“Billie Holiday named him as her favourite singer and Madonna claims he’s the only vocalist who ever made her cry – how’s that for endurance? Scott was born … with a hormonal deficiency that denied him puberty and left with a voice that is frequently mistaken for a woman’s. Betwixt nature and craft, he developed into a yearning, subtly rhythmic balladeer whose high register casts a heady spell – the ethereal counterpart to the low, chocolaty pulse of baritones such as Billy Eckstine and Johnny Hartman. Scott has suffered more than the jazzman’s usual share of pain, neglect and betrayal, but in his eighth decade he is doing some of his best work, recorded at last with care and respect, his voice still strong despite a plaintive crack Holiday would surely understand.”
/ From the November 2003 “American Music” issue of Vanity Fair magazine /
“Everything about the singer is a question mark, starting with his maddening, asexual voice. It could shoot stratospherically high, trail off into a sob-stained vibratto, then descend into a cry so low-down it could shatter the toughest R&B singer. And for all the emotion, he never sounded piteous or weak. Jimmy had no use for falsetto histrionics or on-the-knees pleading. No wonder gospel singers whispered his name, women followed him home, junkies and drag queens idolized him. Jimmy Scott understood.”
/ From “Jimmy Scott: For Whatever the Reasons” by Jimmy McDonough, The Village Voice, 1988 /
Born on this day: haunting jazz vocalist Jimmy Scott (aka “Little Jimmy Scott”, James Victor Scott, 17 July 1925 – 12 June 2014). I was privileged to see the unearthly Scott perform several times in London in the 2000s and it was always a powerful experience. (And like Madonna, he made me cry more than once! Scott makes a cameo appearance in the video for Madonna’s 1994 single “Secret”). For anyone unfamiliar with Scott’s work, the lushly romantic 1962 album Falling in Love is Wonderful (widely regarded as his magnum opus) is a good place to start. David Lynch aficionados already know Scott: he crooned the eerie “Sycamore Trees” against a red velvet curtain in the final episode of season two of Twin Peaks.
