Photo © Larry Busacca

One of the most unique talents in jazz, singer/ pianist Shirley Horn died on October 20^th at a nursing home in Cheverly, MD, where she had lived since suffering a stroke in June. During the past few years, she had battled breast cancer and arthritis as well as diabetes, which led to the amputation of a foot in 2002. Yet as recently as December 2004, Horn had played a two-week stint at Le Jazz Au Bar in New York, using a prosthetic to activate the pianos sustain pedal. Know for her very slow delivery and idiosyncratic phrasing, Horn garnered seven consecutive Grammy nominations, winning in 1998 for her performance of "I Remember Miles," her tribute to mentor Miles Davis. She also won five Wammys (Washington, DC area's music industry award).

Although perhaps recognized more for her vocal than keyboard chops, Horn studied piano first, starting at age four. By age 12, she was studying composition at Howard University. She won a scholarship to Julliard, but chose to study classical music close to home at Howard University. She traces her first forays into vocal music to a job playing piano at a DC area restaurant'a customer requested that she sing "Melancholy Baby," and for the first time she realized she might combine piano and vocals. The transition from classical to jazz seemed natural. "I loved Rachmaninoff, but then Oscar Peterson became my Rachmaninoff. And Ahmad Jamal became my Debussy."

While in college, Horn put together her first jazz trio, and soon was noticed by Quincy Jones, who produced her first recordings. She also attracted the attention of Miles Davis, who asked her to open for him at the Village Vanguard in 1960, despite his usual disdain for singers. By the mid 60s, she began limiting her touring to the Washington, DC-Baltimore area to be closer to home and her young daughter, and remained more or less out of the public eye into the 1980s, making only two recordings from 1963-78. Over the next six years she recorded for Steeplechase. Landing a contract from Verve Records in 1986, Horn's career was rejuvenated, and over the next 15 years she released 11 recordings, including a 1991 release with Miles Davis as her sideman, recorded shortly before his death.

Her albums Here's to Life, Light Out of Darkness (A Tribute to Ray Charles), and I Love You, Paris all hit the top of the Billboard charts. In recent years, she has received the Phineas Newborn, Jr. Award, was voted #1 female vocalist in the New York Jazz Critics Awards, #1 jazz vocalist in Down Beat's Critics' Poll, and last year was named Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Horn recorded May the Music Never End in 2003, for once needing a pianist to accompany her following the loss of her foot. Ahmad Jamal, whose minimalist style was a perfect match for Horn, assumed accompanist duties for the first time in his career. But Beautiful: The Best of Shirley Horn on Verve was released just a week before her death.

As a pianist, Horn reflects the influences of Wynton Kelly, Ahmad Jamal, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, while vocally she projects a very individual style like no other singer. Wrote Richard Harrington in the Washington Post, "No one mined the depths of a lyric the way Shirley Horn did, with a whispery voice that conjured cashmere and cognac. You could lose yourself -- you couldn't not lose yourself -- as the lifelong Washingtonian's dusky alto crawled unhurriedly through time-tested standards and rediscovered treasures, tapestries of song embroidered with her own crisp chords and subtly spun piano filigrees."

She was one of a kind. May her music never end.