According to the Internet source given below, James Scott was an American composer primarily of ragtime piano music. The son of a former slave from North Carolina, he was raised mostly around Carthage, Missouri where showed musical talent when still quite young. He was taught by a Neosho pianist and received some private lessons from a Carthage teacher. He worked in Dumars Music Store in Carthage where he eventually was permitted to demonstrate tunes. The proprietor helped him to publish his first compositions.
Sometime in 1906, he met Scott Joplin who helped arrange publication of his Frog Legs Rag (1906) for John Stark. Stark thereafter published anything that Scott sent to him for the rest of his career. He moved to Kansas City in 1914 where he played in cinemas and formed a band. Here, due to his small stature and energy he earned the sobriquet the little professor. A purist, he remained a ragtime composer to the end, one of his last published works being Don't Jazz Me, (I'm Music) (1921). He kept composing despite poor health until his death, his final works remain unpublished or undiscovered.
Rudi Blesh considers James Scott to one of the classic giants, that is to be one of the "Bach-Beethoven-Brahms" of ragtime, which includes Scott Joplin and Joseph F. Lamb.

Websites:
	James Sylvester Scott	Biography and list of works by "Perfessor" Bill Edwards