George Shearing, George David Weiss

Lullaby of Birdland

George Shearing wrote 'Lullaby of Birdland' in 1952 for Morris Levy, the owner of the New York jazz club Birdland. Levy had got 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 were 'to be played on the start of every new 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 distributing 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.' Jean Constantin composed the lyrics to a French version, 'Lola ou La légende du pays aux oiseaux'.

Musical characteristics

'Lullaby of Birdland' is in thirty-two bar form, and its original key was F minor (or A? major). This arrangement is lifted to G minor, for the chords not to become too dissonant in the deeper voices. The song spends an equal amount of time in both minor and major modes. It follows a I - vi - ii7 - V7 harmonic progression, and it has a I - viø7 - iiø7 - V7 minor variation.