About

The Library of Congress will present “Playing with Fire: The Counterpoint of Hazel Scott’s Virtuosity, Erasure, and Emergence” on June 18, 2026, as part of its 2026 Jazz Scholar series. The program features cultural historian and biographer Karen Chilton, whose scholarship continues to deepen public understanding of jazz pianist and cultural icon Hazel Scott.

Held in the Thomas Jefferson Building’s Whittall Pavilion, the lecture examines Scott as both virtuoso and cultural figure, foregrounding the tensions between artistic brilliance, political resistance, and historical erasure that shaped her career. Chilton, author of Hazel Scott: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist, from Café Society to Hollywood, draws on extensive research to illuminate Scott’s influence on American music, performance culture, and Black intellectual life.

The presentation centers on Scott’s counterpoint—her extraordinary musical virtuosity set against the institutional and political forces that sought to silence her. A classically trained prodigy who moved seamlessly between European concert traditions and jazz performance, Scott challenged racial segregation, asserted artistic autonomy, and redefined the possibilities of Black performance in mid-twentieth-century America. Her rise to prominence in concert halls, film, and nightclub stages was accompanied by political scrutiny and professional marginalization, particularly during the Red Scare, when her activism and public advocacy reshaped the trajectory of her career.

Through this lecture, Scott’s life is positioned within a broader framework of cultural resistance, archival recovery, and historical visibility. The program invites audiences to reconsider her place within jazz modernity and to examine how Black women artists have been simultaneously celebrated and erased within American cultural history.

“Playing with Fire” ultimately frames Hazel Scott as an artist whose virtuosity and political courage disrupted dominant narratives of jazz and performance, offering a critical intervention into ongoing conversations about memory, power, and the preservation of Black cultural legacy.