George Shearing Dies
George Shearing, jazz pianist, has died. Shearing was a piano stylist and probably today would be termed soft jazz. He was quite popular in the fifties and had many fans during his working life. George was blind and it was interesting to watch him play and to see him get around during his intermissions. Of course there have been other blind pianists: Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Marcus Roberts some immediately to mind.
In the late forties and early fifties I was working in a plywood mill in order to pay for my college education. Going to school during the day, I worked the swing shift, roughly four to midnight. There was a jazz show on the local radio station. My wife, Anna, was listening one evening. There was a quiz with the prize of two tickets to hear George Shearing. No one had won by the time I got home sometime after midnight. The jazz dj had played a jazz piece featuring a clarinet, piano and drums. Identify the players. I said that had to be the Benny Goodman Trio, with Benny Goodman on clarinet, Teddy Wilson on piano and Gene Krupa on drums. She immediately called the program and we won two tickets to see George Shearing at some funky roadhouse outside of Olympia, WA.
I remember that I had to borrow my folks’ car because we didn’t own one. We drove from Tacoma to Olympia and had a wonderful evening listening to Shearing. At one intermission I was able to talk with him for a few minutes. There was not a very big crowd. I told him the story of how I had won the tickets. He chortled and said that he was glad that I had known the answer. That’s a fond memory from sixty years ago.
In the late forties and early fifties I was working in a plywood mill in order to pay for my college education. Going to school during the day, I worked the swing shift, roughly four to midnight. There was a jazz show on the local radio station. My wife, Anna, was listening one evening. There was a quiz with the prize of two tickets to hear George Shearing. No one had won by the time I got home sometime after midnight. The jazz dj had played a jazz piece featuring a clarinet, piano and drums. Identify the players. I said that had to be the Benny Goodman Trio, with Benny Goodman on clarinet, Teddy Wilson on piano and Gene Krupa on drums. She immediately called the program and we won two tickets to see George Shearing at some funky roadhouse outside of Olympia, WA.
I remember that I had to borrow my folks’ car because we didn’t own one. We drove from Tacoma to Olympia and had a wonderful evening listening to Shearing. At one intermission I was able to talk with him for a few minutes. There was not a very big crowd. I told him the story of how I had won the tickets. He chortled and said that he was glad that I had known the answer. That’s a fond memory from sixty years ago.
2 Comments:
Frank, I just left this comment on a thread on Facebook, after you name was brought up
"That would be the Frank Denton who has had a small blog of his own for a number of years: http://frankdenton.blogspot.com/
The title might ring a bell: "The Rogue Raven."
But I suppose it couldn't be fanac, because it's not on twiltone, and it's a blog? :-)
Frank was always a great guy, and someone who seemed like he *didn't* mentally age, and that's something I've always loved about him, and I'm going to go leave him a comment saying so, right now!"
This following comments by Randy Mohr and Steve Fahnestalk as to what a trufan and good guy you've always been.
Unfortunately, without spending a minute to put your email address and a desired password onto the Facebook website, and then Friending one of us, you couldn't read that thread, but for the record, it's here: http://www.facebook.com/gary.farber/posts/160323647359436
Tons of us all over have been talking about the sad death of Mike Glicksohn, including on Facebook, LiveJournal, blogs, and soon on fanzines: everywhere.
Here's something I wrote: http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2011/03/michael-d-glicksohn-rip.html
And also tons of FB comments all over. Sorry for going off-topic on you, but I hope you won't mind.
And one memorial seems not entirely inappropriate to another, sadly.
With luck, by the way, there should be some photo albums you can view here: http://www.facebook.com/gary.farber?sk=photos
And maybe some videos: http://www.facebook.com/video/?id=100000260889179
And possibly some Notes: http://www.facebook.com/gary.farber?sk=notes
Or possibly not. Anyway, glad you're still blogging, or at least were not long ago!
Enjoyed the story, Frank, hadn't heard that one before. Shearing was pretty good, and I have a couple of CDs, but he's far from a Bill Evans.
Hoping one day you'll be down Portland way and can come visit.
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