On September 3, 1958, I interviewed George Shearing in a studio at WCAU, Philadelphia (then a CBS station), where I produced and wrote a weekly documentary-type radio show called Accent on Jazz. I had immigrated to the U.S. less than a year earlier and was still acclimatizing myself to working in the real radio world. Compared to a small quonset hut military station in the barren wilds of Keflavik, this was the big time. My interview with Lester Young, in that same studio a week before had not gone so well, but Mr. Shearing gave this one its relative smoothness.
Terrific interview, and glad to see a new blog by you, Chris!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ehsan. It's good to see that you're still around and dropping by. I have been neglecting this blog, somewhat discouraged by the DivShare service going out of business without alerting its customers. Many audio/video embeds were "disappeared" in the process--I am trying to restore them, little by little.
ReplyDeleteFascinating to hear this - for all sorts of reasons. The way Shearing changed his way of speaking over the years; the way he harks back to the very first quintet as the most tightly integrated musically; his dislike of Toots Thielemans' nickname, and of Bechet's vibrato. Thank you very much for making this wonderful historic interview available.
ReplyDeleteI just found this blog and i'll be back often. I saw George Shearing in concert years ago with Joe Pass. Good times. Thanks for posting this.
ReplyDeleteThe third artist on that bill was Joe Williams.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Craig.
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