George Shearing, 1919–2011

last updated 8 January 2015

George Shearing enjoyed a stellar career, pairing his distinctive, small-group “Shearing sound” with musical titans such as Frank Sinatra, Stéphane Grappelli, Nat King Cole, and Peggy Lee. But he fell into an artistic rut in the 1970s, after three decades of leading five- and six-piece bands that followed an unvarying approach. “I could do the whole show in my sleep,” he recalled in 1986. He wasn’t kidding. During one performance in Oklahoma City, “I saw him literally fall asleep in the middle of a chorus of ‘Tenderly,’” said his bassist, Al McKibbon. “He woke with a start and carried right on.”

Born blind to working-class parents in the Battersea section of London, Shearing became one of the best-known jazz pianists of his time, feted by aficionados ranging from Jack Kerouac to Dave Brubeck, and knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2007, said the Associated Press. He wrote some 300 songs during his career, 299 of which, he told an audience at Carnegie Hall in 1999, “enjoyed a bumpy ride from relative obscurity to total oblivion.” The outlier was an enduring jazz standard, “Lullaby of Birdland.”

The “Shearing sound” remains his lasting legacy, said The New York Times. Arriving in the U.S. in 1947, he adapted to the reigning bebop style, with its complex chords and breakneck tempos. But seeking a different sound, he hit upon a mellow, melodic approach for a five-piece unit consisting of piano, vibraphone, guitar, bass, and drums. “He had the vibraphone double what his right hand played and the guitar double the left.” To his many fans, it defined “the essence of sophisticated hip.”