Courtesy of Shirley Horn







Verve Records

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH SHIRLEY HORN


I remember the first time I heard Shirley Horn sing the Ray Charles favorite, "You Don't Know Me" on her Light Out of Darkness album on Verve, the lady friend that was with me adored it. See, the ladies love ballads and Ms. Horn can hold a ballad like no one else. She spoke with me from her home, the night before she was flying out on tour, about her affinity for ballads and her relationship with Miles Davis, unedited and in her own words.


FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.

SHIRLEY HORN: I was born and raised in Washington D. C., I still live there. My people all loved music. My grandmother was a self-taught musician who played organ and piano. My mother and father just loved music and the whole family. My grandmother told my mother when I was four years old, told my mother to give me piano lessons because it was the only thing that I wanted to do. I used to pick at her big old piano. I didn't want to play with the kids or anything. She said, "Give this child lessons because she's obviously interested in the music." So I had my first piano lesson when I was four years old. I was just surrounded by good music at home. Growing up, I heard jazz music, the best of the classics.


FJ: What were you listening to?

SHIRLEY HORN: Let's see, I heard Count Basie, and of course, Duke Ellington and singers like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, all the singers.


FJ: How did you go from playing the piano to singing on stage?

SHIRLEY HORN: Well, I was playing in a dining room. I would play a couple of hours in the evening and there was an elderly gentleman who would come everyday, even for dinner. He never said anything to me. He would tip his hat after dinner and leave. It was getting close to Christmas time and he came in and he sent a note to the piano and it said, "If you sing 'Melancholy Baby,' this teddy bear is yours." The teddy bear was as tall as I and it was a beautiful turquoise teddy bear. I sang "Melancholy Baby."


FJ: Did you know the song?

SHIRLEY HORN: I knew these songs, a lot of songs because my mother was always singing at home and I heard the classics of the jazz music. Yeah, that's when I started singing. At that point, there was an older woman who kept her arms around me. I was very young. She went to the owner and said, "Well, she can sing, so she's got to get more money." And after that, I joined the union. I got more money. I was very shy at the time, but the idea of getting more money was interesting and I started to sing. I've been singing ever since.


FJ: Your thoughts on Miles Davis, whom you recorded a tribute entitled I Remember Miles.

SHIRLEY HORN: Well, I loved Miles so much. He got to be like a part of me. Of course, I knew about him many years before actually. I met him, but I was a married woman and I got a call. To this day, I don't know how he got this phone number, but I was with my mother-in-law and my husband down in Virginia having breakfast and this party said, "This is Miles Davis. I want you to come to New York. There is some people, I think, you should get to know." And I thought it was somebody, some friends playing a joke or something. So I thought about it and I thought that maybe I should go to New York. I told my husband and I did come to New York. I went to his house and truly there were a lot of people that I needed to know and he let me know that this was for real. He had four, five young kids at that time and they were all singing music from my first album. These little kids were just singing. Miles cared about me. He never liked the idea that I smoked. He was always kind of an overseer. "You can't sit on the bar. Ladies don't sit on the bar." He would tell me not to associate with this person or with that person or eating the wrong food. When I was in New York, I was alone and eating fast food and he would push good food. At one time, I got a little heavy and I used to go to his house and workout in his basement. He was like a dear uncle.


FJ: So he wasn't too successful implementing a stop smoking campaign.

SHIRLEY HORN: It got to a point where I would sneak and smoke behind him.


FJ: And the standard by which all female vocalists are measured, Ella Fitzgerald.

SHIRLEY HORN: I have the greatest respect for her. I don't know that she had that much influence. My influences ran to maybe Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday. What I heard at home, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae. She was wonderful. She was a queen. She was really the queen. What can you say about her? What can be said about her?


FJ: You are one of the preeminent interpreters of the ballad, is there a technique to singing a ballad well?

SHIRLEY HORN: Well, are you going to ask me why I sing them so slow? Is that coming up?


FJ: Boy, you spotted me coming down the road a mile away.

SHIRLEY HORN: (Laughing) Well, I'm trying to paint a picture. I sing what I feel and I am trying to paint this picture. I want you to see what I am seeing. I don't speak quickly. I am kind of slow. I take things slowly. You ought to hear about my drummers talk about how I pay, I take my time (laughing). But, I sing what I feel. Let's talk about the lyric. Where does the lyric take me? What does the lyric say? What is the story? I try to paint the picture of that story. What do the lyrics say? That is what I look at first, the lyric and then the melody.


FJ: Let's touch on your upcoming project.

SHIRLEY HORN: Well, I'm going to do something, in fact, next week I am going to New York to get started. I am doing some things with my trio and I will be joined by Johnny Mandel. That is going to happen next week. The trio and I will go down, go down and lay down some patterns and then Johnny will join us in California.


FJ: Give me a tune that will be on the album.

SHIRLEY HORN: We just had a rehearsal yesterday. We're going to do a ballad called "The Very Thought of You." That is one song that I really, really, really like. It is going to be pretty tunes and couple of kind of bumpy tunes.


FJ: And the release date?

SHIRLEY HORN: This later in the fall.


FJ: You still spend a significant amount of time touring.

SHIRLEY HORN: Oh, yeah. This year from June 2, I'm going to be busy, busy, busy. We are going to Canada and of course we are doing San Francisco and Seattle. We are doing the festivals. I think we're going to France. I am trying to slow down a bit. It got pretty hectic last year. It was a little impossible. It was too much. And my drummer who is much younger than I asked, "When are we going to take a rest?"


FJ: What motivates you to take on such a rigorous schedule?

SHIRLEY HORN: It is hard to stay home for two weeks. I get antsy and I need the audience. I need to hear it and to be with my guys. "Come on, come on, let's play. Let's be together." I have to have the music. It's a drag, Fred. I hate to travel. Traveling is really hard. It is almost impossible now. I am trying now to do the same hotels and I am doing pretty well with that, but the traveling is pretty rough.


FJ: Any regrets?

SHIRLEY HORN: No. No. No. Nope.


FJ: Makes it easy to get up in the morning.

SHIRLEY HORN: Afternoon, late evenings (laughing).


Fred Jung is the Editor-In-Chief and is starring in his own summer sequel. Comments? Email him.