Profile: Jazz Music Great George Shearing

George Shearing was a transplant to the states...as a kid from London he grew up there and learned to play the piano in a school for the blind. He was born blind. As an 88-year old he returned to England and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

As a matter of fact he started playing music in a pub near his house in London when he was just sixteen. He was offered scholarships to a lot of different colleges, but he decided he needed to continue to earn money instead of going to more school. You see, he was one of nine kids--the youngest one--and he wanted to make his parents life easier. He joined an all-blind band in the 1930s as a teenager. He appeared on BBC radio before he was twenty. Before he came to the states he got married and had a kid. That marriage would last into the 1970s.

George Shearing is known to many as the author of "Lullaby of Birdland' which is a tribute to Birdland which is still a New York City landmark for jazz and has been so since the late 1940s. Birdland, the jazz music establishment, still has artists play that song today in 2011: it is a theme song--the ultimate theme song-- that has lasted almost sixty years since George Shearing wrote it in 1952. It will be played there until the club is torn down, heaven forbid.

George Shearing has a discography which by my count numbers 136 releases although a lot of his albums in his early years are not available any more. He has played with Dave Brubeck, Charlie Parker, Nat King Cole, and Mel Torme. His rendition of "September in the Rain" sold 900,000 copies in the 1940s. He played with Dixieland bands as well as with artists who performed George Gershwin tunes.

George Shearing played for at the White House for Presidents Carter, Ford, and Reagan when they were President...he also played for Queen Elizabeth II. I guess I should have called him Sir George Shearing though Americans have difficulty saying "Sir": it is hard for us to add prefixes to our name our anyone elses...it fits in his case, because his homeland thought enough of him to give him the highest honor they can give.

Call him Sir...Sir George Shearing.

Resources:
georgeshearing.net

Related Articles:
Rock n Roll Biography: Genesis
Biography: Bruce Springsteen
The Career of Miles Davis