Hollywood Highs And Lows With George Shearing and Horace McCoy

‘It’s been a great financial pleasure being here’ quips George Shearing before playing the last number of the set – ah yes, Hollywood, home of stars that shone so brightly, and the broken dreams of millions. Shearing was riding high with his brand of cocktail schmaltz bolstered by forays into bop, and you can look at that two ways; he made palatable tunes such as Charlie Parker’s ‘Confirmation’ (as played in this set) by white-washing bop, or he introduced it to those who would otherwise remain ignorant. Either way, should I be strolling down Sunset Strip in 1959 and come across a sign advertising ‘The George Shearing Quartet’ do you think I’d carry on strolling?
   Today I strolled into a record shoppe (two days in a row!) and picked up this album for four quid. Look at the cover. I look at it now propped up on my desk and dream of being one of those two lucky fellahs, the one being kissed, perhaps...look at those dames, one of whom seems to be going somewhere... ‘Back in a moment, honey’, she’s saying – ‘You’d better be’, he replies, reluctant to release his hand from her waist, that beautiful waist above those beautiful hips in that stunning dress...what a girl! Isn’t this photo the personification of (M)ad men dreams? The suits, the white dresses and stilettos, neon, cars parked outside The Crescendo...
   ‘Swinging Shearing Sounds’ the sleeve declares, well, if not exactly swinging, Shearing encapsulates the smooth shining glitz of the place and time, the penthouse fantasies wrapped in an aura of cool Playboy sophistication. I bet those girls like to mambo; who doesn’t? Shearing delivers ‘Mambo Inn’ with Armando Perazza on congas lending that hip Latin feel to the occasion. I raise an imaginary cocktail to him, to the dream of being there whilst the rain tips down outside my window...

Rewind a couple of decades and you might have walked into a cinema to watch an RKO B-Movie scripted by Horace McCoy. ‘These bastards never gave me a shot at the A pics’, he would later complain. Having done some small-time stage acting McCoy went for a screen test and was turned down, just like Ralph Carson in his 1938 novel, ‘I Should Have Stayed Home’. I think this book’s even better than Nathanael West’s ‘Day Of The Locust’ from the same time, although that gets far more credit as a depiction of crushed hopes in Hollywood. Ralph’s a Southern boy, naive and desperate for fame. His accent works against him when it comes to getting a break and he lives on borrowed money before meeting Mrs Smithers of Beverley Hills. She’s well connected in town, knows the stars and their directors. Surely this is his ticket to the big time. Well, things don’t work out that way. McCoy’s hardboiled stripped down prose perfectly suits the raw emotions on display, the doomed air of desperation darkening almost every page quite brilliantly.  The author’s bitterness about Hollywood is channelled through his protagonist, as is the conflict between being starry-eyed whilst despising a social scene populated by stars. The pain of self-inflicted failure is reflected in bouts of quite disturbing sadomasochism.  It’s by no means a perfect novel, but for my money it’s a great read.