Jimmy Scott

Jimmy Scott has emerged as something of a cult hero in the jazz scene over the past few years. A childhood victim of Kallman’s Syndrome, a hereditary hormone deficiency, 77-year-old Scott was left with a voice that is delicate, wispy and almost creepily androgynous. He made his name as a pop and Broadway singer in the 1950s and 1960s before falling out of the music profession and working at clerical jobs for several decades. His belated emergence as a jazz star has resulted in several critically acclaimed albums, the most recent of which finds him performing a solid set of standards with the support of such A-list session men as George Mraz, Lewis Nash and Wynton Marsalis. Once you get past the initially startling nature of his voice, you start hearing a singer of uncommon beauty and insight. Recommended.