George moved to America after the war. He moved there with his friend David - they played together in a band and wanted to find their fortune.
David eventually married, although George never did. He worked in a series of dull day jobs in Philadelphia, the city where David lived. Then moved to New Jersey when David's moved there, and worked in a sugar refinery until he retired, playing jazz piano in clubs in the evenings.
George lived alone until he retired. Over eighty now, he resides in a nursing home after a stroke last year, the last-but-one of the seven brothers. Dad, the youngest, goes regularly to visit him and has arranged for him to play the piano every day for the other residents. Dad was clearing out the last few things from George's apartment - only a few cardboard boxes of items to show for a life, and mostly records. A few of them were George's own recordings from before he left England, with his trio.
"What's this?" dad asked, holding up a big old reel of tape.
"Oh yes," said George. "That's my Songbook. I haven't been able to play it since about 1975, it needs a reel-to-reel player and no-one has one any more".
Dad brought it back to Britain, took it to a specialist company who made it into a CD: George singing and playing 25 original songs. It's recorded in someone's living room but the piano, and the quality, and sound balance are good - it could have been recorded yesterday. Heartbreaking lyrics, imaginative composition, faultlessly played. Go back to the 1950s and remember this is a man who played sometimes with George Shearing, who jammed at Ronnie Scott's.
Some of this music is just too wonderful to sit on a CD in my house, and the untold story behind the lyrics of unrequited love makes those minor chords even more poignant. What shall I do with it, I wonder?
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