The life of Jimmy Scott is not one of meteoric stardom but a journey that has taken nearly seventy years to find its much deserved success.
One
of ten children, James Victor Scott was born in
Cleveland, Ohio on July
17,
1925 .
The f irst time Jimmy sang on a public stage was at school when the teacher had him sing the lead in a play “Ferdinand the Bull”, after that she always had him do the leads. He was only 12 years old when he became known as a singer around Cleveland . While in his teens a Comedian saw the potential in Jimmy, he was Tim McCoy from Akron . Whenever Tim got a “gig” around Northeast Ohio , he would take Jimmy along with him on the bill. Jimmy would sing at different clubs, they would sneak him out before the cops arrived, because he was not only under age, but looked even younger than his actual years. Later Jimmy produced the Summer Festivals, a group of talented youngsters, like his friend jazz baritone singer Jimmy Reed and dancer Barbara Taylor,that would put on shows all around the area.
They also worked and put on shows at the Metropolitan Theater where
the big bands would come in to play, Jimmy set up a concession to supply
the Artists with soap, clean towels, and toiletries. He 
was
hired by the dance troupe, “The
Two Flashes”, Jimmy took the job to be close to show business, its
players, and the stage. While in Meadville , PA. they
were working with some of the greatest jazz musicians of the day, Lester
Young, Slam Stewart, Ben Webster, Papa Jo Jones, Sir Charles, etc…The music
was jumpin' and so was Jimmy, he asked the dancers to see if the band would
let him do a couple of numbers, they said ok. Jimmy sang “The Talk of the
Town” and “Don't Take Your Love Away”, the audience went crazy showing
their love for Jimmy and the thunderous applause was deafening. Every time
the band ran into Jimmy, they'd ask him to come up on stage a do a
couple numbers. Some of the early big bands Jimmy enjoyed were Count Basie's
Band, Erskine Hawkins, and Father Earl Hines, but Lester Young was his
favorite tenor sax player. He joined Lionel Hampton's Band in 1948, where
he discovered the vibraphone 
and
the strings, Jimmy said “it helped him to learn
the beauty of the song and encouraged him to sing”. Lionel was a mentor
to Jimmy and the one who tagged him with the stage name, “Little Jimmy
Scott”,
at the time he was 23, only 4'11”, thin, and very young looking. Jimmy
said it was a gimmick for Lionel's show, but it wasn't too many years later
that you started hearing more singers take their cue from Jimmy's stage
name and call themselves Little So & So.
Jimmy met Estelle “Caldonia” Young in the early 1940's; she took Jimmy on her road show as the featured singer. Caldonia became almost a surrogate mother to Jimmy, having lost his own mother at age 13. “Caldonia's Revue” traveled the southern circuit to the east, they put up their own stages in the rural areas. There were featured male and female vocalists, tap dancers, comedians, an M.C. and Caldonia herself, she was an exotic shake dancer and contortionist. It was essentially like a touring vaudevillian tent show. Some of the others who worked with Caldonia at one time or another were Ruth Brown, Big Maybelle, Elie Adams, and Jack McDuff. Caldonia took Jimmy along with her to do a special performance at Gamby's in Baltimore in 1945, where he met up with his friend Redd Foxx who was appearing at Gamby's also. They went over to the Royal Theater to see Joe Louis. Redd and Joe told Jimmy he should be in New York performing instead of traveling around to those small towns.
They
convinced him he could make it on his own, the way he sang. So they talked
to Ralph Cooper who called up Nipsy Russell, the M.C. at the Baby Grand
in Harlem and arranged
for Jimmy to get a one week booking. Jimmy sang that one week and they
kept him on for 3 more months! Billie Holiday would show up nightly while
in town to listen to Jimmy. Doc Pomus was in the
audience during that
first week and wanted to meet this amazing singer, Jimmy said “sure” and
they became fast friends. Doc took Jimmy home to have dinner to meet his
parents and little brother Raoul Felder, he also showed Jimmy how to get
around on the N.Y. subway system. Their friendship lasted over 45 years.
Jimmy sang at Doc's funeral in 1991. It was there that record label owner Seymour Stein
heard Jimmy sing and practically signed him on the spot, thus the beginning
of Jimmy's re-emergence as a singer with his Grammy nominated comeback
album “All The Way”. At age 67 he began to tour the world, where he was
introduced to new appreciative audiences and legions of new young fans
!! Now the press refers to him with reverence as the Golden Voice of Jazz,
the Legendary Jimmy Scott. Written
by Jeanie Scott
After
a long climb, things are really looking up for Jimmy Scott. He's established
a dedicated international audience through triumphant tours of Europe and
Japan; he's been the featured subject of a Bravo Profiles television special,
and of an in-depth biography by award-winning author David Ritz ( Faith
in Time: The Jazz Life of Jimmy Scott , due out in the fall of 2002 from
Da Capo Press). Now, with But Beautiful , Jimmy Scott fleshes out a persuasive
portrait of his jazz mastery and storytelling. "It
represents a logical evolution of our Milestone sessions," concludes
Barkan, "and everything Jimmy has worked so hard for." Mr. Scott
adds a final coda: "The record is quite simply exquisite, and I really
am as proud of it as anything I've ever done in my life."
On December 31, 2003 , Jimmy married
Jean McCarthy at the 
Covenant Community Church in Cleveland , Ohio .
Jimmy said, “...he wanted to start the New Year off right, that every New
Year after that would be my special day.” The couple honeymooned in London , Istanbul , Paris , Austria and Monaco .
In 2004, Jimmy has seen the release of an Independent Lens documentary "Jimmy Scott, If You Only Knew", that won the 2004 Audience Award. A new 28 song CD set compilation, "The Definitive Jimmy Scott: Someone To Watch Over Me" and a single CD, "All Of Me: Jimmy Scott-Live In Tokyo "
Scott himself has always focused his creative energy on the challenges with which this life has presented him. "Ya gotta go on," he says, and not resignedly, "fortunately, I had the music to comfort me." He has said that there isn't any disappointment in heaven, and when asked what this means, he replies, "Heaven is what you make it. You can make it hell here on earth, or you can make it heaven."
Of the success he's achieved relatively late in life, Scott says, "I'm pleased now that (my voice) is pleasing to people. In a way, I feel like now maybe people will hear what I have to offer, whereas before the music never got to a level where all people had access to it. "All I can do is give what I really feel."
"It'll work out in the end. You gotta believe" Jimmy Scott
