Gery Scott wins standing ovations

Wednesday June 4, 2003

Gery Scott - still teaches and works from her Red Hill home

 

by Helen Musa

Canberra’s grande dame of jazz and cabaret Gery Scott has knocked them dead in Sydney. Featured as a headline artist in the final gala night of the annual Sydney Cabaret Convention at Sydney Town Hall last night, the 79-year-old Scott won two standing ovations for her renditions of Something Cool and Send in the Clowns.

Canberra musician Tony Magee, who accompanied Scott on piano, along with Scott Dodd on double bass and Nick McBride on drums, said yesterday that “the audience fell in love with Gery right from the start. The audience broke into spontaneous applause as each new piece started.”

For her set Scott sang I Get A Kick Out of You, Don’t Cry Out Loud, When in Rome, Something Cool, Uncle Harry and Send in the Clowns.

David Schwartz, writing in Cabaret Hotline Online, said, “Her performance provided me with one of those life-changing and totally defining cabaret moments that was instantly commented to memory - the impact that this woman made on me and the rest of the audience was so special.”

Schwartz went on to praise Scott’s rendition of the cabaret ballad Something Cool. “Ever since I first heard June Christy’s recording” he wrote, “I have longed to hear a live performance of this classic that caught the pathos and understated pain of this song; Gery Scott gave me the performance of my dreams and more as she held the entire audience in the palm of her hand. It does not get much better than this!”

Scott, whose performing career has spanned more than 60 years, is Canberra’s leading jazz voice teacher. With a reputation for offering her students frank advice and what head of jazz at the ANU Mike Price calls “tough love”, Scott headed up jazz vocal studies at the Canberra School of Music for many years. She holds a Masters Degree in Music from the ANU and continues to teach and work in retirement from her Red Hill home.

Since it seems immodest to spend too much time boasting of Canberra prowess we all know about anyway, let’s give the last word to the enthusiast Schwartz, as he praised “her superb accompanist Tony Magee on piano, along with Scott Dodd on bass and Nick McBride on drums - for me Gery Scott’s set represented that rare moment in cabaret when the singer and her song are indistinguishable. This sort of alchemy comes only after many years; to witness it is to be blessed.”

First published at The Canberra Times, June 4, 2003