George Shearing

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

George Shearing0:08

George, whereabouts were you going?

George Shearing0:10

I was born in Battersea or Battersea, depending on how careful one is. Which end of Battersea you come from. That's right. How old were you when you started?

Presenter0:17

That's right. How old were you when you started learning? Yeah.

George Shearing0:20

Um

George Shearing0:21

I I started really playing the piano when I was about three or four years of age and started taking lessons when I was five. Before that I used to hit it with a hammer.

Presenter0:26

India?

George Shearing0:30

And some of the pianos I'd run into, I thought I was giving the right treatment by hitting them with a button.

Presenter0:35

George, have you been without your side since birth or was it something that happened in your side?

George Shearing0:37

Was it something that happened in China? I'm glad you asked it in that way because I was asked once on the coast

George Shearing0:43

Have you been blind all your life? and this was on television. I said, No, not yet.

George Shearing0:47

And the guy's mouth kind of fell down for about ten seconds. It's very amusing.

George Shearing0:52

Yeah.

George Shearing0:54

Where were you educated?

George Shearing0:55

Lindenlight School for the Blind.

George Shearing0:57

uh in Wandsworth Common, and a place called Shillington Street School for the Blind and Myopic in Battersea.

George Shearing1:05

When did you decide that music was your vocation?

George Shearing1:08

Oh, I suppose when I was about twelve years of age, when I started to

George Shearing1:12

I tried to saw a piece of wood and it was on an angle of forty-five degrees and I started to try to weave a couple of rows of basket work and they were an inch apart.

Presenter1:22

When you left school, did you go to music college?

George Shearing1:25

No, I s I started work in an English pub at the age of sixteen for the princely sum of twenty-five shillings a week and a box on top of the piano for any extra gratuity the customers care to donate.

George Shearing1:38

Which pianist influenced you most as a youngster?

George Shearing1:41

I would say probably art tatum as being

George Shearing1:44

The most pianistic of jazz pianists.

George Shearing1:48

Pan What

Presenter1:49

When you left the pub, what was the next job?

George Shearing1:51

A semi-professional band.

George Shearing1:53

The bandleader, Bill Lark, would hire three saxophone players and a rhythm section.

George Shearing1:59

And I would learn all the stock parts of the first trumpet parts of stock orchestrations and play them on accordion.

George Shearing2:06

From there I went to the uh all blind band of Claude Bampton, fifteen musicians, having learned to play instruments from being basket makers and tier caners and so on. There's one very amusing story with this band.

George Shearing2:18

We were all ready to.

George Shearing2:19

Start playing our theme song I'll See You In My Dreams

George Shearing2:23

And one of the vocalists said, Wait a minute, I've lost my eye.

George Shearing2:27

His glass eye had fallen out and rolled across the stage, and there were fifteen blind guys on the floor looking for this eye.

George Shearing2:33

They found it and gave it to him and the show got underway.

George Shearing2:37

When did you make your first broadcast? With the Bampton Van.

George Shearing2:41

Uh, in about thirty eight, I suppose, and shortly after that I started to do solo broadcasts for Overseas. Mhm.

Presenter2:49

Well getting back to the early part of your career, George, I remember in the early war days you were playing in the Hatchet Swing Tete with Stefan Drapelli, a great little band that was.

George Shearing2:57

I enjoyed it because I had a chance to play both the orchestrations uh of the band and also a lot of jazz with Stefan.

George Shearing3:07

And when you left there?

George Shearing3:08

Oh, I did several things. The Ambrose Octet.

George Shearing3:12

and many tours and recordings and broadcasts with Stefan Grappelli and his Quintet.

Presenter3:18

Already in 1941 you were winning popularity polled as Britain's best jazz pianist. It was in the mid-40s of course we worked together for a couple of years on and off in a programme called To Turn on Two Pianos. Do you remember with Stefan Grappelli and Arthur Young?

George Shearing3:34

I not only remember the the series, but this was one of the most enjoyable periods of my musical career.

George Shearing3:43

Uh we had a lot of fun on those shows, Stefan and Elizabeth Welsh and Arthur Young. And it's nice to see you in a different mood, Roy, uh, when we don't hear all kinds of knocking on the door and you saying it's George Shearing's creditors, because believe me, my immigration to the States had nothing to do with this whatsoever.

Presenter4:03

Uh I was very grateful to the cast for for being so tolerant with all the scurrilous things they used to say about them in the script. Arthur Young's in Australia now, I believe you worked with him when you were there quite recently. I didn't.

George Shearing4:13

I did an interview with him a couple of years ago, that's right. I was in Australia in 1960.

Presenter4:18

Uh

George Shearing4:18

Yeah.

George Shearing4:19

You were doing a lot of arranging in those days. I used to do two or three arrangements a week for Ted Heath.

George Shearing4:25

And I enjoy arranging very much. I still do a lot of it now.

George Shearing4:28

When did you

Presenter4:29

Uh

George Shearing4:29

Uh

Presenter4:29

Let's go to the United States.

George Shearing4:30

Dave.

Presenter4:30

Uh

George Shearing4:30

For a three-month uh holiday in nineteen forty-six, um I just wanted to uh

George Shearing4:37

Well, we would use the term case the joint as it were to see to see how the situation was over there. Then I came back and started doing some more work over here and returned in 19 Forty seven on immigration.

George Shearing4:51

I became a naturalized citizen in 1956. The country afforded me such a great living and um I think it behooves one to endear oneself.

George Shearing5:02

To do. Phone things

Presenter5:03

Yeah.

George Shearing5:03

Yeah.

Presenter5:03

Yeah.

George Shearing5:04

Easy or tough. To start with.

Presenter5:05

Uh

Presenter5:06

Yeah.

George Shearing5:06

Well I

George Shearing5:07

I had a job.

George Shearing5:10

at one of the clubs on Fifty Second Street.

George Shearing5:13

and I was working opposite.

George Shearing5:15

Some wonderful people, Sarah Vaughan, Ala Fitzgerald, to name just two.

George Shearing5:20

But the

George Shearing5:22

I was spending far more than I was making.

George Shearing5:25

And I wondered why I had given up my house and my car and my

George Shearing5:29

dog and my piano and everything over here.

George Shearing5:32

And if it had been left to me, I would have been back here in the first year. But my wife said

George Shearing5:38

If you don't give it all the

George Shearing5:41

opportunity or the chance in the world you may regret.

George Shearing5:45

Coming back prematurely.

George Shearing5:47

The one was the the big break.

George Shearing5:49

The starting of the quintet in early 49.

George Shearing5:54

And the first recording.

George Shearing5:56

Uh September in the rain.

George Shearing5:58

And uh

George Shearing6:00

Bob look and listen and

George Shearing6:02

Roses of Piketty and these things.

George Shearing6:04

And then the concert at Countagy Hall.

George Shearing6:07

And uh

George Shearing6:08

Many of the better clubs in the United States.

Presenter6:11

And since then, well really, non-stop success.

George Shearing6:14

Yeah.

Presenter6:15

Are there any of the original members of the Quintet still with you?

George Shearing6:18

Not really, Roy. Um John Levy.

George Shearing6:22

who used to play bass with the original quintet, is now the overall manager of the group.

Presenter6:28

You always used to like to surprise everyone by throwing in a straight debusy prelude in the middle of a concert. I believe recently you've been doing

Presenter6:35

Full classical and jazz programmes with a proper mixture.

Presenter6:39

I believe

George Shearing6:41

Jazz

George Shearing6:43

Needs at all times

George Shearing6:45

Social elevation.

George Shearing6:48

And

George Shearing6:49

to have programmes where you have jazz and classical on the same program.

George Shearing6:53

Is very important to jazz. We've been doing a number of symphony concerts.

George Shearing6:58

I've been playing a Mozart concerto in the first half of the programme.

George Shearing7:02

And the second half would consist of some of the selections from

George Shearing7:06

Our recording is white satin and so on.

George Shearing7:09

With the strings and woodwinds of the symphony and the quintet, Nanny Quintet would end the program with jazz and Afro-Cuban music. Quite a musical mixture, actually.

Presenter7:17

And it sounds a great evening's music.

Presenter7:19

Are you doing much composing?

George Shearing7:21

Not nearly as much as I should. I go through tremendous, uh, lazy periods, you know.

George Shearing7:27

With the philosophy of why should any man work while he has to health inspector lie in bed?

Presenter7:31

Yeah.

George Shearing7:32

Uh

Presenter7:32

What's the pattern of your life now, George? You said you were touring for eight or nine months of the year. Does that mean one night stands?

Presenter7:40

Uh

George Shearing7:40

A mixture of one-night stands and clubs. We may do two or three weeks of one-night stands. We do a a number of college concerts.

George Shearing7:47

And then perhaps we'll be at a club for a month.

George Shearing7:50

But the one night stands seem to be increasing every year.

George Shearing7:54

Where's your home? Do you live in New York? No, I have a home in a place called Toluca Lake, which is the North Hollywood section of Sou uh Southern California. By the way, I was swimming last Christmas Day.

Presenter8:07

Yeah.

George Shearing8:07

Uh

Presenter8:07

Does it Trixie or wife tour with you?

George Shearing8:09

No, she comes to a few of the glamorous places like Honolulu or Florida. Other than that, she stays home too.

Presenter8:13

Florida

George Shearing8:16

Take care of thee.

George Shearing8:18

Well, I was going to say little girl. She's going to be twenty this year.

Presenter8:20

Uh

George Shearing8:21

But Trixie has been home all through her teenage years and I think this is very important because as many people

George Shearing8:28

as we find, worry about where their children are.

George Shearing8:32

Uh this evening.

George Shearing8:34

I think there are children who have to worry about where their parents are this evening. This is a very important factor in the teenage life. Is your daughter going to be a musician?

George Shearing8:43

I don't think so. Uh she's studying, uh she's trying to get a degree in music, just to study a master's degree or something. But she

George Shearing8:52

Is uh

George Shearing8:54

Really intent on getting married and having four kids. George, is there any particular big ambition you haven't achieved yet?

George Shearing9:02

Well, to uh cut down on the travelling and to study classical music a good deal further.

George Shearing9:08

And uh not to go into it exclusively, but just do pick and choose what I want to do every year as far as work is concerned.

Presenter9:15

Yeah.

Presenter9:15

Have your hobbies apart from music?

George Shearing9:18

Um, I like to go rowing.

George Shearing9:20

Tandem cycling

George Shearing9:22

Walking

George Shearing9:24

Swimming.

George Shearing9:25

And studying classical music, of course, this is not apart from music, but everything else I've mentioned is. In fact,

George Shearing9:32

Bach is my favourite composer and I have the the whole of the well-tempered uh clavier in Braille.

George Shearing9:38

and pour into that when I go home.

Presenter9:40

Yeah.