Leonard Feather Said It

"The story of the Shearing sound is interesting. I had encouraged George to come over from England in '46. He stayed about three months, did one record date for Savoy, and went back home. When I saw him in London in the summer of '47, he was playing accordion in some band. But that winter he returned and settled in a small apartment in Queens. Since I had helped produce his first records in London, I went to all the clubs on 52d St., telling them about these wonderful musicians who had come over.

"I managed to get him one night at the Hickory House. Finally, after George had been here for about six months, I persuaded Irving Alexander to book him at the Three Deuces. He received $65 a week. He had John Levy on bass at one point and J.C. Heard on drums. He had Oscar Pettiford for a time. Then he had a quartet with Eddie Shu playing the many instruments he played. For a while George was working just with a rhythm section. But he was a fixture at the Deuces. Then he got a job at the Clique, which became Birdland the following year. His quartet consisted of Buddy De Franco, John Levy and Denzil Best.

"I was still trying to get him on wax. Albert Marx, for whom I had made records on Musicraft, started Discovery Records. But after I sold Albert, it developed that Buddy was under contract to Capitol. During '45-'46 I had done a session with a combination I liked very much: vibraphone, guitar, piano, bass and drums. I used it on a Mary Lou Williams date and on a session with Slam Stewart, Red Norvo, Chuck Wayne, Morey Feld and Johnny Guarnieri. One of them was on Continental and one on Victor. In each case, I found the instrumentation very appealing.

[JazzWax note: The guitarist on the 1945 Stewart date for Continental actually was Bill De Arango; The Mary Lou Williams date in 1946 featured Marjorie Hyams (vibes) Mary Lou Williams (piano), Mary Osborne (guitar) June Rotenberg (bass) and Rose Gottesman (drums).]

"With Buddy off limits, I suggested that George get Chuck Wayne on guitar and Margie Hyams on vibes. George liked the idea, and the quintet was organized. I wrote most of the music—Life with Feather, Sorry Wrong Rumba and two others—because George wanted to save his own material for something important in the offing. He like the instrumentation so much that eventually it became the Shearing sound."

—Leonard Feather, as quoted in 52nd St.: The Street of Jazz by Arnold Shaw.

Comments

[mrebks]

a Feather in his own cap, wouldn't you say? (and if he played a horn...?) but genial George let him take charge, and so you has Jazz, sixty years later.

[Larry Kart]

A slightly different take from a 1966 Les Tomkins interview with Shearing. According to Shearing, his and DeFranco's label affliations were still in the negotiatons stage, and, as Shearing alludes to below, there was a fair amount of static between his wife and DeFranco's over billing -- and probably over related matters as well. In any case, though I can't cite a source here, I believe I've read that as a result of what went down, Shearing and DeFranco did not remain "very close friends" -- or perhaps it was that DeFranco's wife never ceased to feel aggrieved at Shearing and his wife:

Tomkins interview:

So during this period the "sound" was not in my mind at all. Then Buddy De Franco, John Levy, Denzil Best and I formed a quartet. John, Denzil and I were going to have a trio—then the guy said: "Well, I think I can get Buddy De Franco fairly reasonably. Would you mind?" Would I mind? Buddy to me is just about the most wonderful thing on clarinet And so we would get a lot of intricate ideas going on—thirds and sixths and all kinds of things——between Buddy and me.

Naturally, we wanted to record what we were doing.

But Buddy and I were negotiating separate recording contracts—he with Capitol, me with MGM. The ironical thing is later on he was to go with MGM and I was to go with Capitol. When such negotiations are in progress, there is no way of recording a group and thus letting lots of people know that it exists.

And, needless to say, both our wives were interested in the survival of the fittest. My wife would maintain it should be called the George Shearing/ Buddy De Franco Quartet, and his wife would say it should be vice versa. I mean, this is very natural.

So, although Buddy and I have always remained very close friends, we did pursue our individual musical careers But I wanted to keep that subdued rhythm section, and that Milt Buckner thing was still in my mind. And the more I thought about it, the surer I was that the way to commercialise this would be to bring it to the Glenn Miller level and play tunes that the public would know.

Leonard Feather, the English jazz critic, who had long since been in the United States, said: "How about Marjorie Hyams on vibes and Chuck Wayne on guitar?" I'd heard both of them with their own groups.

We got together for a rehearsal. Marjorie played in one octave, Chuck played an octave below. I played in both octaves. with the locked hands business going on in between. And it was purely and simply by accident that we happened upon this sound. This was 1949.