Shirley Horn: here's to life
JAZZEBEL
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TRIBUTE Shirley Horn, pianist and vocalist, will be remembered both for her whispery, breathy voice, and the languid pace as also the masterly pauses between notes
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Photo: Reuters
HIGH PROFILE Like Nina Simone and Nat King Cole, Shirley Horn didn't stay off the piano for long
I first heard Shirley Horn on the compilation album Verve's Grammy Winners' singing Here's to Life, the title track of an album that won Johnny Mandel a Grammy for best instrumental arrangement accompanying vocal. What I remember most about that accompaniment is that it kept out of her way and didn't overpower her. It was her voice that overpowered me with its sense of the life-affirming force triumphing against all odds. And it's that sense that stays with me even after death laid her low most cruelly on October 20 at the age of 71.
Cruel because Horn had long suffered from diabetes, which resulted in a foot being amputated, and had also had arthritis and breast cancer. Months ago she'd been laid low by a stroke which kept her in hospital till the end. But unlike Ella Fitzgerald, whose own diabetes and consequent leg amputation had forced her into retirement years before her death, Horn had kept performing till recently. It's only her piano-playing that she had to give up, forcing her to get the legendary Ahmad Jamal to accompany her vocals on a recent recording.
Vocalists, especially female vocalists, have always had a high profile in jazz as in popular music, so it's not so well known that Horn started out as only a pianist. Early in her career a patron in a night-club bribed her with a giant-sized teddy bear to sing "My Melancholy Baby". From then, she carried on in a dual role, and in 1960 her first album caught the attention of Miles Davis, who coaxed her to come to New York from her native Washington. Soon she was singing for Quincy Jones with his large orchestras, but as a stand-up singer, forced to yield the piano-stool to Jimmy Jones.
But like Nina Simone and unlike Nat King Cole (who gave up jazz piano for pop singing), she didn't stay off the piano for long. She retreated to Washington and pursued both her musical avocations, but stayed out of big-time jazz for the '70s and much of the '80s while she raised her children.
It was the late '80s when Verve corrected the miscasting of her previous recording career and started her off on a series of albums on which she sang and played piano, mostly accompanied by just bass and drums. They won her a string of Grammy nominations, but she got the award only with her 1998 tribute album I Remember Miles.
What most lay listeners will notice about these albums (or any others by Horn) is the whispery, breathy voice, often the languid pace, especially on ballads, on which excelled.
The more discerning will find also the masterly timing of pauses between notes, both in her vocals and her piano-playing - a characteristic she shared with both Davis and Jamal.
The still more discerning will notice a supremely gifted pianist, a great improviser, and of course a singer who knows how to give plenty of room to the improvising jazz instrumentalists (herself and others) accompanying her. They will also find a singer who could do swinging, uptempo numbers such as "Hit the Road Jack" and the sardonic "Why Don't You Do Right" as well as slow, romantic ballads. But never the weepy ballads of victimhood that were much of the stock-in-trade of some of her seniors.
So here's to life! Since it's not only the song title I remember her best by, but also seems to me to have been her personal credo, here's to the life of Shirley Horn.
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