Tony Scott
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August 2000

Unsung Recordings
Reviewed By
Robert Spencer

Other Scott
Reviews @ AAJ
At Last
East Coast Sounds

By Robert Spencer

Tony Scott once made a record called Sung Heroes, but alas, that has not been his fate. Instead he is absolutely perfect for this column: Unsung in the extreme, and a Hero beyond the stature of most. Now 79, he has played with Billie Holiday, Bill Evans, Milt Hinton, Clark Terry, Sahib Shihab, Jimmy Garrison and Pete LaRoca - a veritable Jazz Hall of Fame of big names. He appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival on a breathtaking roster of talent: Coltrane, Miles Davis, Monk, Duke Ellington, Basie, on and on. He deserved to be in that company. He deserves today to be recognized among them as a great jazz innovator. But for whatever reason, he is not. This is a terrible omission! Go and find any Tony Scott recording, and you'll see why immediately.

Why should Tony Scott be mentioned in the same breath with Trane, Miles, and Duke? Because like many other jazz innovators, he changed the sound of his instrument, and he made music that has been widely imitated. Sidney Bechet long ago gave up playing the Bb clarinet in favor of the soprano saxophone, because he preferred the saxophone's bigger sound, a sound that can fill a room and dominate an ensemble. But Scott achieves that sound on clarinet, while benefiting from the smaller horn's woody, inviting tone. Scott sounds a bit like Eric Dolphy. But what Dolphy does on bass clarinet, Scott does on a standard Bb clarinet, manipulating this little horn with an imaginative melodic sense and architectonic genius rarely heard in any improviser. When Hawk and Trane are lionized for their innovative work on tenor sax, and Charlie Parker and Ornette for theirs on the alto, Tony Scott should be recognized for what he has done on the Bb clarinet. He stands alone, with a magnificent body of work.

Tony Scott, who was born Anthony Sciacca in Morristown, New Jersey in 1921, is also a stylistic innovator. Twenty-five years before world music was cool and Pharoah Sanders recorded with Moroccan Gnawa musicians, Tony Scott traveled to Africa and recorded some enormously imaginative music with his clarinet backed by traditional African instruments and rhythms. Before New Age music became a genre in every record store, he recorded Music for Zen Meditation and Music for Yoga Meditation and Other Joys

Zen and Yoga are a long way from Minton's, where Scott jammed in the early Forties. Ben Webster and Charlie Parker were early influences, as Scott transmogrified their big sounds to his little horn. But although his sound was utterly original, he was already feeling bypassed by the Fifties: "I decided I would never make it as a jazz clarinet player. Everybody was passing me by. No critics dug me; I was getting no publicity. Benny had had it for so long, and then Buddy seemed to have it sewed up." But things started to look up: he won the Down Beat critics poll in 1958 and 1959, and began to make a name for himself on the baritone saxophone!

In 1968 he settled in Rome, and has traversed the globe since then. His Zen meditation recordings were made on tour in East Asia. His leaving the United States has been a great loss to the jazz scene here, but at least we have his recordings as testimony to his endlessly creative genius. If you are at all interested in ground-breaking improvisers, in musicians with the towering ability to make you hear and love new sounds, then don't miss Tony Scott.

Familiar with Tony Scott's music? We welcome your comments.