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Within a few years he released “Around the World in Jazz,” which featured a number of notable artists, including bassist Mingus, drummer Clarke and guitarist Joe Puma. In 1953, he moved to New York, where he roomed with clarinetist Tony Scott. By the late 1940s he was leading his own sextet, which included percussionist Victor Feldman, and made several recordings.

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He made his professional debut in 1946 as a pianist for British bandleader Ted Heath. When he grew older, Sharon began listening to American jazz recordings and realized he had found his musical home.

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His earliest musical training came from his American-born mother, an organist who played the accompaniment in silent movie theaters.

So did the rest of the country after he released the recording in early 1962. When Bennett sang it at the Venetian Room in San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel, the crowd loved it. “I thought it was a great song,” the singer later wrote. As luck would have it, the foggy “city by the Bay” was one of the stops on the tour, so Sharon tucked the song into his suitcase.Īfter a show in Hot Springs, Ark., Sharon went to the piano in the hotel bar and played it for Bennett.

Two years later, in 1961, he was packing for a tour with Bennett and found “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” on the top of the stack of Cory and Cross songs he had stuffed in his shirt drawer. Sharon threw them in a drawer and forgot about them. and Douglass Cross had run into the pianist in New York and handed him some of their compositions, hoping the tunes would find their way into Bennett’s repertoire. Called “Tony Sings for Two,” it was, Bennett said, “one of my finest records ever.”ĭuring this period Sharon discovered the song that Bennett would make famous around the world. In 1961 Bennett cut an album with Sharon on piano as the only accompaniment. I could bring out the jazz element that already was there in the background.” “So, if I may say so, I was like the missing ingredient for him. It changed Bennett’s career, leading to collaborations with Count Basie and Ellington and a critically praised show at Carnegie Hall with sax player Al Cohn, guitarist Kenny Burrell, percussionist Candido and the Ralph Sharon Trio.īennett “loved jazz, loved to listen to it,” Sharon told the Chicago Tribune in 1992. The result was the 1957 album, “The Beat of My Heart.” Arranged and conducted by Sharon, it included Art Blakey, Jones, Chico Hamilton, Herbie Mann, Nat Adderly and other jazz masters. The pianist later admitted he didn’t even know who Bennett was, but that didn’t matter at the audition. He was steeped in jazz, while Bennett was known for his renditions of popular songs like “Blue Velvet,” Stranger in Paradise” and “Cold, Cold Heart.” Sharon did not think he and the singer would make a good musical match.

His most enduring association, however, was the one he forged in 1957 with Bennett. A bandleader, composer and arranger, he also recorded two dozen albums with Kenny Clarke, Charles Mingus, Milt Hinton, Jo Jones and other noted artists. Sharon was one of England’s finest jazz pianists before moving in the early 1950s to the United States, where he would work with such jazz and pop headliners as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Mel Torme and Rosemary Clooney.

His death from natural causes was confirmed by his son, Bo. Ralph Sharon, a British-born jazz pianist who accompanied Tony Bennett on and off for more than 40 years and brought the singer his signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” died March 31 in Boulder, Colo.

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