Don Shirley - Bewitched

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2012
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 38:15
Size: 88,1 MB
Art: Front

(2:38)  1. Bewitched
(8:17)  2. Love for Sale
(2:15)  3. And This is My Beloved
(7:04)  4. Medley from 'New Faces'
(4:28)  5. September Song
(4:59)  6. Blue Moon
(3:21)  7. My Funny Valentine
(5:08)  8. Dancing on the Ceiling

Pianist, composer, and arranger Don Shirley was born in Pensacola, Florida, on January 29, 1927. He began playing piano at age two, and seven years later had developed his skills so rapidly, he was studying theory at the prestigious Leningrad Conservatory of Music. Shirley made his concert debut with the Boston Pops in 1945, while the following year, the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed one of his first major compositions. In the ensuing years between 1954 and 1968, Shirley performed as a soloist and as a member of several symphonies, including the Boston Pops, Detroit Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington. Shirley also composed several organ symphonies, a piano concerto, two string quartets, and numerous pieces for piano. His musical language also encompassed tastefully mastered combinations of standards, show tunes, ballads, spirituals, and jazz performed with his own trio. Incredibly, Shirley also found time between performing and recording to obtain a PhD of Music, Psychology, and Liturgical Arts. Throughout the '50s and '60s, he released numerous albums on the Cadence label. In 1999, Collectables began reissuing several of those albums as two-for-one sets. Shirley died of heart disease on April 6, 2013. ~ Al Campbell https://www.allmusic.com/artist/don-shirley-mn0000160561/biography

Bewitched

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Don Shirley - Don Shirley Solos

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2000
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 41:49
Size: 96,4 MB
Art: Front

(4:24)  1. It Could Happen To You
(2:25)  2. Laura
(4:39)  3. I'll Be Around
(2:36)  4. Bewitched
(3:31)  5. Something To Remember You By
(3:28)  6. Ill Wind
(3:28)  7. Little Girl Blue
(4:35)  8. I'm In The Mood For Love
(2:16)  9. This Is My Beloved
(3:44) 10. April In Paris
(2:27) 11. It Never Entered My Mind
(4:11) 12. Don't Worry 'Bout Me

Donald Walbridge Shirley (January 29, 1927 – April 6, 2013) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Donald Walbridge Shirley was born on January 29, 1927, in Pensacola, Florida, to Jamaican immigrants Stella Gertrude (née Young; 1903–1936) and Edwin S. Shirley (1885–1982). (Don Shirley's place of birth was sometimes given as Kingston, Jamaica, because promoters falsely advertised him as being Jamaican-born.) His father was an Episcopal priest. His mother, a teacher, died when Shirley was nine years old. Shirley's siblings were Dr. Calvin Shirley (1921–2012), Dr. Edwin Shirley, Jr. (1922–2006), Stella Lucille Shirley (1924–1926), and Maurice Shirley (b. 1937).  He also had a half-sister named Edwina Nalchawee (née Shirley) (b. circa 1955). He started to learn piano when he was two years old. At the age of nine, he was invited to study theory with Mittolovski at the Leningrad Conservatory of Music. He also studied with Conrad Bernier and Thaddeus Jones at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.  Shirley earned a doctorate of Music, Psychology, and Liturgical Arts after temporarily giving up the piano.  He spoke eight languages fluently and was also a talented painter. In 1945, at the age of 18, he performed with the Boston Pops,  with Dean Dixon as guest conductor, playing the Tchaikovsky B-flat minor concerto. 

A year later Shirley performed one of his compositions with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He received an invitation from the Haitian government in 1949 to play at the Exposition International du Bi-Centenaire de Port-au-Prince, followed by a request from President Estimé and Archbishop Le Goise for a repeat performance the next week. Discouraged by the lack of opportunities for classical black musicians, Shirley abandoned the piano as a career while young. He studied psychology and began work in Chicago as a psychologist. There he returned to music. He was given a grant to study the relationship between music and juvenile crime, which had broken out in the postwar era of the early 1950s. Playing in a small club, he experimented with sound to determine how the audience responded. The audience was unaware of his experiments and that students had been planted to gauge their reactions. During the 1950s and 1960s, Shirley recorded many albums for Cadence Records, experimenting with jazz with a classical influence. His single "Water Boy" reached No. 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for 14 weeks. He performed in New York City at Basin Street East, where Duke Ellington heard him, and they started a friendship. At Arthur Fiedler's invitation, Shirley appeared with the Boston Pops in Chicago in June 1954. In 1955, he performed with the NBC Symphony at the premiere of Ellington's Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall. He also appeared on TV on Arthur Godfrey and His Friends. In the fall of 1968, Shirley performed the Tchaikovsky concerto with the Detroit Symphony. He also worked with the Chicago Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra.[5] He wrote symphonies for the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra. He played as soloist with the orchestra at Milan's La Scala opera house in a program dedicated to George Gershwin's music. Only two other pianists, Arthur Rubinstein and Sviatoslav Richter, have performed there as soloists. Shirley wrote organ symphonies, piano concerti, a cello concerto, three string quartets, a one-act opera, works for organ, piano and violin, a symphonic tone poem based on the novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, and a set of "Variations" on the legend of Orpheus in the Underworld. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Shirley

Don Shirley Solos

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Don Shirley Duo - Improvisations

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2000
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 44:19
Size: 102,2 MB
Art: Front

(7:36)  1. Sometimes I'm Happy
(3:44)  2. But Not For Me
(2:59)  3. Tenderly
(4:06)  4. What Is There To Say
(3:18)  5. Autumn Leaves
(4:44)  6. Atonal Ostinato Blues In B Flat
(3:20)  7. When I Fall In Love
(5:30)  8. Over The Rainbow
(4:03)  9. Let's Fall In Love
(4:57) 10. Walkin' By The River

Pianist, composer, and arranger Don Shirley was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on January 29, 1927. He began playing piano at age two and seven years later had developed his skills so rapidly, he was studying theory at the prestigious Leningrad Conservatory of Music. Shirley made his concert debut with the Boston Pops in 1945, while the following year the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed one of his first major compositions. In the ensuing years between 1954 and 1968, Shirley performed as a soloist and as a member of several symphonies, including the Boston Pops, Detroit Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington. Shirley also composed several organ symphonies, a piano concerto, two string quartets, and numerous pieces for piano. His musical language also encompassed tastefully mastered combinations of standards, show tunes, ballads, spirituals, and jazz performed with his own trio. Incredibly, Shirley also found time between performing and recording to obtain a doctorate of Music, Psychology, and Liturgical Arts. Throughout the '50s and '60s, Shirley released numerous albums on the Cadence label. In 1999, Collectables began reissuing several of those albums as two-for-one sets. ~ Al Campbell https://www.allmusic.com/artist/don-shirley-mn0000160561/biography

Improvisations

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Don Shirley Trio - Water Boy

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 39:41
Size: 90.9 MB
Styles: Mainstream jazz
Year: 1965/2010
Art: Front

[4:50] 1. Water Boy
[2:48] 2. Oh Bess, Oh Where's My Bess
[3:24] 3. In A Moonrish Marketplace
[4:23] 4. The Man I Love
[5:10] 5. This Nearly Was Mine
[4:19] 6. Blue Skies
[3:31] 7. Adieu Madraz
[3:56] 8. By Myself
[3:05] 9. Freedom
[4:11] 10. When Your Lover Has Gone

Bass – Ken Fricker; Cello – Juri Taht; Piano – Don Shirley.

Employing the rather unusual configuration of cello and bass combined with his piano for Waterboy, one of three albums Don Shirley recorded for Columbia Records during the 1960s. This trio setup is consistent with Shirley's training as a classical pianist as well as his compositional record with that genre of music. Shirley is the composer of three symphonies, two piano concerti, and three string quartets, among other pieces. He holds a Ph.D. in music (and one in psychology). In sum, his playing can be characterized as a cross between Art Tatum and Artur Rubenstein.

Shirley's playing on this album reveals his wide breadth of interpretative interests and skills. In fact, the performances are so wide ranging, one wonders which track is the real Don Shirley. On the title tune, Avery Robinson's arrangement of the old prison tune "Waterboy" the trio expresses the flavor of the thud of the mallet on the rocks that prisoners are compelled to split. In contrast, Shirley becomes appropriately introspective and ruminating on "By Myself." On his own "Adieux Madraz," Shirley recalls his West Indian heritage. With his impressive and wide ranging educational background, his linguistic abilities (he supposedly speaks eight languages), and his interest in a wide variety of music, Shirley is a man for all seasons, including a piano virtuoso. But sometimes the virtuosity overwhelms the music and is more than some songs can tolerate. Some tunes are simple and their musical message can be lost when their playing is overly embellished as on "The Man I Love." The playing is dazzling to the point of inundating the essence of this Gershwin piece. After a self-enforced sabbatical, Shirley is actively performing again. Reacting to the renewed interest in his work, the Golden Classics label is reissuing many of the LPs he made for Cadence during the 1950s. ~Dave Nathan

Water Boy mc
Water Boy zippy

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Don Shirley - Don Shirley's Best

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s

Time: 62:45

Size: 143.7 MB

Styles: Piano jazz

Year: 2010

Art: Front

[4:44] 1. Water Boy

[2:15] 2. Drown In My Own Tears

[4:07] 3. Margie

[2:16] 4. Stand By Me

[5:13] 5. Willow Weep For Me

[2:13] 6. I Got Rhythm

[7:35] 7. Georgia On My Mind

[4:03] 8. At Last

[3:52] 9. Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe

[5:18] 10. One For My Baby

[4:57] 11. Just For A Thrill

[4:52] 12. Dancing On The Ceiling

[3:33] 13. The Hammer Song

[4:19] 14. Ol' Man River

[3:20] 15. My Funny Valentine

Pianist, composer, and arranger Don Shirley was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on January 29, 1927. He began playing piano at age two and seven years later had developed his skills so rapidly, he was studying theory at the prestigious Leningrad Conservatory of Music. Shirley made his concert debut with the Boston Pops in 1945, while the following year the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed one of his first major compositions. In the ensuing years between 1954 and 1968, Shirley performed as a soloist and as a member of several symphonies, including the Boston Pops, Detroit Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington. Shirley also composed several organ symphonies, a piano concerto, two string quartets, and numerous pieces for piano. His musical language also encompassed tastefully mastered combinations of standards, show tunes, ballads, spirituals, and jazz performed with his own trio. Incredibly, Shirley also found time between performing and recording to obtain a doctorate of Music, Psychology, and Liturgical Arts. Throughout the '50s and '60s, Shirley released numerous albums on the Cadence label. In 1999, Collectables began reissuing several of those albums as two-for-one sets. ~ Al Campbell

Don Shirley's Best 

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Don Shirley Trio - S/T

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 52:59
Size: 121.3 MB
Styles: Piano jazz
Year: 2011
Art: Front

[4:51] 1. Water Boy
[2:50] 2. Where's My Bess
[3:25] 3. In A Moorish Market Place
[9:57] 4. The Man I Love
[5:08] 5. This Nearly Was Mine
[4:19] 6. Blue Skies
[3:29] 7. Adieu Madraz
[7:46] 8. Tribute To Billie Holiday
[3:56] 9. By Myself/I Know Where I'm Going
[3:05] 10. Freedom/I'm On My Way
[4:08] 11. When Your Lover Has Gone

Donald Walbridge Shirley (January 29, 1927 – April 6, 2013) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Shirley's piano skills were recognized at an early age and he began his career as a composer and virtuoso performer at a young age. Shirley's music is hard to categorize. As an arranger-composer he treated each piece of music as a new composition, not just an arrangement. Shirley played standards in a non-standard way. He was a virtuoso performer, playing everything from show tunes, to ballads, to his personal arrangements of Negro spirituals, to jazz, and always with the overtone of a classically trained musician who has utmost respect for the music he is playing.

Don Shirley Trio mc
Don Shirley Trio zippy

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