 1961
- "Sings Hong Kong" / "What Kind of Fool Am I" 1962
- "Hit Parade Dance Songs" 1960s
- "Listening to Gery Scott II" 1960s
- "With Gustav Brom Orchestra" 1960s
- "Jeepers Creepers" 1960s
- "Ain't Misbehavin'" 1960s
- "Come Dance With Me" 1960s
- "Sings Charleston" 1960s
- "Gery Scott Sings" 1960s
- "Sings Songs You like" 1960s
CD's
- A Lot of Livin 1998
- Gery Scott & Gustav BromGustav BromGustav Brom, was a Czech big band leader, arranger, clarinettist and composer. He achieved fame in Europe and abroad from the 1940’s right through to his death in 1995...
2006