Lullaby of Birdland

George Shearing wrote this song in 1952 for Morris Levy, the owner of the New York jazz club Birdland. Levy had gotten in touch with Shearing and explained that he'd started a regular Birdland-sponsored disk jockey show, and he wanted Shearing to record a theme which was "to be played every hour on the hour." Levy originally wanted his own music to be recorded, but Shearing insisted he couldn't relate very well with it and wanted to compose his own music. They compromised by sharing the rights of the song; the composer's rights went to Shearing, and the publishing rights went to Levy. Shearing stated in his autobiography that he had composed "the whole thing [...] within ten minutes." The song has been recorded by many vocal and instrumental performers, including Ella Fitzgerald, the Blue Stars of France (a Billboard top twenty hit in 1956, sung in French), Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughan, Mel Tormé, Erroll Garner, Quincy Jones, Chaka Khan, the jazz bandleader Count Basie, and The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic. A live version is included on the album Amy Winehouse at the BBC by Amy Winehouse. Winehouse also sampled the song in the track October Song from her debut album, Frank.

Sir George Albert Shearing, OBE (August 1919 – February 2011) was a British jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for Discovery Records, MGM Records and Capitol Records. Shearing was the composer of over 300 titles, including the jazz standards Lullaby of Birdland and Conception, and had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s. He died of heart failure in New York City, at the age of 91. Born in Battersea, London, Shearing was the youngest of nine children. He was born blind to working-class parents: his father delivered coal and his mother cleaned trains in the evening. He started to learn piano at the age of three and began formal training at Linden Lodge School for the Blind, where he spent four years. Though he was offered several scholarships, Shearing opted to perform at a local pub, the Mason's Arms in Lambeth, for "25 bob a week" playing piano and accordion. He joined an all-blind band, Claude Bampton's Blind Orchestra, during that time, and was influenced by the records of Teddy Wilson and Fats Waller. Shearing made his first BBC radio broadcast during this time, after being befriended by Leonard Feather, with whom he started recording in 1937.

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