LOS ANGELES — George Shearing, the elegant pianist who expanded the boundaries of jazz by adding an orchestral sensibility and a mellow aesthetic to the music, has died. He was 91.
Shearing died Monday of congestive heart failure at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, said his manager, Dale Sheets. Shearing had not performed publicly since falling at his New York City apartment in 2004, but he continued playing piano, according to Sheets.
A prolific songwriter, Shearing once introduced “Lullaby of Birdland,” written in 1952 in celebration of the fabled New York nightspot and its radio show, by saying: “I have been credited with writing 300 songs. Two hundred ninety- nine enjoyed a bumpy ride from relative obscurity to total oblivion. Here is the other one.”
Shearing, who was born blind, first came to America from his native England in 1946. His first job was intermission pianist at a New York club during a Sarah Vaughan engagement. He took a similar post at another club during an Ella Fitzgerald engagement.
He continued as a struggling, scale-earning unknown until early 1949, when he hit on a formula that would establish his jazz identity. Leonard Feather — the jazz critic, producer and composer who discovered Shearing in 1937 — suggested that the pianist add a guitarist and a vibraphonist to the standard rhythm section to make up a quintet.
The group went into the studio and came out with “September in the Rain,” which sold nearly a million records.
