Jazz Pianist George Shearing Dies At 91

NEW YORK – George Shearing, the ebullient jazz pianist who wrote the
standard "Lullaby of Birdland" and had a string of hits both with and
without his quintet, has died. He was 91.

Shearing, blind since birth, died early Monday morning in Manhattan of
congestive heart failure, his longtime manager Dale Sheets said.

Shearing had been a superstar of the jazz world since a couple of years
after he arrived in the United States in 1947 from his native England, where
he was already hugely popular. The George Shearing Quintet's first big hit
came in 1949 with a version of songwriter Harry Warren's "September in the
Rain."

He remained active well into his 80s, releasing a CD called "Lullabies of
Birdland" as well as a memoir, "Lullaby of Birdland," in early 2004. In
March of that year, though, he was hospitalized after suffering a fall at
his home. It took him months to recover, and he largely retired from public
appearances after that.

Sheets said that while Shearing ceased working, he never stop playing piano.

"He was getting better periodically and doing quite well up into about a
month ago," said Sheets.

In a 1987 Associated Press interview, Shearing said the ingredients for a
great performance were "a good audience, a good piano, and a good physical
feeling, which is not available to every soul, every day of everyone's life.

"Your intent, then, is to speak to your audience in a language you know, to
try to communicate in a way that will bring to them as good a feeling as you
have yourself," he said.

In 2007, Shearing was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to
music. When the honor was announced, he said it was "amazing to receive an
honor for something I absolutely love doing."

Shearing's bebop-influenced sound became identified with a quintet — piano,
vibes, guitar, bass and drums — which he put together in 1949. More
recently, he played mostly solo or with only a bassist. He excelled in the
"locked hands" technique, in which the pianist plays parallel melodies with
the two hands, creating a distinct, full sound.

Guitarist-vocalist John Pizzarelli, who recorded 2002's "The Rare Delight of
You" with the George Shearing Quintet, said, "The Shearing sound is
something that lives on ad infinitum."

"There's definitely a George Shearing style on the piano that really is hard
to copy but we do it all the time," he said. "It's still something that's
employed by groups when they're arranging things. They'll say, `Well wait a
minute. We'll do something like Shearing in the middle.'"

Shearing was born Aug. 13, 1919, to a working-class family and grew up in
the Battersea district of London.

A prodigy despite his inability to see printed music, he studied classical
music for several years before deciding to "test the water on my own"
instead of pursuing additional studies at a university. Shearing began his
career at a London pub when he was 16.

During World War II, the young pianist teamed with Grappelli, the French
jazz violinist, who spent the war years in London. Grappelli recalled to
writer Leonard Feather in 1976 that he and Shearing would "play during air
raids."

Shearing had a daughter, Wendy, with his first wife, the former Trixie
Bayes, whom he married in 1941. The marriage ended in divorce in 1973 and
two years later he married singer Ellie Geffert.

After World War II, Shearing came to the U.S., where he was relatively
unknown despite his great fame in England.

The original George Shearing Quintet, formed in 1949, was a then unique
lineup musically, racially and in gender. They were John Levy on bass,
Denzil Best on drums, Marjorie Hyams on vibraphone and Chuck Wayne on
guitar, later replaced by Toots Thielemans. Levy gradually took on the role
of manager, one of the first African-Americans to become a music manager.

"He had listened to people like Fats Waller and Art Tatum and all kinds of
different people before he ever came over here musically because he was a
very popular musician in England and did very well," Levy said. "He had no
sense of racial identity."

The Quintet's sound was based on Shearing's trademark block chords. He
arranged piano, vibraphone and guitars connected by octave.

"He developed a sound by having this front-line unison playing to his
arrangements," said Levy. "He was an amazing musician in the sense of
harmony. Harmonically he sensed exactly what he wanted to do in those
arrangements and everything and how he wanted it to sound."

In 1952, Shearing wrote his biggest hit: "Lullaby of Birdland," an ode to
the famous New York jazz club. He acknowledged composing it in just 10
minutes. "But I always tell people, it took me 10 minutes and 35 years in
the business," he told The Christian Science Monitor in 1980. "Just in case
anybody thinks there are any totally free rides left, there are none!"

At an 80th birthday celebration at Carnegie Hall in 1999, Shearing
introduced "Lullaby" by joking: "I have been credited with writing 300
songs. Two hundred ninety-nine enjoyed a bumpy ride from relative obscurity
to total oblivion. Here is the other one."

Pianist Dave Brubeck, who was among those who performed at the Carnegie Hall
event, said he had lost "a dear friend" whose photo adorns Brubeck's piano.

"I consider him one of the greatest musical minds I've ever been around. In
the '50s, George paved the way for me and the (Modern Jazz Quartet), and
even today jazz players, especially pianists, are indebted to him."

Among other songs recorded by the George Shearing Quintet: "I'll Never Smile
Again," "Mambo Inn," "Conception," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and
"East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)."

The landmark albums he and the quintet made include "The Swingin's Mutual,"
backing up vocalist Wilson, and "Nat King Cole Sings/George Shearing Plays."

But Shearing laid the quintet to rest in 1978, except for occasional
revivals.

"I needed a breath of fresh air and a chance to grow individually," he told
the AP. "What I find as a soloist or working with a bassist, is that I can
address myself more to the proposition of being a complete pianist; I find a
lot more pianistic freedom."

One of his later collaborators was Mel Torme.

When Torme won Grammys two years in a row in 1983-84, for "An Evening With
George Shearing and Mel Torme" and "Top Drawer," he blasted the National
Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences for failing to nominate his partner,
Shearing, either time.

"It's hard to imagine a more compatible musical partner," Shearing said
after Torme died in 1999. "I humbly put forth that Mel and I had the best
musical marriage in many a year. We literally breathed together during our
countless performances." And he told Down Beat magazine: "Mel was one of the
few people that I played with whom I felt I worked with and not for."

He was already working at his memoir in 1987, saying he was using a Braille
word processor. "I think there are a lot of things to be told from my view —
the world of sound and feel," he said. Years earlier, in a 1953 AP
interview, he had said he referred to his blindness as little as possible
because, "I want to get by as a human being, not as a blind person."

As he grew older, he spoke frankly of aging.

"I'm not sure that technique and improvisational abilities improve with
age," the pianist said. "I think what improves is your sense of judgment, of
maturity. I think you become a much better editor of your own material."

Vocalist Michael Feinstein, who made the 2005 album "Hopeless Romantics"
with Shearing, recalled his "delicious and ironic sense of humor" and
"endless curiosity for always learning more."

The popularity of the Shearing quartet's records a half-century ago had some
writers suggesting he didn't take his jazz seriously enough. In a 2002 New
York Times piece, critic Terry Teachout said such talk was beside the point.

"The time has come," Teachout wrote, "for George Shearing to be acknowledged
not as a commercial purveyor of bop-and-water, but as an exceptionally
versatile artist who has given pleasure to countless listeners for whom such
critical hairsplitting is irrelevant."

Shearing is survived by his wife, Geffert.