SHIRLEY SCOTT 

WOMEN IN JAZZ SITE CONTENTS

  1. Toshiko Akiyoshi
  2. Geri Allen
  3. Andrews Sisters
  4. Angela Andrews
  5. Lil Harden Armstrong
  6. Dorothy Ashby
  7. Pearl Bailey
  8. Beverly Barkley
  9. Karen Briggs
  10. Ruth Brown
  11. Diane Cameron
  12. Betty Carter
  13. Joan Cartwright
  14. Kim Clarke
  15. Gloria Coleman
  16. Alice Coltrane
  17. Dorothy Donegan
  18. Ella Fitzgerald
  19. Rita Graham
  20. Jace Harnage
  21. Billie Holiday
  22. Bertha Hope
  23. Shirley Horn
  24. Lena Horne
  25. Alberta Hunter
  26. Jus' Cynthia
  27. Sandra Kaye
  28. Emme Kemp
  29. Vinnie Knight
  30. Lavelle
  31. Peggy Lee
  32. Abbey Lincoln
  33. Melba Liston
  34. Gloria Lynne
  35. Tania Maria
  36. Marian McPartland
  37. Carmen McRae
  38. Mabel Mercer
  39. M'zuri
  40. Sandy Patton
  41. Trudy Pitts
  42. Cheryl Porter
  43. Shirley Scott
  44. Nina Simone
  45. Bessie Smith
  46. Carol Sudhalter
  47. Sarah Vaughn
  48. Dinah Washington
  49. Ethel Waters
  50. Mary Lou Williams

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Shirley Scott was born on March 14, 1934, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, and died on  March 10, 2002, in  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She studied piano and trumpet as a child.

Scott switched to organ in the mid-50s, working in small groups with a saxophone leader and a drummer and became very popular. Her musical associates included outstanding jazzmen such as Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Stanley Turrentine, whom she was married; Jimmy Forrest and Dexter Gordon.

A gifted player with an eclectic style that encompassed the blues and bebop, Scott was one of only a handful of organists to satisfactorily fit a potentially unsuitable instrument into a jazz setting. In the 80s she moved into education, teaching jazz history at Cheyney University, Pennsylvania, and served as a church music director and jazz promoter.

Scott's career received a boost in the 90s, when the Hammond organ became fashionable once more, but her health was affected by her use of the diet drug combination fen-phen which was later banned. Confined to bed in her later years, Scott died of heart failure in March 2002.