ALBUM SPOTLIGHT

SHIRLEY HORN

“The Main Ingredient”

Verve

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Shirley Horn had a provocative idea for this session: bring a bunch of her favorite musicians over to her Washington home to record a few tunes in a relaxed environment.

“Years ago, coming home from a gig,” she recalls, “the guys used to come to my house. We would eat and we’d just play and be like family. . . . I wanted that again.”

And that’s pretty much what she got, with a lineup of musicians that includes saxophonist Joe Henderson, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, bassist Steve Novosel and drummers Elvin Jones and Billy Hart, as well as her longtime backup rhythm team of bassist Charles Ables and drummer Steve Williams.

Unfortunately, the down-home environment didn’t quite work as she had hoped. Although the playing is easygoing and amiable, it also is--on many of the guest star tracks--unfocused and occasionally confused. Henderson, for example, sounds wonderfully warm on the opening of “You Go to My Head,” but Jones, using brushes, seems impatient with Horn’s typically glacial tempo for the number. On “All or Nothing at All,” on the other hand, Jones’ groove is impeccable, but Henderson never fully grasps the subtle technique of filling in behind Horn’s vocal rather than treading on her phrases. Eventually, the piece comes to an uncertain, if humorous, ending.

Hargrove’s participation in “The Meaning of the Blues” is another matter. Horn notes that she originally hoped to do the Bobby Troup song with Miles Davis. If that wish must remain unfulfilled, she nonetheless got something equally valuable from Hargrove, whose lyrical fluegelhorn--both supporting the vocal and via a gorgeous solo--provides a near-perfect musical foil for Horn’s singing.

The best tracks, and they are as good as contemporary jazz singing gets, are those in which Horn works with Ables and Williams, especially a classic rendering of Bacharach & David’s “The Look of Love” and a lovely new piece, “Looking at You.” In more unusual choices, Horn doesn’t make us forget Peggy Lee with “Fever” or Blossom Dearie with “Peel Me a Grape,” but her stylish interpretation of “Come In From the Rain” adds character and substance to an otherwise short-lived pop tune.

Bringing the guys home was obviously a lot of fun for Horn, even though the collective results don’t quite achieve the usual consistently high level of her recordings with her regular trio.

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