©Tony Scott
Dick Hyman was playing with me at Cafe Society in 1949 with Art Tatum listening. Dick came on and played like Teddy Wilson, and Art leaned back in his chair and clapped his hands, 'Yeah, Dick.' He played like Earl Hines...'Yeah, Dick.' He played like Errol Garner. I said, 'Play like Art', but Dick Hyman shook his head, he said 'Tony, there are five things I know how he fingers. Ican't play them. there are 50 things I don't even know how he fingers them."

1949, July 29 - Down Beat - p.2
Tony Scott's Quartet Displays Versatility
by John S. Wilson
(about June 14 1949 Cafe Society concert) New York- The clarinetist Tony Scott has brought a versatile quartet into Cafe Society to replace the George Shearing quintet which moved uptown to Bop City. Scott is well known to frequenters of the Village cellar, since he was a sideman in Dave Martin’s crew there for a long stretch before putting in three months with Claude Thornill this winter.

The main purpose of the Scott combo is to get dancers out on the floor and keep them there. He’s fulfilling the mission and put putting out a variety of interesting and listenable music at the same time .The group mixes up society stuff, Rhumbas, Dixie, and Bop. Except for the Dixie, his offerings are legitimate and top-drawer samples of each style.

Although Scott, a good looking and very personable character, draws attention as the guy in front of the band, the spotlight is consistently played on his pianist, 21-year old Dick Hyman. Hyman is a wonderfully polished and flexible 88er, ideally suited to the mixture which Scott is dishing out. His Society piano is smooth and lilting, but full-bodied.. He gives Rhumbas a solid and hectic attack. And his Bop reveals him as adept at the Shearing-style’s approach.
He moves around in all these fields with apparent ease and gives the group an enormous amount of body and style. Although he doesn’t seem to have come up with any definite style of his own yet, Hyman is a pianist who certainly is going to create a stir either as a jazzman or on commercial stuff. Given a little time, he could step into the company of Shearing and Tristano.
Scott himself is one of a very limited supply of genuine and talented Bop clarinetists. His rough, excited tone fires the up-tempo numbers, which he varies with imaginative lower register work on the slower pieces. The exception taken to his Dixieland a couple of paragraphs above is based on his rather weird approach to the style.

In one Dixie number, he’ll play a fairly legitimate chorus, a hoked-up chorus, and one chorus that sounds like a tussle between Pee wee Russel and the Bird. It’s amoosin’, confoozin’, and interesting, so there are no complaints from this corner, but it isn’t legitimate Dixie. Could be it’s the Great New Hybrid. Rest of the quartet is Leonard Gaskin on bass and Irv Kluger on drums. Gaskin lends a good, steady hand, but Kluger’s work, the night the combo was caught, seems a little uncertain, with a tendency to drag.
All together, the Scott Quartet is one of the most adept and capable groups around today. They can play anything anywhere and make the result sound like a lot more than four pieces. And Hyman, if he chooses, can give Shearing a rough run for his money or, if he chooses, be the greatest thing since Eddy Duchin.

Photo: Tony Scott(cl), Leonard Gaskin(b), Dick Hyman(p), Irv Kluger(d)
Photo underwritten: New York-Bop (plus Dixie, Rhumbas, and what have you) is on the bill when Tony Scott’s new unit plays for dancing at Cafe Society. Scott opened June 14 with Leonard Gaskin, bass, Dick Hyman(piano), Scott , clarinet and Irv Kluger , drums. Cliff Jackson singles on piano at the spot, while singer Juanita Hall doubles from South Pacific.

IAJRC Fall 2000 - Tony Scott: Some reminiscences of a best friend
by Bill Simon

He was leader of the small house group at Cafe Society Downtown. His pianist was a youngster just starting out-Dick Hyman. Another pianist, just arrived from England, George Shearing, occasionally was featured at the club. Tony took it on himself to be the guide for the blind artist and several times brought him up to the apartment at 4 a.m. to cook spaghetti for him. Another English émigré, the notable jazz critic Leonard Feather, lived in an apartment on an upper floor of the building that housed Cafe Society in the basement. Leonard suffered a terrible accident when a rider-less car slipped its brake and rolled down hill, hitting him and breaking a lot of bones. Leonard was confined to bed for many months. Between sets Tony would visit him nightly, tell him funny stories and read to him. Not long after he recovered he ran into Tony on the street. “Oh, Tony, ”he said, “ I forgot to vote for you in the Jazz Critics ‘New Star Poll’, I voted for Putte Wickman (a Swedish clarinetist) instead.”