Tony Scott

Anthony Joseph Sciacca (Tony Scott), clarinettist, saxophonist and composer: born Morristown, New Jersey 17 June 1921; thrice married (two daughters); died Rome 28 March 2007.

World music, always an uncomfortable genre to pin down, probably began with Tony Scott. He was a man who revered the iconic figures at the centre of jazz - Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Lester Young and Charlie Parker - but was nevertheless happy to blend his jazz clarinet into any kind of music, religious or secular, that he found in his travels all over the world.

By the time, in the early days of bebop, that he had developed his clarinet style the flash days of clarinet players such as Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw were over. Tony Scott was a fine clarinettist and a good self-publicist, but the instrument had gone out of vogue. His efforts on baritone sax and piano showed his ease with musical challenges but he was fated to play with or employ the most famous jazz musicians without joining their ranks.

In 1959 he left the United States to travel in Europe and Asia and applied his jazz to the enormous variety of ethnic music that he encountered.

His parents had migrated from Sicily at the turn of the century and settled in New Jersey. His father was a barber and amateur guitarist and his mother had studied the violin. Anthony Sciacca, as he was born in 1921, showed his inherited musical gifts at seven, singing and imitating jazz instrumentalists:

The first time I heard jazz was the first time I heard freedom. I heard a big band playing in 1933 . . . it was like a big bush, a big tree and then suddenly this bird came flying out of the tree. It was a clarinet.

Scott began playing a metal clarinet when he was 12 and by the time he was 14 had his own quartet in which he also doubled on alto saxophone. Until he was 18 he was influenced most strongly by the playing of Benny Goodman, whom he idolised.

In 1939 Scott first played in jam sessions at the legendary Minton's Playhouse, a New York night-club that gave a platform to the then little-known progressives of the day - Charlie Christian and Thelonious Monk amongst them. Scott sat in with them and with Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young and, crucially, the tenor saxophonist Ben Webster:

The older men were interested in young musicians in those days. Ben Webster took me under his wing. He watched over me and became my teacher. At his suggestion I moved from club to club each night, picking up much that I could use in my own playing. Just being around provided the sort of experience that young players can't get today.

He studied at the Juilliard from 1941 to 1942 before spending three years in the US Army. Joining the 1st Army Band, he was stationed in New York and managed to continue sitting in at the jazz night-clubs on 52nd Street. He played with and befriended a multitude of black musicians but prominently Billie Holiday, Charlie "Bird" Parker and Lester Young.

The first time Scott heard him Charlie Parker had the same irresistible and overwhelming effect on Scott that he had on all the young moderns:

My jaw dropped. He played so many notes, up and down, all around, that it sounded like a hundred chickens going mad when a fox enters the coop. Like Chinese music from the moon. I had never heard any music like this in my life. And I was supposed to play after him. What the hell could I play after this musical madman? I walked up on the stage to be near him and played as usual in the style of Benny Goodman, but from that day on I wanted to be like Bird.

Scott developed a soft sound that he combined with Parker's phrasing. He and Buddy de Franco were the only clarinet players in bebop - the instrument sat awkwardly in bebop ensembles. But Scott was good at propaganda and soon wielded a lot of influence and brought himself regular work.

He made his first recording as a leader in 1946 and out of friendship his star musicians played for reduced fees. They included Ben Webster, Sarah Vaughan and Dizzy Gillespie, who, because he was under contract to another record company, appeared on the label as "B. Bopstein". In 1950 Scott graced another superb recording session under Sarah Vaughan's name, this time playing alongside Miles Davis. In February 1953 he joined the Duke Ellington band for two months, playing tenor saxophone and flute and recording with the band.

By now an accomplished composer as well, Scott established himself with the RCA record company during the Fifties. He was able to make a handful of big band records using the finest of the New York jazz musicians. In 1957 he recorded a tribute to 52nd Street, 52nd Street Scene, drawing together small groups made up from musicians from various fields. He found himself playing duets with the eccentric clarinettist Pee Wee Russell.

"Blues for the Street" from this album was in fact the emotional all-purpose slow 12-bar blues that graced most of Scott's performances for the rest of his life as "Blues for Charlie Parker". It was as traditional as could be and its soft-toned clarinet, so redolent of Ben Webster's saxophone influences, is probably what people remember best of Scott's oeuvre.

In the same year, Scott made a groundbreaking visit to South Africa, where his insistence on playing to multi-racial audiences at a time when such radicalism was unheard of caused much trouble with the police for him and for those who promoted his visit.

Deciding that there was no future for the clarinet in the American jazz climate, Scott left in 1959 for a two-year trip (it lasted for six) around the continents. He made a seven-month stay in Europe and Africa, finding plenty of work in clubs and at festivals before leaving for the Orient, where he studied and taught in the various cultures that he encountered.

Scott found no shortage of work across Asia and became a big name in Japan, where he spent some considerable time. He recorded frequently in various esoteric situations and was always surprised, on his brief return trips to the US, at how hard it was for his fellow musicians to find rewarding work. He brought back his Asian experiences and recorded in New York albums for yoga meditation. He also recorded there in 1967 with the visiting Indonesian All Stars.

Finally disillusioned with his homeland, he settled in Italy during the Seventies and used Rome as a base from which to tour and record in Europe. In the Eighties he recorded African Bird, an album with a group of European musicians of his own compositions that reflected his experiences in Africa. Quirkily he insisted that, for his album Homage to Lady Day in 1995, his Italian rhythm section should record the pieces beforehand with the leader dubbing on his solos afterwards. This made the interpretation of Billie Holiday's songs a little stilted.

On his 75th birthday in 1996 he recorded The Old Lion Roars in Milan, which included the ever-resurgent "Blues for Charlie Parker".

In 2003 Scott returned to the US to play at some successful recitals with Buddy De Franco. Both had been present at the dawn of bebop and by now had taken their places as the old men of the clarinet. De Franco's playing remained sharp and rooted in the style of Artie Shaw while Scott, by now playing without teeth, still reflected softly the music of Lester Young, Parker and Holiday.

Steve Voce