JAZZ REVIEW : Shirley Horn Entrances Her Cinegrill Audience

The art of making music was in full flower at the Cinegrill Wednesday night as Shirley Horn kicked off a two-week run at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel’s elegant nightclub.

To attempt to limit Horn’s opening-night performance by genre or style would be an injustice to an artist whose work transcends category. Yes, she is a jazz singer who explores a familiar repertoire. And, yes, she performs within the confines of a fairly narrow vocal range and a not especially wide timbral coloration.

But what Horn does with that range and that timbre--supplemented by flawless skills as a pianist, a masterful understanding of rhythm and impeccable taste--is nothing less than a definition of creative music-making. Students of any kind of singing, classical, jazz, pop or otherwise, could learn more from one of Horn’s sets than from a month’s worth of master classes.

Which is not to suggest that her set had a pedagogical quality. Her versions of standards such as “Isn’t It Romantic,” “How Am I to Know” and “Keeping Out of Mischief Now” were superb blendings of words and music. Equally important, her readings--like those of the late Carmen McRae, who is clearly one of Horn’s inspirations--told their stories in a flowing, sometimes hypnotically suspended framework of rhythm. On lighter-weight material such as “Hard-Hearted Hannah,” the intensity level was raised a notch, but the subtle, precise sense of timing, underscored brilliantly by her “soulmate” accompanists, bassist Charles Ables and drummer Steve Williams, remained intact.

Seated quietly behind a large, grand piano, offering only a few comments between numbers, Horn was the antithesis of the aggressive, look-at-me entertainer. Yet the full-house crowd was utterly entranced by her performance, swinging softly with the rhythm tunes, touching hands during the love songs and offering a standing ovation at the close of the set. It was an appropriate salute to one of the music world’s finest artists.

* Shirley Horn at the Cinegrill in the Radisson Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd., (213) 466-7000. Tonight through Sunday, $22 with two-drink minimum. Horn also performs Wednesday and Thursday, $20, and next Friday through Oct. 15, $22. Shows at 8 p.m.