Sunday, April 17, 1994

Shirley’s a horn of plenty when it comes to jazz
By Peter B. King
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Talking with Shirley Horn is a trip. She speaks, as she herself has noted, the way she plays a ballad. Slowly. And musically. Quietly, most of the time. And just as she’s apt to hit a surprising note when she sings or plays piano, so her conversations skip from thought to thought.

The only difference when she speaks is that she hesitates. When she’s performing tunes like “You Won’t Forget Me” or “Here’s To Life” or “Light Out of Darkness” — as she will at the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild Friday, Saturday and next Sunday — the 59-year-old (she turns 60 May 1) jazz singer/ pianist seems utterly sure of herself.

“Light Out of Darkness” is the title track of Horn’s latest CD, subtitled “A Tribute to Ray Charles.” Horn is asked if she feels the recording is a departure. Most of Charles’ material is harmonically simpler than what she’s played before, and she shows an R&B influence she’s not known for.

“Hmm. Departure. Well. Departure. Ummm. I wanted to do something different (pause) after ‘Here’s to Life.’ It was very heavy. And, ummm, departure,” she whispers to herself. “What do you mean, departure?”

She ponders some more. “Well, the material was certainly different. ‘Hit the Road Jack.’ It was fun. With the guys involved, it’s like, it was footpattin’. It was warm and, oh boy!”

The CD art includes Horn’s watercolor of a frog gazing at the moon, based on “Green (It’s Not Easy Being Green).” Although she heard both Charles’ and Frank Sinatra’s versions of the tune, it wasn’t until she saw Kermit the Frog sing it one night on the tube that the song hit her.

“I said, ‘Wait, I have to do that song.’ I had to think about it, ‘cause green is the color of spring. Green is cool and friendly. I love green. My home is all green. Good Lord, I have green all over the place. I’m green, you know?”

“Light Out of Darkness” was nominated for a Grammy — Horn’s third nomination. (She won a Grammy two years ago for “Here’s To Life.”) Horn didn’t bother to attend this year’s ceremony.

“My daughter came and awakened me. She said, ‘Mama wake up, they’re about to make an announcement (on TV),’ and I saw it. That’s not my cup of tea. (But) I love the fact that so many people love my music. That knocks me out.”

Horn has a history of skirting the limelight. She grew up in Washington, D.C., studying from the age of 12 through 18 in a Howard University program for the musically gifted. Horn had to refuse a scholarship to Juilliard because she couldn’t afford to live in New York. Influences on her music ranged from Debussy and Rachmaninov to Erroll Garner and Ahmad Jamal, not to mention singers like Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington.

Thirty years ago, Miles Davis paved the way for Horn’s ascent to jazz stardom when he heard her debut album, “Embers and Ashes,” and secured a place for her as his opening act at the Village Vanguard. The sponsorship of Davis and Quincy Jones gave Horn a high profile. But she disliked the production of her records and the music business in general. She gained a degree of infamy in the industry for not tolerating noisy nightclub crowds.

Instead of pursuing stardom, Horn spent a decade or so tending to her husband and daughter and performing in the D.C. area. In the late ‘70s, she began making records again, for small labels, and playing European dates.

Her second big break came in the late ‘80s, when Verve Records Vice President Richard Seidel heard her in one of her rare New York appearances. Her first album for Verve, “I Thought About You: Live at Vine Street,” was recorded while Horn had the flu and a temperature of 103. Her breakthrough came in 1991 with “You Won’t Forget Me,” which topped the jazz charts for 14 weeks. Guests included Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Miles Davis. In 1992, “Here’s To Life,” with string arrangements by Johnny Mandel, spent 17 weeks at No. 1 and snagged a Grammy.

Horn, who has contentedly spent years out of the public eye fishing, watching the “shoot-’em-ups” on TV and fixing things around the house, is somewhat overwhelmed by the demands of her recent success.

“For the past three years, it was so busy that I was passing myself. I can’t begin to tell you. I was in Paris, France, and I was home. I was in Canada. It was really too much for me, and I’m not a chickadee anymore. This year ... I’m gonna pick and choose a few places I like to play.”

Horn was recently in Brazil, where she performed in a tribute to Antonio Carlos Jobim. When she answered the phone, a famous Brazilian track — Joao Bosco’s “Coisa Feita” — was playing in the background. It was sent to her by Seidel, who’s a big fan of Brazilian music. Horn wants to do an album of Brazilian music in the near future.

Horn recounted her Brazilian epiphany: “One night the car was taking me to perform, and we stopped at a light and I heard this music, and there were musicians. ... It was raining and they were playing under the bridge. And I said, ‘Pull over.’ And my daughter was with me. She said, ‘Mommy we’ve got to go.’ And I said, ‘No, I can’t go, I’ve gotta wait.’ And I heard these young musicians playing this music and it just drove me crazy. The rhythm patterns and everything, it just drove me up the wall. So I’ve got to go back again. Go and be there and hear and, wow!”

(Peter B. King is a Pittsburgh-based freelance writer.)