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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shirley Horn, the jazz pianist and singer whose unhurried, breathy style captured the attention of two generations of listeners, has died at age 71, her record company said in a statement.
She died of complications from diabetes on Thursday in a Washington, D.C.-area hospital.
Horn, who started playing piano when she was four, found her first success in jazz in the 1960s through the help of trumpeter Miles Davis. She took more than a decade off to raise her family, and revived her career in the 1980s with touring, a series of well-received albums, and a Grammy award.
"I'm not a quitter, I'm a fighter," she told The Washington Post in late 2004, a few years after diabetes forced the amputation of her right foot.
"I've tried to keep things as level as possible through this whole thing -- I'm cool. I know what I have to do: I'm never going to give up the piano, I'm never going to stop singing till God says, 'I called your number.' I didn't panic, because I have so much love for what I do."
Horn was born in Washington on May 1, 1934, and studied classical piano as a teenager at Howard University, but was enchanted by jazz and formed her own trio in 1954.
She recorded her first album, "Embers and Ashes," for a small label and might have gone unnoticed had Davis not heard the album and called Horn to New York, demanding that she open for him at the famed Village Vanguard club in 1960.
That engagement led to a series of albums and a lifelong friendship with Davis. Horn even recorded music for two movies, but split with her record label in the mid-1960s after they pushed her toward being "a stand-up singer with an orchestra," in her words. With the popularity of jazz waning, Horn decided to stop touring, staying around Washington to raise her daughter.
"Rock was taking over," Horn told The New York Times in 1982. "The Beatles had arrived. The time wasn't right for me. People would say to me, 'Why don't you sing the new stuff?' But I didn't feel it, and I decided not to compromise."
Horn hadn't performed regularly in years when she dropped in on a musicians' convention at a Washington hotel in 1980 for an impromptu set. That led to an invitation to a jazz festival in the Netherlands that reintroduced Horn to jazz fans, and convinced her there was an audience for her music again.
She began recording in 1986, and six of her later albums were nominated for Grammy awards. Horn won the Grammy for best jazz vocal album in 1998 for her tribute album to Davis, "I Remember Miles."
The Kennedy Center honored Horn with a tribute in 2004, and she was awarded a Jazz Master Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts.
She died of complications from diabetes on Thursday in a Washington, D.C.-area hospital.
Horn, who started playing piano when she was four, found her first success in jazz in the 1960s through the help of trumpeter Miles Davis. She took more than a decade off to raise her family, and revived her career in the 1980s with touring, a series of well-received albums, and a Grammy award.
"I'm not a quitter, I'm a fighter," she told The Washington Post in late 2004, a few years after diabetes forced the amputation of her right foot.
"I've tried to keep things as level as possible through this whole thing -- I'm cool. I know what I have to do: I'm never going to give up the piano, I'm never going to stop singing till God says, 'I called your number.' I didn't panic, because I have so much love for what I do."
Horn was born in Washington on May 1, 1934, and studied classical piano as a teenager at Howard University, but was enchanted by jazz and formed her own trio in 1954.
She recorded her first album, "Embers and Ashes," for a small label and might have gone unnoticed had Davis not heard the album and called Horn to New York, demanding that she open for him at the famed Village Vanguard club in 1960.
That engagement led to a series of albums and a lifelong friendship with Davis. Horn even recorded music for two movies, but split with her record label in the mid-1960s after they pushed her toward being "a stand-up singer with an orchestra," in her words. With the popularity of jazz waning, Horn decided to stop touring, staying around Washington to raise her daughter.
"Rock was taking over," Horn told The New York Times in 1982. "The Beatles had arrived. The time wasn't right for me. People would say to me, 'Why don't you sing the new stuff?' But I didn't feel it, and I decided not to compromise."
Horn hadn't performed regularly in years when she dropped in on a musicians' convention at a Washington hotel in 1980 for an impromptu set. That led to an invitation to a jazz festival in the Netherlands that reintroduced Horn to jazz fans, and convinced her there was an audience for her music again.
She began recording in 1986, and six of her later albums were nominated for Grammy awards. Horn won the Grammy for best jazz vocal album in 1998 for her tribute album to Davis, "I Remember Miles."
The Kennedy Center honored Horn with a tribute in 2004, and she was awarded a Jazz Master Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts.
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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
