Still, no project has gained him as much personal satisfaction as The
Second Greatest Entertainer in the Whole Wide World. After the New
York run, the show played to enthusiastic audiences in San Francisco and
Los Angeles, and earned Shawn awards for both Best Performer and Best
Playwright of the Year.
An Eastsider for the past seven years, he names Elaine's as his favorite local restaurant because "the food is good, and there's a simplicity about the place the attracts me."
Shawn describes himself as "disciplined, but not as disciplined as I should be. Because my work is loose, I'm always adding or changing. Nothing ever stays the same. But comedy is a very rewarding profession. It's nice to know that something that pops into your head can cause a reaction from total strangers who are paying you money to be entertained. I think that's the ultimate."
Probably best-known for The Prod ucers.
EASTSIDER GEORGE SHEARING
Famed jazz pianist returns to New York
2-3-79
The scene was a Boston nightclub in the early 1950s. George Shearing and his quintet were scheduled to play the second set of the evening; the opening act was a piano/bass/drums trio. But as soon as the first group's pianist hit the keys, a groan went up from the audience. It was a bad box, as they said in those days. The management's promise of a tuning had not been kept.
The trio retired in defeat 15 minutes later, and the audience called for Shearing. When the blind pianist was led on stage, he announced, to everyone's astonishment, that he would open with a solo. But when he sat down at the instruments, a small miracle took place. The notes rang out with the clarity of crystal; Shearing's acute ear had told him which keys to avoid, and the precise amount of pressure to apply to the others so that the poor tuning would be camouflaged. Those who were present to witness Shearing's uncanny musicianship may never forget the experience. But attending any of his performances is hardly less forgettable.
He's now playing each Tuesday through Saturday evening at the Cafe Carlyle, 76th Street and Madison Avenue, and will remain there until March 3rd. His famous quintet is no more — the group was disbanded in 1978 after 29 years — but Shearing, accompanied only by bass player Brian Torff, proves himself a master showman as he performs his unique brand of jazz, tells funny stories between numbers, and sings in his lilting, playful manner.
"I'm on the road about 10 months a year," he told the Carlyle crowd the previous night, when I went there to catch his show. "And one thing I cannot tolerate is the mediocrity of hotels and motels in this country. Once, on my second morning in a hotel, I called up the room service and said, 'Could you please bring me some breakfast? I'd like two eggs, one of them poached and the other scrambled; two pieces of toast, one barely warm and the other burned almost to a crisp; and a pot of half coffee and half tea.' The person on the other end said, 'I'm sorry sir, I don't think we can fill that order.' I said, 'Why not? That's what you brought me yesterday.'"