George Shearing at 82

(Compiled from an April 2002 phone interview)


George Shearing is a man who knows what he does and does not want from both his music and from life in general. But then, the legendary pianist and composer has the benefit of 82 years in which to have ordered his priorities.

His musical artistry has taken Shearing from his birth in the Battersea area of London to performing at the White House to his investiture by Queen Elizabeth II as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Along the way he has written over 300 compositions including the classics “Lullaby of Birdland” and “September In The Rain.”

Shearing’s international reputation as a performer places him in the highest echelons of improvised music. The creation in 1949 of the unique aural blend of the Shearing Quintet combining piano, guitar and vibes with bass and drums is in itself a milestone in the development of Jazz.

During a phone call from his New York apartment Shearing termed his long time associate bassist Neil Swainson as, “Perhaps the finest bassist with whom I’ve ever worked.” High praise from one who has teamed with such giants of the bass as Ray Brown.

However when discussing the vicissitudes of life as an itinerant pianist Shearing serves notice that he is not about to tolerate what he deems a substandard instrument. Of such instruments he says, “I try not to be exposed to them because I have certain expectations which I expect to be met. Otherwise I might be saddled with an upright piano, four keys not working and that’s not going to do me any good at all. As a matter of fact, apart from not doing me any good, it dampens considerably my ability as a pianist.”

While Shearing’s abilities enable him to possess a musical composition and make it his own, he does have boundaries when choosing material. As the pianist put it, he looks for , “Good harmonies, a naturally flowing melody and good construction. In other words if somebody were to come to me and say I’ve got this tune (sings melody to Yankee Doodle) I would say. . Next!”

According to Shearing the ideal combination of music and lyric is what he seeks. “You see I don’t only look for a tune, I look for a lyric as well. And, how well the lyric fits the tune. I love lyrics, I mean this is where maybe two-thirds of the intelligence of a song resides.”

But no matter how good his source material may be, Shearing is not above, as he put it, “taking liberties.” He explained, I’ve been fortunate enough in meeting Steven Sondheim several times. One of the times I said to him, ‘Steven I don’t know if you have heard my recording of “Send In The Clowns.” If you did, I hope that you didn’t mind my taking a little bit of liberty with the lyrics. I had changed some of the note values around so the lyrics made more sense. He said, ‘No be my guest that’s fine.’ He’s a very intelligent man.”

When asked for his view of the future of jazz, Shearing admits to an unawareness of bordering on unconcern with the next big thing saying, “You know I’m sorry but maybe I’m too old to be bothered about what’s coming up.”
Shearing went on to say that if someone were to ask him about a song written in the past several years his reply would be, “I don’t. know and I don’t expect anything. I know it’s an elitist attitude. I think that between them Jerome Kern and Cole Porter and those people have said the whole thing.”

There surely is no fear of being left behind by the passing parade in George Shearing. To illustrate the point he said, “I know I should keep up more but I’m still trying to discover what there is to keep up with.”

Remembering Ray Brown

(Compiled from a June 2002 phone interview)

In many jazz circles vocalists are held in something less than high esteem. Perhaps this is because the ratio of less-than adequate singers to exceptional ones tilts in the wrong direction.

While not confirming or denying the prevalence of this attitude, bassist Ray Brown does offer some words of advice to his fellow members of the rhythm section. Says Brown, “I think they should get a chance to work with a singer because you learn a lot about how to accompany, how to get out of the way and just support somebody. And, it takes a little bit of doing to do that.”

Many jazz musicians will tell you that as an instrumentalist knowing the lyrics to the composition at hand aids in performing and improvising on the tune. As the bassist in the legendary original trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Brown was the recipient of some solid advice from an equally legendary saxophonist. “Ben Webster used to tell Oscar Peterson that ‘you guys ought to learn the lyrics of what you’re playing, especially them ballads because you’ll play ‘em better’.”

Brown has a penchant for recasting familiar music in a new form. He will frequently reduce the tempo of a tune until the recast song emerges as a slow contemplative ballad. According to the bassist this musical reconstruction is for the players as much as it is for the audience. “You can’t keep playing the same song in the same way for a hundred years. There’s a lot of songs that I’ve played all kinds of ways and that’s what keeps the music interesting because it becomes something different when you change the tempo like that.“

While the practice at first blush may seem out-of-place for jazz, Brown writes arrangements of the music his trio will play. As he put it, “This is not a jam session. I arrange so that everybody has plenty of room to play and express themselves but I like to concertize on the stage so that it’s not raggedy out there.”

When it comes to just stepping on stage and playing anything and everything that comes to mind, Brown has been there and done that. “Well I’ve done that, I did that for years and years and you get tired of doing that and you want something organized.”

As for preparation Brown sees both side of the issue, “There is so many sides to that. I’ve played in clubs and the reviewers come in and they say ‘Brown’s band is good but it is too organized. I don’t think you can be too organized.”

He continues, “I also think that three guys who play together long enough can go up and jam and you don’t even know their jamming because they can smell which way the other guy is going to go. But I don’t think that helps the performer or the audience.”

“You can’t be too organized if you are going to present music. The idea is to be organized and make sound like a jam session, if that is what you want. This is where I think some of the guys get off the track.”

Brown holds a positive and comforting view of what should be on the horizon for jazz He says, “The music is going to be here. It is not going to go anywhere. Jazz music has been around for a long time and it is going to be around for a long time. There’s going to be all different kinds of jazz.”

However, Brown places one limitation on any new type of jazz he says, “It has to swing. That is the only thing that makes this music what it is. (Otherwise) if you play a classical record and a jazz record, how do you know it’s jazz?”

Meet Russ Neff

Russ Neff’s entry into the world of the Internet came in the early 1990’s when he served as a software tester for America Online. He went on to work as a content developer with the collaborative website The Mining Company. That website is now known as About.com.

During the 1970's & 1980's Neff produced & hosted My Favorite Things, a highly-regarded jazz radio program. Over the years the program had several broadcast homes in the Central Pennsylvania region.

Neff is a co-founder of the Central PA Friends of Jazz, a regional jazz society that is celebrating its 26th year of operations.

In 1990 he was selected as the Jazz feature writer and reviewer for the Harrisburg Patriot News, a position he held for 12 years.

In 2000 Neff was inducted into the Central PA Jazz Hall of Fame and in 2005 was honored by the city of Harrisburg for his contributions to the cultural life of the region.