A Three-Career Star: Don Shirley

The artist, whose recording of this issue’s “Water Boy” became the iconic instrumental version of the song, has led a long and varied life, spanning three careers. Don Shirley, born in Jamaica in 1927, first studied piano with his mother as his teacher. His incredible talent was recognized early on, and at the age of nine he was invited to study at the Leningrad Conservatory of Music. Training for a career as a classical pianist, he continued performance and composition studies with the famous organist Conrad Bernier, and composer Dr. Thaddeus Jones, both on the faculty of the Catholic University of America’s Department of Music in Washington, D.C. Even while a student, his exceptional skills at improvising jazz in classical styles dazzled his professors and peers. He could play “I Cover The Waterfront” and make it sound as if Debussy wrote it, while creating Bach fugues and inventions with such standards as “How High The Moon” and “The Man I Love.”*

He made his concert debut at age 18 with the Boston Pops, playing Tchaikovsky’s B Flat Minor concerto, and at 19 he had a work for orchestra performed by the London Philharmonic. He averaged some 95 concerts a year with such orchestras as the Detroit Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony, and Milan’s La Scala Orchestra, an experience shared by only two other pianists, Artur Rubinstein and Sviatoslav Richter. As a composer his works include symphonies and orchestral pieces that have been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, works for solo piano, and organ, string quartets, two piano concertos, a cello concerto, an opera,

Suddenly switching his attention and talents to academia, and abandoning his classical career, Shirley received doctorates in Psychology, Music, and Liturgical Arts. A true Renaissance man, he is fluent in eight languages and is considered an expert painter. While working as a psychologist in Chicago, he received a grant to study human response to tonal combinations. Playing jazz at a Chicago club, he enlisted the help of psychology students to assess audience reactions to tonal combinations. His unique classical-jazz style became so popular that he was encouraged to undertake a third career as a recording artist. An appearance on The Arthur Godfrey Show cemented his national reputation. His early LP, Tonal Expressions, recorded for Archie Bleyer’s Cadence label, reached #14 on the LP charts. More LPs followed the success of the first. “Water Boy”, a Don Shirley Trio creation, with Juri Taht on cello and Kenneth Fricker on bass, was recorded in 1965.

Don Shirley is a New York treasure, playing at Manhattan’s storied jazz clubs, and living, teaching, composing and arranging for more than fifty years in his studio at the famed Carnegie Hall Apartments. In one lifetime, he has succeeded

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