by Ondřej Suchý
I STAYED in surprise to stand on the pavement in front of the Supraphon shop, from where amplion sounded twice in a row: "Day O"! The woman's voice, to which the orchestra joined. The year 1957 was written, I was twelve, wearing a three-quarter jacket, to which my mummy was wearing a yellow olive-button and a scarf on the sides. Someone in this fashion said he was strapped, and I longed for it to look a bit like a tape. Well, now suddenly do it: Day O! And genuine English! Amazing!
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| Gery with Gustav Brom |
And so I first heard a singer named Gery Scott and Calypso, one of whom was initially singer Harry Bellafonte, but on Supraphon records she was presented as a traditional Banana Boat Song in brackets: The Banana Boat Song. But that was all outside of me - we have always said it just "Banana Kalypso".
At the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, Gerry Scott's songs broke up. She probably sang most of it with the orchestra Gustav Brom, but then her recordings with the orchestras of Karel Vlach and Dalibor Bráz were released on the recordings, with boys wearing "Volarééé, oh-ho ..." and Gerry Scott was "our".
How and when it was gone from Czechoslovakia we did not notice it; we were already in captivity a little different - rock and roll, twist, Beatles and actor. I learned about her later fates only a few years ago from my friend living in Australia, the musicologist John Pear (Czech writer Václav Hruška).
Gery Scott, by the real name Diana Whitburn, was born in Bombay as the daughter of the British governor, and in India, as well as a nineteen-year-old, she made her first gramophone record. In 1945, she moved to England, where she began her real professional vocal career - she sang with leading UK big band and regularly recorded for the BBC. Soon she started to make a big tour of Europe. Until then, after her accidental encounter with Gustav Brom, she became one of the first Western artists to begin acting as an "Iron Curtain".
As the very first jazz singer from the West, she performed in the Soviet Union (for example, in the Kiev Opera, in honor of the first Sputnik.) In the Soviet Union, her recordings were sold to six million gramophone records! She also signed a seven-year contract with the Czechoslovak company Supraphon, for which she then sang several dozen songs.
In the 1960s, she first returned to England, where her producer and manager, Beatles George, signed a contract with Parlophone in 1962, later moved to Asia where she worked in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore, not only as a singer, but as well as the owner of the recording company and the entertainment director.
She settled in Australia for the first time in 1981 and began teaching vocal arts at the Canberian Music School at the Institute of Art, where she was appointed Head of the Jazz Singing Department in 1985 as an AMU in Prague or the JAMU in Brno. She stayed until her retirement in 2002. She was very popular as a pedagogue, and hundreds of students passed through her hands, each of whom in her personal style and singing speech took some of her footprints.
In addition to acting at the Music School, she continued to perform in Canberra at jazz festivals and shows of cabaret singers throughout the country ...
You surely suspect the reason that led me to write this information. Unfortunately, this is the case: Gery Scott, a fabulous jazz and cabaret singer who has enjoyed audiences in 26 countries over six decades, died on December 14, 2005 in Canberra at the age of 82.
"Gery's medical condition has worsened over the last few months, and I'm grieved to report that she has died in complications caused by lung cancer in peace and dignity at Clare Holland House," said agent Tony Magee.
In Australia, she left Christopher Lofting's son and granddaughter Kate Lofting. Besides them, her relatives also live in England, Russia and the United States.
I'm still keeping old Shell records with her songs, and some newer EPs that were once issued by Supraphon (especially for export). They are part of my more advanced childhood and I will never get rid of them, even though I do not play them today. I have them already burned on one of the cages, which I always reach when I want to go back to remembering the times when I was - time-to-do - carefree and, therefore, the happiest.
Gery Scott is still happy to listen!
The author thanks for the shots of G.Scott from Australia JOHN PEAR and his WORLD MUSIC ARCHIVES from Australian Manilly!
Translated from the original Czech text using Google Translate, 8.9.2018
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