Results for "George Shearing"
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George Shearing
Born:
George Shearing enjoys an international reputation as a pianist, arranger and composer. Equally at home on the 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. His father delivered coal and his mother cleaned trains at night after caring for the children during the day. 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 piano in a neighborhood pub for the handsome salary of $5 a week! Shearing joined an all-blind band in the 1930’s. At that time he developed a friendship with the 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 established when he was booked into Birdland, the legendary jazz spot in New York. Since then, he has become one of the country’s most popular performing and recording artist. In 1982 and 1983 he won Grammy Awards with recordings he made with Mel Torme. Mr. Shearing was the subject of an hour-long television documentary entitled “The Shearing Touch” presented on the Southbank Show with Melvyn Bragg on ITV in the UK. Three presidents have invited Mr. Shearing to play at the White House.. Ford, Carter and Reagan. He performed at the Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. He is a member of the Friars Club and the Lotos Club in New York and the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. His awards and honors are many. In May 1975, he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Music from Westminster College in Salt Lake City. In May of 1994, Hamilton College in upstate New York awarded him another honorary doctorate in music. DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana presented him with an honorary doctorate of music on June 1, 2002. He 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 of 1993, he was presented with the British equivalent of the Grammy…the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement. In June of 1996, Mr. Shearing was included in the Queen’s Birthday Honors List and on November 26, 1996 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-US relations.” He was presented the first American Music Award by the National Arts Club, New York City, in March of 1998. In 1999, his 80th birthday was celebrated in England where he played to a sold-out house at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. Also appearing with him were the BBC Big Band, the strings of the London Symphony, Dame Cleo Laine and John Dankworth. BBC Radio 2 presented a 2 1/2-hour “Salute to Shearing” in honor of his birthday. The following year another sold-out house at Carnegie Hall was treated to his birthday celebration featuring the George Shearing Quintet with Nancy Wilson, Dave Brubeck, Dr. Billy Taylor, the John Pizzarelli Trio, Tito Puente and Peter Schickele who brought a special greeting from PDQ Bach! Mr. Shearing’s biography, “Lullaby of Birdland,” published by Continuum, was released February 2005. In conjunction with the autobiography release Concord Records released a composite of Shearing recordings in a 2-CD set entitled “Lullabies of Birdland.: A Musical Autobiography” which was immediately followed up with “Hopeless Romantics” with Michael Feinstein. Concord then released the collectors set Mel Tormé & George Shearing The Concord Years. Mr. Shearing’s popularity continues to rise.
A Song Is Born (with George Shearing)
By Joe Williams
Label: Arkadia Records
Released: 2022
Track listing: Just Friends; I Let a Song Go Out of; Nobody’s Heart Belongs to Me; Blues In My
Heart; Shake Rattle and Roll;
A Child
is Born; I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water; Little Girl Blue; Who She Do?; Sometimes I'm
Happy; Roll 'Em Pete;
Tenderly;
The Comeback.
Shear Brass: Celebrating Sir George Shearing
by Neil Duggan
The work of the late George Shearing, or Sir George Shearing OBE to give him his full title, is the subject of the debut album from Shear Brass, a band dedicated to playing new arrangements of his music. They are led by Shearing's great nephew, drummer Carl Gorham. The album, Celebrating Sir George Shearing, features eleven ...
Tierney Sutton: An Instrumentalist’s Singer
by Mathew Bahl
"Jazz demands something of you," says Tierney Sutton. The Los Angeles based singer is discussing the challenge of selling complicated, improvised music in a culture addicted to simple, pre-packaged formulas. “Being barraged in the media teaches people not to engage, not to seek great art, not to listen with their own ears, not to ...
New Releases From Mercedes Nicole, Danny Jonokuchi Big Band, With Singles By Trudy Pitts, Miki Yamanaka and Leny Andrade & More
by Mary Foster Conklin
This broadcast includes new releases from Mercedes Nicole, Danny Jonokuchi Big Band, with singles from Trudy Pitts, Miki Yamanaka and Leny Andrade & Gilson Peranzzetta, with birthday shoutouts to Bernice Petkere (Lullaby of the Leaves, Close Your Eyes), Roberta Donnay, Kat Gang, Linda Dachtyl, Roberta Piket, Jenny Klukken, Cyrille Aimee||, and {{Noa Fort, among others. Thanks ...
Kurt Rosenwinkel: Undercover: Live At The Village Vanguard
by Chris May
Kurt Rosenwinkel records in a variety of situations, either from inclination or to keep himself and his audience fresh or both. In 2022 alone, he released three unusually diverse albums: Plays Piano, a solo outing on which he plays piano only; The Chopin Project, a co-led disc with pianist Jean-Paul Brodbeck exploring the work of Frederic ...
John Pizzarelli Live at Scullers Jazz Club
by Doug Hall
John Pizzarelli Scullers Jazz Club Debut of new album Stage & Screen Cambridge, MA June 2, 2023 With an evening dedicated to the American Songbook, acclaimed jazz guitarist and vocalist, John Pizzarelli, performed with his jazz trio at the intimate cocktail-lounge setting of Scullers Jazz Club for a small but ...
Albert Vila: Levity
by Mark Sullivan
Spanish jazz guitarist Albert Vila has been around. His biography includes studies in Barcelona, Amsterdam, Manhattan and Brussels. His discography has quintet, quartet, trio and duet dates. So, this solo album represents a significant departure. The approach was conceived during the heaviest time of the pandemic, making it one of many documents created during those times ...
Ahmad Jamal: Forward Momentum
by Ian Patterson
In memory of the venerable Ahmad Jamal. This article was first published on All About Jazz on July 6, 2010. Ahmad Jamal, possibly the most influential of living jazz pianists, turned 80 years young on July 2, 2010. It is however, business as usual and instead of celebrating at home in his slippers, Jamal ...
Kurt Rosenwinkel & Bill Charlap: Higher Standards
by Chris May
On March 23, 2023, in the run up to Record Store Day, Elemental Records released on vinyl two Criss Cross albums from 1998 which have previously been available only as CDs. Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel's 2-LP Intuit and pianist Bill Charlap's All Through The Night come in sturdy gatefold sleeves and are pressed on 180-gram audiophile vinyl. ...
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