The George Shearing Quintet and Orchestra “White Satin”

I’ve written about many George Shearing records here, but I won’t stop until I touch on them all—he’s one of my favorites (I won’t go into that whole childhood business, again). I was thinking, if I ran one of those retro cocktail lounges—you know, classic style, very dark, no chocolate martinis!—I’d play nothing but Shearing. Well, not exactly true, but I’d stay away from digitally remixed lounge music, or cleaned up jazz standards that make you feel like you’re in a doctor’s office. One good thing about George Shearing is you can find beat-up vinyl copies of his records for next to nothing, and they sound great—and would be the absolute best sound for cocktail lounge ambience. This is another really good one, from 1960—probably one of the smoothest sounding records I own—it’s the Shearing Quintet (musicians not credited here, but includes bass, drums, guitar, and vibes) along with an orchestra conducted by Billy May. The 12 songs on this record blend into a seamless evening of silky music (I’ll keep it in mind if I’m ever dating again) including some of my favorites. “Laura,” “Dream,” “How Long Has This Been Going On,” “There’ll Be Another Spring,” “There’s a Small Hotel, and “Moonlight Becomes You.” I love his albums titles—I’ve already written about Latin Affair and Black Satin and Burnished Brass. Here’s a few more (believe it or else) that I’m still waiting to come across: Soft and Silky, Latin Lace, Satin Affair, Velvet Carpet, and Blue Chiffon. It may sound like I’m making those up, but no. And there’s plenty more.

I found this one at a thrift store, probably a dollar, and the vinyl happens to be in excellent condition, but the cover is one of the most hilariously beat up I’ve seen—it looks like it spent time in a barn, yet still cared for. The front is almost totally separated from the back, which has an informational promo sticker (with song credits) in one corner, along with a lot of cryptic markings from previous owners. The front is the usual Shearing cover, a lovely woman with a lot of hair (in this case, red), and she’s, surprise, wearing white satin and reclining on more white satin. There are more markings, some initials, a date (6-26-60—I was five months old!), a $1.99 price sticker, and hand scrawled: 25 cents, right on the woman’s shoulder! The funniest thing, though, is that someone glued a carefully cut piece of pink paper over the part of the woman’s chest that’s not covered by the dress. Naturally, I had to find a photo of the album online for comparison, and of course there isn’t that much bare skin revealed—but someone not only took offense, they were careful to make their alterations in a manner respectful to the original photograph. If you don’t know the cover, or look closely, you might be fooled, thinking the glued paper actually is an additional garment! 25 cents, ha! This album cover is priceless—it should be recognized as a masterpiece—and be hanging in the museum of found/altered art!

George Shearing “New Look!”

I’ll pretty much pick up any Shearing record I don’t have, and since they’re abundant and inexpensive, I do have a lot. I’m not sure if I remember even hearing this one—it’s pretty striking in the approach—along with the unmistakable “Shearing Sound” there is an orchestra—strings, as well as brass and woodwinds, and occasionally Latin percussion—he’s throwing it all at us—for renditions of popular music of the time—the time being 1967. There are five paragraphs of liner notes on back with some nuts-and-bolts description of what’s going on here, as well as sounding both like a travel agency brochure and an automobile add. The “orchestrations” are credited to Julian Lee, who I know nothing about, but the Big Board says he’s from New Zealand, which may or may not explain anything. He’s got tons of credits, including lots more Shearing, of this era. If this record is any indication, I’ll look forward to getting those records, too—I love the sound of this record. Modern (I mean, 1967 version of modern), but also dated (in a good way), breezy, cool, but also nostalgic.

The front cover kind of says it all—a young, blond woman in a miniskirt, barefoot—either dancing, or demonstrating how to pitch out of a sand trap with an imaginary golf club. Her dress is pretty amazing—dark blue with bold yellow circles (actually, they could a semi-abstract renditions of 45 RPM records). Plus, a wide, bright yellow vinyl belt. She is standing in front of the lineup of songs in a minimalist font, gold on a white background—and she’s managing to not obscure any. Above her, below the title, it says: “George Shearing with the Quintet and the new sounds of his multi-colored orchestra plays the great new songs.” You’d think he’d reinvented the pizza.

Quite often a misplaced Lennon-McCartney can render an otherwise fine side unlistenable. Sorry to say it—they’re great songs—when performed by the Beatles. I don’t know if people just get them wrong, or there’s magic missing. So, I had reason to be concerned with Side One—boasting TWO, including the dreaded “Michelle”—and “Yesterday,” which is a problem for me, since it was the first and only song I ever learned how to play on piano with both left and right hand parts—and I remember that toil like it’s… yesterday. I think the song will forever remind me of my failure at that instrument. The weird thing here, though, is both songs are great. I’m not going to sit around and try to figure out how they did it—I think it’s just that there’s a fresh and creative approach to every song on this record, and they include some seriously over-recorded and overplayed childhood (mine) AM radio gems, like “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” “Strangers in the Night,” “Call Me,” “The Shadow of Your Smile,” and “What the World Needs Now Is Love.” It’s a rare album where there are no bummers, and also, nothing really stands out—except for the somewhat audacious approach. I can listen to this repeatedly and now that I have it out, I may. Of course, as I said before, George Shearing is the sound of my childhood and I’d have to encounter an LP where he really runs afoul before you’re going to hear a dissenting word from (the critical side of) me.

The George Shearing Quintet “Latin Affair”

This is another good one, from 1959, by the George Shearing Quintet, plus, or including the conga playing of Armando Peraza. As usual, a mixture of Latin numbers and standards, all falling together well. What’s amazing is that it manages to be both laidback and uptempo at the same time. I have to say, George Shearing music is one of the only places I can not only tolerate, but enjoy, music that might be considered “jaunty.” An exceptionally nice album cover, too—a woman with a rose in a nearly abstract composition. Could I call this one of my favorites? Probably, but only because it starts with one of my favorite versions of “All or Nothing at All” and then just gets better. But it’s hard to compare to the other Shearing records I have; I’d have to hear them all back-to-back… which isn’t a bad idea. What I want to do, as soon as I make some money, is have a big place, apartment or house, with a lot of space. Maybe a sunken living room—which is where I’ll have my Hi-Fi and records. Plenty of room for the records, of course, so eventually I’ll buy every George Shearing album—nearly 100 of them—and that’s all I’ll play for a while—until I’m intimate with them, and able to tell you what songs are where, etc. Then I’ll do a ranking of all of them, from best to not quite as good—and I’ll publish that somewhere. I suspect they’ll be hard to rank—there might be some ties, even—and I also suspect I’d be tempted to set up a bar in one corner of the sunken living room—maybe even designate a separate cocktail for each of the over 100 or so records. I don’t think I’ll actually start drinking again, though—it sounds too tiring—even though this might be the ultimate cocktail music. It’s a lot of dreaming, but still, I might be able to find and buy all the records, eventually, and I might even pull off the sunken living room.

The George Shearing Quintet “Latin Escapade”

Some day I will count the number of George Shearing records with “Latin” in the title—I have several, myself, and they are all excellent. I’ve never really heard a bad George Shearing record, though there must be one out there, right? He’s human, after all. Though I don’t think that’s what Kerouac labeled him. I may have mentioned a hundred times that the music I grew up hearing more than any other was George Shearing—whatever of his records my parents had—and they had a bunch. I heard more Shearing than Sinatra, even, more than Burt Bacharach, more than The Archies and Tommy Roe (those last two were mine). My earliest memory—if it’s not being intoxicated by one of my aunts’ perfumes, or a James Bond movie, or the neighbor’s dog running off with my stuffed animal chipmunk—would be my mother vacuuming while playing a Shearing record from the late Fifties.

I haven’t heard a lot of his later stuff, but the records I have sound much like this one, with the “Shearing Sound,” incorporating vibes and and guitar—and this one, of course, with Latin rhythms, a lot of percussion—“maracas, timbale, claves, conga drums,” says the liner notes. It opens with the familiar “Perfidia,” then Mambo with Me”—twelve songs, all of them great. There’s even a Shearing composition called “Poodle Mambo”—one wonders. This record sounds so familiar and hits me with such sweet nostalgia, I’m thinking it might have been one in my parents’ collection. Actually, this could be the very record, who knows—I haven’t exactly kept track of where my records come from. As usual, there’s a great album cover with a beautiful woman—she’s grabbing her hair, which doesn’t seem weird until you think about it—then in the background, through a haze of red-violet, there’s a couple embracing in an exotic nightclub. The liner notes suggest “the darkest corner of a smoky bar,” and promise the music will “lure even the shyest dancer to the floor.” And, also “thoroughly delight the listener who does not choose to dance.” I guess that would be me.

The George Shearing Quintet and Orchestra “Black Satin”

This George Shearing Quintet record is a little different than some others I have in that there is orchestra, arranged by Billy May. There’s something about it that I like almost better than any I’ve heard—it’s hard to say why. There’s something kind of odd about how that Shearing sound—his distinctive piano, coupled with vibes and guitar—sounds with the orchestra. Maybe it’s just that this was one of the records my parents had, and I heard it a lot as a kid. I don’t remember at this point exactly which Shearing records they did have, but pretty much every time I hear any of them, it takes me back to childhood more completely than anything—I can smell what the house smelled like, the carpet just after vacuuming, the late-afternoon sun coming in the west-facing picture window. There’s always something a little sad about it, but comforting, too. I could probably put this record on once a week for the rest of my life. No weak spots—but then there rarely is (that I’ve found) with Shearing. The drawing on the back cover, with the brief liner notes, is a formally dressed rich, young, white man and woman sitting on one of those round couches, like a plush couch wrapped around a post, like the ones in the lobby of the Hotel Breakers, in Sandusky. The joke here is: “Get a room,” because if you ever tried having sex on one of those round couches… what am I saying? No one’s tried that! The cover photo shows a young woman in a slim back dress with some kind of crazy beads draped around her neck that looks like a dead fish, if you squint. She’s reclining on, maybe partly under, what’s supposed to be, of course, “black satin”—but if you really look at it, it more resembles a photo-studio setup of black, plastic trash bags! I’m not sure this doesn’t represent a very bad day in a Capital records photo studio. The woman looks pretty great, like she’d just as soon kick your ass as make out—and if you use your imagination, you could comfortably put this cover photo on a movie poster about alien pod people or a punk rock album various artist collection called, “Straight Outta Da Trash.”

The George Shearing Quintet “Burnished Brass”

My parents had this 1958 record and played it a lot, along with other George Shearing—but there may be no other music that sounds like my childhood than this particular record—George Shearing Quintet “with Brass Choir”—songs arranged by Billy May. I’ll always get a weird feeling from this particular, singular, George Shearing sound—a combination of nostalgia, comfort, and a little bit of sadness and even some queasiness. I mean it’s so present from my childhood, he almost seems like a distant uncle or something. Yet I know nothing about him, except that he was blind from birth and put out an insane amount of records. Once in awhile I’ll read something, then forget it—like I forget that he was English, born in London, and came to the US after the war. I’ve tried to figure out what that “Shearing Sound” is all about—it has something to do with how what he’s playing on the piano works with the vibes and guitar—but I don’t really understand it—it’s over my head—maybe some patient music person can explain it to me someday.

George Shearing was popular enough, sold enough records, that you can find beat-up copies for nothing, and I’ll pick them up when I see them, like this one. I’ve hardly ever paid any attention to the front cover, which is a woman in a sparkly red dress lying on some golden satin sheets—she’s looking up seductively while exposing the full length of one of her long legs. On the bed with her is a trumpet, a trombone, and a French horn. I wonder if this record was subliminally responsible for me attempting the cornet as my first instrument—though I totally failed to get anywhere with it. I should have taken up the French horn—is there a cooler instrument out there, when you really think about it? I loved the picture of Shearing on the back cover so much I put it on the cover of one of my zines (an early issue of The Sweet Ride, from the Eighties). I never thought too much about the individual songs on this record—they all just kind of melt into each other with ultimate smoothness—but this is probably the first place I heard the standard, “Memories of You”—and I’ve always really loved that song. The rest of the songs, except for “Cheek to Cheek,” I couldn’t name, off-hand, but they are all so familiar, it’s like they’re DNA—the song “Burnished Brass,” for instance, with this smooth horn part that drops in and out with the piano—it could be the main theme for the documentary on my life. Yet, listening now, I feel like I might have gotten annoyed by this record, then dismissed it entirely. Now, it almost holographically recreates the space I grew up in so vividly that it’s somewhat overwhelming.

The George Shearing Quintet with Nancy Wilson “The Swingin’s Mutual!”

I heard that Nancy Wilson passed away a few days ago, and I recalled hearing her music now and then over the years, mostly on the radio. Then I remembered that—among my limited, rag-tag record collection—I have this 1961 album of her singing six songs with George Shearing. I have as many Shearing records as by any artist, because for one, you can find them, and not for a million dollars, and they’re all either pretty good or excellent. But also, I probably listened to more George Shearing than anyone as a kid because my parents had a lot of his records and seemed to play them more than anything else. That distinctive vibes along with the piano sound is probably more entrenched in my brain than fear. Nancy Wilson sings on half of these twelve songs; I would have liked it better if it was all of them, but it’s a fine album, regardless. “The Nearness of You” is a standout, and they’re all good. She must have been only in her early twenties when they recorded this, but she sounds very mature and has a lot of personality. She’s an Ohioan, and about the same age as my mother. I like to think she was maybe in Columbus when my dad was in college there. I know my dad saw George Shearing in Denver when he was in the service out there. The album cover is pretty odd, the two of them sitting back to back, both in in plastic Eames chairs, Nancy Wilson holding a Shearing album, glancing over her shoulder at George, and Shearing kind of propping himself up with her her “Something Wonderful” album (which was like her second, this being only her third). She went on to record 60 or 70 albums, no doubt covering all my favorite songs, so I’ll keep an eye out for them. The only sad thing is, unless I’m missing it, they didn’t collaborate on any more records—because, besides good music, for the album cover, they could have each held up this album cover, and started a kind of infinity mirror thing. Just an idea for one of the parallel universes.