[Dixielandjazz] George Shearing RIP

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi Folks,

During the 1970s and 80s, I worked a lot with a fine pianist from London called Eddie Thompson, who had been blind from birth like Shearing and had attended the same school for the blind in London, where they were both trained as piano tuners in order to give them a secure profession from which they could earn a living. Shearing was 6 or so years older than Eddie but they were good friends around the London jazz scene before Shearing emigrated to USA. Years later they renewed their friendship in New York when Eddie emigrated there (he was intermission pianist at The Hivckory House for long periods during his 10 year stay in NYC).

Many years after his return to UK, Eddie went to see (he always used that verb, never "hear") Shearing at the Festival Hall in London and went round backstage to his dressing room. When he came in the door, he could hear that Shearing was in the middle of telling a gag and that he was sitting with his back to the door. So Eddie waited till the after the punchline, came up behind, put both hands over George's ears and said "Guess who!"

Trumpeter Tommy McQuater would talk of coming out of a club in wartime when there was a total blackout in London because of bombing, and George, the blind man, would lead the sighted musicians through the pitch-black, rubble-strewn streets and set them on their respective routes home (usually a case of the blind leading the blind-drunk!).

One of the 299 compositions that "nobody knows about" is a great bop theme called Consternation. However, it really found its true home when Machito recorded it as a mambo called Consternacion: it makes a fabulously jazzy mambo; well worth checking out if you like Afro-Cuban big band jazz. Also, his album Beauty and the Beat with Peggy Lee is still a masterpiece. 

Another great nams gone. RIP George.

Ken Mathieson