Shirley Horn, who died last week at the age of 71, was a pianist and singer to whom recognition came only in later middle age. Her interpretation of classic American songs made her a favourite among musicians and she attracted followers around the world.
Horn was born in Washington, D.C. on May 1, 1934. She began piano lessons at the age of five, studied piano and composition throughout her teenage years and eventually graduated from Howard University with a degree in music.
She worked her way through college by playing piano at the Merryland Club. One night, an audience member said he would give her the Teddy bear he was carrying if she would sing “My Melancholy Baby.” She obliged, and thus became a singer.
She formed a trio in 1954 and for the next few years worked the lounge circuit in the Washington-Baltimore area. In 1960, she recorded her first album, Embers And Ashes. Miles Davis was so impressed he sent for her to come to New York and open for him at the Village Vanguard.
“I played 20 minutes because (the owner) didn’t want me there in the first place,” she said.
“Miles had to insist. He said: ‘Either she does it or I don’t.’”
Her performance was so well received she opened for his next five engagements. This led to a contract with Mercury Records, for whom she recorded Loads Of Love and Shirley Horn With Horns. She was presented purely as a singer, backed by an orchestra, with arrangements by Quincy Jones. She felt uncomfortable away from the keyboard and returned to low-profile but more satisfying work in Washington.
She married, gave birth to a daughter, and shelved her career in many respects for her family responsibilities.
In 1978 she re-emerged to record A Lazy Afternoon, the first of three albums for the Danish label Steeplechase. This was her recording debut as a self-accompanying singer. Horn received invitations to tour, but took only occasional engagements away from Washington.
In 1986 she was persuaded to appear in New York. In the audience was Richard Seidel, vice-president of PolyGram, who signed her to Verve, its jazz label. This marked the start of Horn’s late-flowering prime.
Speaking of her bassist, Charles Ables, and her drummer, Steve Williams, she said, “We kind of melted together musically. We moved as one. Sometimes it was like the best sex ever.”
She could call on virtually anyone as guest artist on her sessions. Both Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis appear on her 1990 album You Won’t Forget Me, her most popular effort.
Her use of space in her music was often compared to Davis.
“I don’t much hurry because I do believe in time and space,” she said. “I think I can paint that picture for you slowly so you can see.”
After Davis’ death in 1991 she released I Remember Miles, with Roy Hargrove playing trumpet. It won a Grammy Award.
In 2001, complications from diabetes led to the amputation of her right foot. For the first time in four decades she was obliged to rely on another pianist. On her 2003 release, May The Music Never End, she sounds frail and hesitant. She also developed breast cancer.
Horn, who died on Thursday, October 20, 2005, was married to Shep Deering; they had a daughter.
Playing music, she said, “is when I feel more like me. That’s what I remember first when I was a little girl, being at that piano in my grandmother’s parlour. It’s not work to me; it’s how I feel normal.”