George Shearing
George Shearing
Sir George Shearing, OBEwas a British jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for Discovery Records, MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, including the jazz standard "Lullaby of Birdland", had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s. He died of heart failure in New York City, at the age of 91...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPianist
Date of Birth13 August 1919
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I've always felt that it's necessary for me to add to the sound, as on the Capitol albums with strings or brass, rather than to change it entirely.
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I have never applied myself to learn a piece of music away from the instrument. I sit down at the piano, read a bar, then play it.
Having a set, popular formula does inhibit you.
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I think it was Duke Ellington who once said that we're always most pleased with our current record. I mean, you have to assume that you learn from one, and you do something better next time.
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I think in certain areas the demand is greater than it has ever been, and my business is better than it's been in 30 years. The music business is so precarious, as you know-you've got to make it while you can make it, and that's exactly what we're doing.
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Teddy Wilson, I think, said a little while ago that it's much easier to come in and play whatever comes into your mind, without obeying any of the laws of bass line and harmony and so on.
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I was born in London in 1919. I first went to America in 1946 for a three-month holiday. Then I came back, worked here for almost a year sold up my home and went back on immigration in 1947.
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All my musical foundations go back to the age of 3. My family tell me that I used to listen to the old crystal set, then go to the piano and pick out the tune that I just heard.
I don't think you can contrive any sound.
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I studied with a blind teacher from about 5 until I was 16, at two different schools. From the age of 12 until 16, I was in a boarding school-which, I believe, at that time was compulsory for blind children.
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Can anybody be given a great degree of creativity? No. They can be given the equipment to develop it-if they have it in them in the first place.
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Perfect retention. I don't think I could do that-I've never disciplined myself to do it.I suppose a lot of it is a question of discipline. Which improvisation is not.
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If you establish an identity, you build a monster-and that's right, you've got to live with it. Of course, you can enjoy it, too.
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We're travelling for about nine-and-a-half months a year.