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Peggy Lee: A Century Of Song
by Ian Patterson
Peggy Lee: A Century Of Song Tish Oney 250 pages ISBN: 978-1-5381-2847-3 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2020 A Century of Song marks the centenary of Peggy Lee's birth, but coming eighteen years after her death, the title is a reminder of the enduring legacy of one of the ...
4th Zbigniew Seifert International Jazz Violin Competition
by Ian Patterson
4th Zbigniew Seifert International Jazz Violin Competition Cricoteka Museum, Kraków, Poland/Various international locations on-line July 8-10, 2020 When the fanfare and drum roll had died down the big moment arrived. After three days of on-line competition, the six finalists waited anxiously in front of their screens, in Israel, The USA, Austria, ...
A Shelly Manne Centennial and More June Birthdays
by Marc Cohn
June birthdays on Gifts and Messages. The 'big' ones: singer Dakota Staton @ 90 and drummer Shelly Manne @ 100. It's also Anthony Braxton's 75th birthday with tunes from his Charlie Parker Project. On our broadcast day in Baton Rouge, Eric Dolphy's 92nd. More of course, mostly pianists: Chick Corea, Kenny Barron, Geri Allen, Misha Mengelberg ...
Madre Vaca: Winterreise
by Jack Bowers
For its third recording, the Florida-based jazz octet Madre Vaca has chosen to perform music by Franz Schubert—hold it; stop right there! Music by who? Yes, that's what it says—music by none other than Franz Schubert (1797-1828), an Austrian composer of what we know as classical music who in his brief lifetime wrote more than 600 ...
The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma
by Angelo Leonardi
The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma Ben Sidran 284 Pages ISBN: 978-0578556604 Nardis Books 2020 Le vicende personali e l'attività professionale di Tommy LiPuma sono il soggetto privilegiato di quest'appassionante biografia scritta da Ben Sidran. Scomparso nel 2017, LiPuma è stato un protagonista della produzione discografica jazz e rock ...
The Shearing Sound That Wasn't
In 1948, George Shearing and Buddy DeFranco kicked around the idea of forming a quintet. With Shearing's block chords and Buddy's bop clarinet along with their speed, they figured they'd knock out audiences. They performed together with bassist John Levy and drummer Denzil Best at the Clique Club, which would become Birdland a year later. But ...
The New York - Paris Reunion Quintet: Live at the Bird's Eye Jazz Club, Basel
by David A. Orthmann
Many of us dearly miss those life-affirming nights in jazz clubs when a band can do no wrong, blowing as if there's no tomorrow, and temporarily washing away the workaday realities of existence. The New York-Paris Reunion Quintet's Live at the Bird's Eye Jazz Club, Basel takes some of the yearning and emptiness out of waiting ...
About George Shearing
Results for pages tagged "George Shearing"...
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.
John Yao, Chris Potter, Clark Terry and More
by Joe Dimino
This week we open with John Yao, one of the best kept secrets in the world of jazz, featuring his group Triceratops with a cut off his latest album How We Do. And best kept jazz secrets is one of the themes of this episode. We also look into the world of accomplished jazz cats Chris ...
2019: The Year in Jazz
by Ken Franckling
The year 2019 was robust in many ways. International Jazz Day brought its biggest stage to Australia. An important but long-shuttered jazz mecca was revived in a coast-to-coast move. ECM Records celebrated a golden year. The music and its makers figured prominently on the big screen. The National Endowment for the Arts welcomed four new NEA ...
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