Carl Gorham on Extraordinary Journey

Hailed as one of the greatest figures in British jazz, Sir George Shearing's journey to becoming one of the top jazz pianists and composers of the twentieth century reads like something out of a Hollywood film. Born blind, Shearing grew up in Battersea and went from playing for tips in South London bars to carving an incredible legacy: right from the early days of 1930s swing to the cool and latin jazz sounds of later years. Undoubtedly considered a pillar of jazz by many, this legacy is something felt keenly by Shearing's family - and most notably by his great-nephew, Carl Gorham. 

And that's where Shear Brass comes in: an ensemble not only paying tribute to the compositions of a jazz legend, but bringing the music to new generations and listeners. Talking to me about the project, the drummer and founder of Shear Brass discusses the origins of the ensemble, the scope of Shearing's impact on jazz, and what their latest project brings to his music today...

For readers and listeners who are unfamiliar: who are Sheer Brass?

Shear Brass are a group of musicians formed to play arrangements of the music from my great-uncle, jazz legend Sir George Shearing. He was a top pianist in the UK before making a name for himself in America. Initially, he was born in Battersea in 1919 and came up through broadcasts on the BBC and the dance band days, then travelled over to America where he had a big hit with his own quintet. He went on to record best-selling albums with people like Nat King Cole and Peggy Lee, so he's been very well-known to a previous generation. But partly because of the family connection, I felt that I really wanted to do something with his music and find a new contemporary take on it. 

Of course, I'd always known about his story. I was brought up with his music; he was always around the house. We used to go and visit him at his gigs when he came over, but I suddenly felt inspired to bring something sort of fresh and different to it. I got in touch with my long-term collaborator and good friend Jason McDermid, who's the trumpet player with Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, and talked to him about the possibility of him doing some new arrangements – which he did. We got together this wonderful array of musicians and we recorded our first album in 2020. Jools Holland very kindly lent us his private recording studio to do the recording and the whole project has really grown from there. We launched that at Ronnie Scott's and got some great reviews. I don't know what my original ambition for it was – I wasn't really looking too far ahead. I just wanted to do something creatively fulfilling and interesting for people to listen to, but it's really taken off since then. We've got more live gigs coming up at the beginning of next year and we're launching this new album, Extraordinary Journey, at Ronnie Scott's – that's already sold out at the end of this month. So yes, Shear Brass is certainly growing.

Having that family connection must have felt quite significant. How did that connection, and sharing that with your daughter, shape the album?

Well, like I say, I've always been around the music and known about his incredible life. It's almost the ultimate rags-to-riches story: George was born blind to a very non-musical, very working-class family in Battersea and started in a local pub at the age of sixteen doing requests for tips in a South London saloon bar. He embarked on this massive journey through a sort of national jazz stardom in America, playing with people like Ella Fitzgerald, and ended up as a sort of an international star. So I'd known that fantastic tale. I’d introduced Romy to the music at an early age – for instance, she knew George’s best-known composition ‘Lullaby of Birdland’, and she could sing it at primary school. She actually used that song as her audition piece to get into dance college when she did musical theatre training. So it was part of her DNA.

It had always been in my mind to use Romy in the project, and she sang ‘Lullaby of Birdland’ on the first album. Her involvement has continued from there, and obviously there's a satisfying link for me because it feels like I’m kind of passing the baton to the next generation. As Romy herself said, she knew about George through me, but she's also since discovered more about jazz. The other wonderful musicians we've got in Shear Brass, like James Pearson who plays piano, and who's actually the artistic director of Ronnie Scott's, and musicians like Alistair White... I mean, wonderful musicians who've played all over the world – it's been a voyage of discovery for Romy as well: to find out about jazz through them. So, yes, there is a sense of a family thing that goes on through the generations, and that's been very pleasing for me personally.

The album spans an incredible range, and includes some brilliant arrangements. How did you approach curating such a wide variety of Shearing's musical phases into one cohesive album?

I had some initial discussions with Jason about how to approach it but he did all the actual arranging. It’s quite a complex business covering such a range of styles and can throw up some issues but he did a wonderful job in solving those. In terms of the range of styles, I think if you're going to do an album that in any way pays tribute to George’s extraordinary journey, someone who starts off doing requests for tips in a South London pub in the 1930s, you’re going to be steeped in classic Old English pub, vaudeville songs. Then when he moved on to join the dance bands in the late 30s, doing big society dos in the big hotels of Mayfair, there needed to be that element, which we've got when we do Duke Ellington’s ‘Caravan’. When he then goes to America, his first job was as Ella Fitzgerald's intermission pianist, so he's then absorbing all of this really great 1940s jazz. George then does his own version of that, which is unique and different – effectively cool jazz with his quintet. In the 50s, he reflects on his love for Latin music and decides to go in that direction, so there's that within the album as well. I haven't even mentioned the vocal collaborations of the later years. So I think if you're going to in any way acknowledge his achievement, you have to somehow embrace quite a variety of styles anyway, so the challenge then is kind of what to leave out and what to include. It's quite a job.

He was a very prolific composer as well, so just the sheer number of compositions is amazing. One of the other things I wanted to achieve, as well as get that sense of a range of musical interests, was to try and point towards his ability as a composer. Sounds a funny thing to say; people know about him, but they mainly think, ‘oh, he's the bloke who wrote Lullaby of Birdland’ and maybe one other tune like ‘Conception’, which Miles Davis recorded quite famously. But there are loads of other great melodies we’ve hopefully done justice to. He was a great tune writer, and that's not something that's very widely known.

The fact that he composed so much music, is that a reason why sharing his sound with the listeners of today is so important for you personally?

Absolutely. I mean, obviously the family thing is very important, in terms of the fact that I'd say I feel responsible. I feel a great sense of ownership about the music from being steeped in it through the family connection. But it’s also because I think it's just really good stuff. I think it's really accessible and the tunes are great; it could really appeal to a younger audience. A lot of this is through the eyes of my daughter, Romy, who as I said, sings on the album. She was saying to me the other day, ‘these are just great songs – you can really sing along to these.’ George was very good with a lot of his material: he does three- or four-minute tracks, it's not a great overindulgent, twenty-minute solo break or anything. All the solos are very focused and melodic – the whole thing's got a great sense of rhythm. I think it's got a lot going for it to an audience that is very fast-moving these days because it offers something immediately.

Some original compositions are also included on the album. What role do these new pieces play in the overall narrative of the album?

What we wanted to avoid was reproducing stuff that's already been done, and already been done brilliantly. You know, I've always felt that resonance with what was known as the ‘Shearing sound’, with the vibes and the guitar and the quintet. That scored so heavily at the end of the 1940s. In a sense, that's been done: he did it, no one could do it better. So it's a process of reinvention, but also not going so far that you lose the spirit of the original. It's quite a sort of balancing act and just looking at different routes into the music. There's a couple of pieces on the album that are completely free improvisations by the pianist, James Pearson. I’d mentioned to him that it'd be lovely to do a couple of solo piano pieces that are inspired by the style of George and he just did them straight off, they're both first takes, completely improvised. They’re great pieces and not massively long. One’s quicker than the other but they’re both beautifully melodic. He also quotes bits of Shearing – he plays in the style of him but also adds his own feeling and technique to it. They're both wonderful. 

Elsewhere, I've added lyrics to some Shearing melodies: there's a song that we've created called ‘Just a Mood’, which is based on the melody he did for that piece. Again, I've tried to write the lyrics so that they fit the melancholic melody. There's a little story within the lyrics, about how the singer is passing through a particular mood, and then coming out the other side. So it’s been about trying to find the spirit of what George was about, whether it’s by adding lyrics or actually improvising new pieces, and then in overall terms, as you've highlighted, these wonderful, punchy new arrangements with the brass.

Was there a particular track on the album that was especially significant?

I come back to the whole compilation, to be honest. It's all about balance, there isn't one track that I think says it all because he's very much a jigsaw of styles. I kept coming back to that idea of the title, of Extraordinary Journey, and wanted to build something musically that said all of that. And what I'm pleased about is the reactions that I'm getting from people – it feels like that was successful. You know, it's very difficult when you're making it because obviously you're focussing once you're in the studio on the nuts and bolts. You just hope that afterwards when you're listening to it, it'll all come out. And what I'm pleased about is that nothing's ever perfect, but I think it's achieved so many of the goals that we set out with. An album is not just a series of tracks: to me, it's got to be a sort of complete experience, that as you go through the pieces connect together. 

How do you balance being behind the kit while also leading and shaping the direction of the group?

Well, when we do our live show I compère, and we play a lot of numbers from this album and from the previous one. I literally weave the story of George in through the course of the evening, and we use a big screen where we have family archive photos – it's quite a theatrical experience. In crude sort of physical terms, I am at the back with the drum kit, but I’ll stand up when I start talking about George’s story, and I think the visuals work really well. 

In the studio, it's a collaborative effort as well. Jason is the Musical Director, so it's me talking to him, and then him briefing the other musicians. Once you're in the studios as well, when you're recording, everyone is making contributions. That’s nice, because it's also a measure of how committed the musicians are to the project. I remember one of the really lovely things that happened right at the end, after we did the whole album in two days. It was very intense, and we were just going and doing two or three takes of each song. We're all playing together so there's no overdubs, we were literally just mic'd up in the studio. It was a tiring process, but at the end of the two days, the last number we recorded was the Latin American one that finishes the album, ‘Mambo No.2’. Everyone was absolutely knackered by that point, and these musicians, they have lots of other commitments, but they all stayed and crowded into the booth to listen to it. It was because they all wanted to contribute to the discussion about which take we should use. I was quite touched by that, because I think for a lot of them it could have been ‘oh, it's just on to the next job’, but suddenly you've got that real sense of everyone thinking they wanted to make their contribution in terms of the shaping of the music, even after they played it, which is fantastic.

I'm getting the impression that it definitely felt personal – and not just due to your family connection. It sounds like others were equally as passionate about getting it right and paying tribute to such an iconic figure.

Absolutely, and I think you've hit the nail on the head, because one of the things that has made this whole project easier, in a sense, right from starting from scratch, is the fact that George Shearing is really revered by musicians – especially in British jazz circles. He's the bee's knees, so in saying that I want to get together a project to work with the material of George Shearing, people are immediately interested. I think that's invested the whole project with this great energy, and obviously, as it's developed the live show has expanded and the albums have come out well. People feel more and more invested, in a sense, because they're enjoying the process.

Now that Extraordinary Journey is out in the world, what’s next for Shear Brass?

We have some new shows coming up in January and February next year. We're in Southampton, Cheltenham, Chichester, and looking at more gigs to follow. It's at the back of my mind already to do a third album. I mean, George wrote literally hundreds of tunes, so I feel very much that we've embarked on a project that has a long way to go. I'd like to develop the live show more and expand the places that we're playing. I love the fact that it's got this theatrical element now, and that people can go to a theatre and see it. I think it really works well there. So definitely, both for recording and live purposes, a long way to go and a lot more fun to be had.

Extraordinary Journey is available from Friday 26th September on CD, Vinyl and Streaming & Download.