George Shearing enjoys an international reputation as a pianist, arranger and composer. Equally at home on the classical concert stage as in jazz clubs, Shearing is recognized for inventive, orchestrated jazz. He has written over 300 compositions, including the classic Lullaby of Birdland, which has become a jazz standard.
Shearing was born in 1919 in the Battersea area of London. Congenitally blind, he was the youngest of nine children of a coalman. His only formal musical education consisted of four years of study at the Linden Lodge School for the Blind. While his talent won him a number of university scholarships, he was forced to refuse them in favor of a more financially productive pursuit ... playing the piano in a neighborhood pub. Shearing joined an all-blind band in the 1930s and, at that time, developed a friendship with noted jazz critic and author Leonard Feather. Through this contact, he made his first appearance on BBC radio.
In 1947, Mr. Shearing moved to America where he spent two years establishing his fame on this side of the Atlantic. The Shearing sound commanded national attention when, in 1949, he gathered a quintet to record September in the Rain for MGM. The record was an overnight success and sold 900,000 copies. His U.S. reputation was permanently entrenched when he was booked into Birdland, the legendary jazz spot in New York City. Since then, he has become one to the country's most popular recording artists.
In 1982 and 1983, he won Grammy Awards with recordings he made with Mel Torme. In addition, Mr. Shearing was the subject of an hour-long television documentary entitled "The Shearing Touch." It was broadcast on the Southband Show with Melvyn Bragg on ITV in the U.K. It can be seen now in the U.S. on the Bravo cable television channel.
On the personal side, Mr. Shearing received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Westminster College in Salt Lake City in May 1975. He was awarded another honorary doctorate in music by Hamilton College, in upstate NewYork, in May 1994.
Mr. Shearing received the prestigious Horatio Alger Award for Distinguished Americans in 1978, and a community recreational facility in Battersea, South London, was named the George Shearing Centre in his honor. In May 1993, he was presented with the British equivalent of the Grammy - the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement. In June 1996, Mr. Shearing was included in the Queen's Birthday Honors List and on November 26, he was invested by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his "service to music and Anglo-U.S. relations." He was presented the first American Music Award by the National Arts Club, New York City, in March 1998.
Three presidents have invited Mr. Shearing to play at the white House: Ford, Carter and Reagan. He performed at a Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. He is a member of the Friars Club and Lotos Club in New York, and the Bohemian Club in San Francisco.
Mr. Shearing and his wife, Ellie, divide their time between their apartment in New York and a cottage in the English countryside. It is in the Cotswold cottage where you will find him taking long walks, enjoying "bangers and chips" at his favorite pub or sitting in the garden listening to his beloved cricket and tennis matches. An avid fan of both these sports, he and Ellie can be seen at Lords Cricket Ground, Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. Their favorite kind of evening is a quiet dinner at home with friends followed by a serious game of bridge.
But, occasionally, during breaks in his busy schedule both at home and abroad, he follows his own personal belief: "Why should a man work when he has the health and strength to lie in bed?"
