Count Him In : Pianist George Shearing, Who Joins 3 Other Jazzmen in Cerritos Tonight, Is as Comfortable in a Duo as in a 29-Piece Orchestra

George Shearing isn’t straying too far from his roots these days. On his current tour--which brings him to the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts tonight--the distinguished pianist is providing singer Joe Williams with thumping, charged accompaniment on rousing blues numbers such as “I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water” and “All Right, Okay, You Win.”

“That’s the way I started professionally, playing boogie-woogie,” Shearing said over the phone recently from a tour stop in San Luis Obispo, recalling his premiere $5-a-week-plus-tips engagement at the Mason Arms pub in London, where he was born in 1919. “I still love to do it.”

Shearing and Williams go back a long way--to 1949: Shearing’s quintet was working the Regal Theatre in Chicago, where Williams was singing with Jay Burkhart’s band. Shearing and Williams first recorded together in 1971 and have been touring with each other on and off for the past few years.

At Cerritos, Shearing will open the show with bassist Neil Swainson. After intermission, they’ll be joined by Williams and drummer Sherman Ferguson. The set list includes “The End of a Beautiful Friendship,” “Have You Met Miss Jones?” and “Here’s to Life,” the title track of Williams’ new Telarc album, recorded with Robert Farnon’s orchestra.

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One of Shearing’s recent albums--”I Hear a Rhapsody” on Telarc, recorded at the Blue Note in Manhattan--features two tunes from the be-bop era, Charlie Parker’s “Birdfeathers” and Bud Powell’s “Wail.” That’s another style Shearing says he doesn’t “ever want to get away from.” He said he’ll probably play at least one of those numbers at Cerritos, too.

Clearly, one of his strongest suits is melody--which gets the full treatment on his latest album, “How Beautiful Is Night” (also on Telarc). There, it’s Shearing who luxuriates in the warmth of Farnon’s 29-piece orchestra, serenely investigating such selections as “More Than You Know” and “Heather on the Hill.”

“Bob and I go back to World War II,” Shearing noted, “so we share a lot of the same musical ideas.”

Although Shearing has spent the last 16 years working mainly in duos with bassists Don Thompson, Brian Torff and now Swainson, his name still prompts memories of his quintet and its dulcet, pastel-colored sound, produced by a front-line mix of piano, vibes and guitar.

Shearing said he has discovered that duos are not only easier to manage in terms of traveling and payroll, but also that they can be more rewarding musically.

“I like the feeling of being able to hear so much of the bass,” said the pianist, who is blind. “And there’s nothing like the feeling the two of us can set up rhythmically. And there’s less structure, so we can play something we haven’t bothered to rehearse.”

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Still, he said, he has responded to repeated requests from fans by recording a new quintet album, due from Telarc in November. Working with Steve Nelson (vibes), Louis Stewart (guitar), Dennis Mackrel (drums) and Swainson, he cut such classics as “Lullabye of Birdland” and “East of the Sun” and some new numbers, including two by Horace Silver, “Peace” and “Strollin’.”

“I was like a little kid with a toy,” he said of the sessions, which were done in New York. “I enjoyed bringing back the sound. The respite has done me good.”

* George Shearing and Joe Williams perform tonight at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos. Curtain: 8. $28-$37. (800) 300-4345.