Well, dear readers, yesterday’s notes spoke of The Kenton Touch, so it’s only fair that today’s notes speak of The Shearing Touch. Oh how I love The Shearing Touch and I’ve loved it since I first discovered it, thanks to one of my teachers in, I believe, junior high school. I was probably twelve at the time. The teacher played a track on an album, the track being A Tune for Humming. It was by someone named Frank Loesser, whose work I hadn’t quite discovered yet. What a beautiful melody it was – intoxicatingly simple, but it was the playing of it on solo piano that took me to a happy place. I’m not sure I’d ever heard a solo piano piece at that point in time. The pianist was, of course, George Shearing. I inquired about the album it was from and was shown the cover – The Shearing Piano on Capitol Records (home of Mr. Kenton). Being me, I immediately went out and bought the LP and I must have played it a hundred times. Every song on it was magical, but especially A Tune for Humming. But, like Mr. Kenton’s albums, I didn’t return to Mr. Shearing for some time, perhaps the early 1970s. I rediscovered him, bought all his classic Capitol albums and reveled in his incredible playing – he could do anything at all, any style of music. I loved the Shearing Quintet sound – today they’d probably call it muzak and they would be incredibly stupid for doing so. And the Quintet with orchestra was my kind of easy listening music – it always put me in mind of being on a high hill on a starry night, slightly chilly, with a person you really wanted to be there with. It was a combination of the playing and the Capitol sound – a sound I always try to emulate in my recordings. I would frequently say to Vinnie when we were mixing a vocal with orchestra, “Put the singer on a high hill” and he’d know exactly what I meant.
Then Mr. Shearing made records for another label and they were really brilliant recordings (I think the label is called MPS). Happily, almost all of that stuff has been issued on CD – sometimes in the US, more often than not in Japan. When The Shearing Piano was finally issued on CD it was a great day and I bought it immediately. I was shocked to see there were something like twenty tracks on it – the original LP had ten. When I read the liner notes it became clear – when they were preparing it for release they found ten additional songs recorded during those sessions that had never been released. Of course, I listened to the original ten several times before moving to the unheard tracks – and especially to A Tune for Humming. Right after I’d first heard that song back in 1960, I also got the sheet music to it, which I still have to this day. The second batch of tracks had some amazing things, including what I believe was his first try at It Never Entered My Mind (he would finesse and rerecord that arrangement in the 1970s). That track alone is worth the entire price of the CD – it’s the song as imagined by Erik Satie and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. In another track he plays Tenderly and morphs into all kinds of Rachmaninov quotes, from the famous piano concerto to the famous movement of the second symphony. It’s brilliant. I cannot recommend it highly enough and it’s pretty cheap at Amazon.
So, last night after rehearsal, I reveled in the music of Mr. Shearing. Two Quintet with orchestra albums, and the brilliant The Shearing Piano. It was the best way to spend an evening unwinding. I felt like I was twelve again. In the 1990s I finally saw Mr. Shearing in New York. The first part of the concert was Cleo Laine and John Dankworth. They were great, but when Shearing came on with his sidemen we were in a whole other universe. The poetry that came out of that blind person’s fingers was breathtaking and the highlight of that performance was the Satie-like It Never Entered My Mind. It was a grand and glorious evening. You can never go wrong with Mr. Shearing.
Yesterday was a pretty okay day – a few irritants in the early part of the day, but then I went and had a chopped salad with a bit of avocado and basically red wine vinegar dressing – that was really good and filling and yet virtually not more than a few hundred calories. I’d already stopped at K’s Donuts prior to that to get some donut treats for our wonderful Welcome to My World team. They only had one of their amazing chocolate peanut butter things left, but I got it. After lunch, I came home and a short time thereafter did a jog, basically jogging off most of the salad’s few calories. Then I had a few telephonic calls, did some work on the computer and answered a lot of e-mails. Then it was time to mosey on over to the theater.
Last night, we had another rehearsal. We worked some notes, Sami ran some lines for about thirty minutes, then we did a run-through – my promise was to let her go early if the run-through went well. She was conserving her voice, but otherwise it was quite a good run-through – she’s really got the pacing of the show down now and it’s very consistent – where the ebbs and flows are, when to take time, when to move it along and that’s a huge deal. We’re consistently running between eighty-three and eighty-five minutes. I got a couple of ideas as we ran and after I articulated them and Sami took notes and she got to go an hour early, which I know makes it easier on her in terms of getting enough sleep for her early school days. After rehearsal, I had to stop briefly at Doug Haverty’s, then I came home, ate some low-fat cottage cheese and some salami and provolone – about two hundred calories – I was under 1000 for the day and that included about half the chocolate peanut butter thing. Sami tried that one and really liked it, and she tried all the others, too. Then I zoned out to Mr. Shearing and his touch.
Today, I’m actually kind of hoping for a semi day off, which I need. I still have work to do, but I’ll try to do it early on, then I’ll eat, jog, hopefully pick up some packages, and I hope to watch some motion pictures finally.
Tomorrow I have some work to do on the prerecorded Inside Out tracks from ten to noon. Then the helper is coming by to organize some stuff and then the rest of the day will be mine all mine. Saturday we have our long rehearsal day – we’ll work stuff for two hours, have an hour lunch, and then do a full throttle run-through. Then I’ll give notes. Sunday will be the same thing. Monday is our first Kritzerland rehearsal. If the weekend rehearsals have gone well, then Sami will get the night off – if not, she’ll do a line-through with our line producer, Greer Geissman. Tuesday and Wednesday we rehearse, Thursday is a long Kritzerland rehearsal and another day off from Welcome to My World, and then we’re in tech AND doing a stumble-through AND a sound check AND a show. Madness, but hopefully we’ll all have the stamina we need.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, eat, do a jog, do some work, hopefully pick up some packages, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Who were the musicians you discovered at an early age who were life-changers for you? And how did you discover them? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I will be lulled to sleep by the magic of The Shearing Touch.