We lost a great one. Shirley Horn, one of the great female jazz vocalists of the past four decades died last Friday at age 71. She suffered from breast cancer. What was her greatness? First, song selection. She chose songs that were elegant, thoughtful, warm and true. She didn’t go in for overstatement or melodrama. For her, the song was a story told in intimate whispers. She was class. She was cool. I don’t mean “cool” in a hip hop sense. I mean it in a Miles sense.
Ben Ratliff’s obituary in the New York Times has this to say:
Ms. Horn was a unique singer, with one of the slowest deliveries in jazz and a very unusual way of phrasing, putting stress on certain words and letting others slip away. She cherished her repertory, making audiences feel that she was cutting through to the stark truths of songs like “Here’s to Life” and “You Won’t Forget Me.”
I agree with everything he said with one caveat. I don’t think describing her delivery as “slow” does the subject justice. When you listen to a Shirley Horn song you don’t think slow or fast. You’re entranced by the sensual and intimate experience she offers, the sense that she’s whispering a secret of life in your ear. In this era of bombast and over the top musical performance, Shirley went against the grain.
That’s the way her concerts were too. I remember seeing her at a concert at a Hollywood jazz club in the early 1990s. I don’t remember any of the normal clinking of glasses and low-key chatter of the typical club scene. I remember the audience’s rapt attention. She entered the room from behind a discreet curtain, smiling very shyly, then sitting down at the piano bench with her back to the audience and playing. There were no conversational interludes, no song introductions (perhaps she murmured a title but she never turned around to face us). She was all business, but in a subdued and nice way. I got the feeling she was painfully shy and wanted to avoid the informal banter between performer and audience that characterizes most performances. Also, it was all about the music. She didn’t want it to be about Shirley Horn. Not that she didn’t have an ego. But the ego was all in the song. The ego was in the striving for excellence in conveying the song.
Ms. Horn owed a debt to Miles:
In 1960 she recorded her first album, “Embers and Ashes,” for a small label called Stere-o-Craft. It was not widely heard, but Miles Davis heard it, and a year later he tracked down her telephone number in Washington and invited her to open for him at the Village Vanguard in New York. That exposure, plus the help of the jazz agent and manager John Levy, helped get her a contract with Mercury Records.
But she didn’t affect his temperamental pose with audience and club owners. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t have standards. You don’t get to be as great a performer as she was without the most exactly standards.
Here’s to Life (hear it) is a wonderful example of Ms. Horn’s oeuvre. She tells you a story about life in a slow, languorous tempo. It’s mournful and elegaic, it’s slow, but it’s also warm and most importantly, elegant:
Here’s To Life
lyrics: Phyllis Molinary
music: Artie ButlerNo complaints and no regrets.
I still believe in chasing dreams and placing bets.
But I have learned that all you give is all you get so you give it all you got.I had my share. I drank my fill,
And even though I’m satisfied I’m hungry still
to see what’s down another road, beyond a hill and do it all again.So here’s to life and all the joy it brings.
Here’s to life the dreamers and their dreams.
Funny how the time just flies.
How love can turn from warm hellos to sad goodbyes
and leave you with the memories you’ve memorized to keep your winters warm.There’s no yes in yesterday.
And who knows what tomorrow brings or takes away.
As long as I’m still in the game I want to play
for laughs, for life, for love.So here’s to life and all the joy it brings.
Here’s to life.
The dreamers and their dreams.
May all your storms be weathered.
And all that’s good get better.
Here’s to life.
Here’s to love.
And here’s to you.
—LainieCook.com
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