|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
74.72.252.209
The Shearing Piano is a solo piano album that George Shearing cut in 1956. It's really an extraordinary recording. Two of the songs seem to be homages to Art Tatum who had just died that year: the playing sounds very much like Tatum himself. But the album has a number of other pieces that are homages to others, in a way. He transforms "My Funny Valentine" and "So Would I" into quite convincing fugues "in the manner of" Bach, with a little Lisztian bombast thrown in for good measure. He also quotes extensively--and convincingly--from Debussy, Poulenc, Rachmaninov, and Eric Satie.I suppose this kind of music might fall under the "Third Wave" category of classically influenced recordings, but I find most of what I've heard of that genre--John Lewis, Claude Bolling, and a few others--to be straining for effect and overall just too cutesy. So much of this album is just musically beautiful so that it transcends the game of hide and seek he plays with his quotes of the classics.
His blindness from birth, and total of four years of piano lessons, makes such a musically literate exercise even more amazing. To think that he picked all of this out by ear.
Follow Ups:
Like fine wine, George Shearing and Dave Brubeck, two of the most distinguished icons of jazz, have mellowed with age, but have lost none of their brilliant improvisational skills.I recently purchased the highly-rated DVD, "Stephane Grappelli, A Life in the Jazz Century", and it was fascinating to see Shearing and Grappelli improvising together in their concerts during the war years in England. Grappelli often gave Shearing credit for revitalizing his career after Django Reinhardt left to return to Paris at the outset of the Second World War.
I have a number of George Shearing records, including some of the later ones he made with Grappelli, and some of his collaborations with Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee and Mel Torme. He was remarkable in the way he could accompany so many diverse and talented performers.
I think I read somewhere that Shearing was a guest soloist with some symphony orchestras early in his career. Later on, he did feature some improvisations of Debussy and Satie and other classical composers in his concerts. As you said, he did have a remarkable familiarity with the classical genre.
Regards,
He and another musician were backstage at Music Inn BS-ing when the light went out. The sighted guy said - Oh, Sh** how we going to get out of here. Shearing just said "I'll show you".Saw him several times at that venue back in the 50's and early 60's and was never disappointed.
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
:~)}
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio ScroungerAnd gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: