Shirley Horn

Shirley Horn

GETTING SHIRLEY ON THE HORN
Shirley Horn quickly rose to prominence as both singer and pianist in the 1960s, earning accolades from critics and key players such as Miles Davis. When she returned to recording in the late 1980s -- after setting aside touring and recording to raise a family -- her career blossomed anew. Here's to Life, her collaboration with producer and orchestrator Johnny Mandel, was a Grammy-winning triumph, the bestselling jazz recording of 1992.Her latest, You're My Thrill, rekindles the relationship with Mandel and presents Horn in a variety of settings: with her trio, augmenting the trio with guitar or vibes, and with full orchestra. With her career still back in full swing, Horn took some time in between tours to talk to B&N.com about the project from her home in Washington, D.C.

B&N.com: How did you go about working with Johnny Mandel on this recording?

SH: Well, first I'd talk about the tunes with my trio. We'd rehearse the tunes, we make a tape, and then we send them to Johnny. I do all my arrangements with my trio, and we rehearse the tunes and everybody knows the parts. Johnny is adding the icing to our cake.

B&N.com: Did you talk about the content of tunes, the lyrics?

SH: Yes, we talk about the tunes in that way. And you know, these are mostly tunes that we're all familiar with.

B&N.com: But the trio is the core to it all?

SH: The trio is the skeleton. We've played together for many years.[Bassist] Charles [Ables] is very special to me. He's very lyrical. He used to be a guitarist, and that makes him a little different in approach than many bassists. We've been together for 31 years now. We can see each other. Drummer] Steve [Williams], I've also been playing with for a long time. He knows what I want and what I love. They understand how I look at a song.

B&N.com: For you as an interpreter and performer, and for Johnny Mandel, as a composer and arranger, the tradition of great American songs seem to be a central theme

SH: That tradition is really a great one for jazz musicians, and always has been, although it's something that isn't as strong as it once was. Early on,I learned songs; I concentrated on it. But some musicians don't know songs,except for the obvious standards. They know how to play anything you put in front of them, but they don't necessarily know t

B&N.com: On this CD, your talents as an accompanist are built upon by the arrangements. Where did you develop your style of comping?

SH: Are you familiar with Jimmy Jones? I heard him very early on, and I was a little surprised how similar my comping style was to his. Particularly, I remember one album he did with Sarah Vaughan. Comping is very important and very specific. It's like laying down a carpet. Very early, when I started to sing, I would pay attention to what the singer was doing and sometimes the piano would get in the way. But I didn't have to worry about that because I was the piano player. There's really an art to accompaniment.

B&N.com: Russell Malone plays guitar on a few tracks here. Does that change your own approach to those tunes?

SH: Well, you know, I usually don't hear a guitar in what I play. And you have to be very careful and creative when you combine piano and guitar. Oscar Peterson and Herb Ellis were a good example of when it works. But when it doesn't...

B&N.com: There's a train wreck?

SH: Yes, that can happen.

B&N.com: It's been nearly a decade since you recorded Here's to Life and collaborated with Johnny. Was this project any different?

SH: No, not really. Except that, by now, I really trust him implicitly. On this recording, he wasn't originally going to orchestrate so much of the music. But he got carried away, which is just fine by me.What Johnny does for me is that he helps me to hear fully what I hear when I play with my trio. I have only ten fingers, and two other instruments. He supplies the rest.-Larry Blumenfeld