Tony Scott

After departing New York City in 1959, the leading bebop clarinetist Tony Scott pursued a nomadic existence across continents, immersing himself in the indigenous musical traditions of various cultures. Although his output after that departure remained limited, elusive, and at times uneven, he emerged as an unsung innovator in world music and new age expression.

From 1940 to 1942 Scott studied at Juilliard and appeared at Minton's Playhouse; following a three-year military service he ranked among the scant few clarinetists who adopted bebop. His restrained, cool timbre reached a peak on a 1950 Sarah Vaughan date that also featured Miles Davis and set him apart from Buddy DeFranco’s more aggressive approach. Scott performed alongside an array of major figures including Ben Webster, Trummy Young, Earl Bostic, Charlie Ventura, Claude Thornhill, Buddy Rich, and Billie Holiday, while leading his own sessions whose participants included Dizzy Gillespie and a young Bill Evans; those dates encompassed bebop, cool, and free improvisation, though all remain difficult to obtain, and he shared the pinnacle of the field with DeFranco.

Because the clarinet had lost favor in the 1950s unlike its swing-era status, Scott stayed little known beyond jazz audiences. In 1959 he abandoned the United States for extended journeys throughout the Far East, where he performed Eastern classical repertoire and cut meditation music for Verve. Apart from brief returns to the U.S., he made his home in Italy from the 1970s onward and occasionally explored electronic textures. Tony Scott died in Italy on March 3, 2007.