Singer Shirley Horn Masters and Commands ‘The Art of the Song’

Charlie Haden has gotten a remarkable amount of mileage out of his much-praised “The Art of the Song” project. The album that started it has been reviewed in extremely laudatory terms, and he has managed to produce a surprising number of live performances, given that the presentation calls for a good-sized string ensemble.

Earlier this year, “The Art of the Song” was presented in somewhat reduced format--solely with singer Bill Henderson and without Shirley Horn--at the Skirball Center. On Thursday, at UCLA’s Royce Hall, it turned up again, this time with both Henderson and Horn.

Like the album, the music was largely defined by the sound of Alan Broadbent’s atmospheric orchestrations for chamber orchestra. Haden’s Quartet West, with Broadbent, tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts and drummer Larance Marable, added spirited jazz passages, and both singers offered well-done reprises of their album performances.

But the highlight of the evening was Horn’s opening set with her trio, clearly the focus of the concert for a number of listeners who left before and during the second half’s “Art of the Song.” Horn has not always been in peak form lately, especially in a recent local nightclub appearance, but there was nothing to question about her Royce performance.

The material was largely dominated by songs Horn has been doing for a long time--”I’m Just Fooling Myself,” “How Am I to Know?,” “A Time for Us”--delivered with the impeccably timed phrases that are her musical signature.

Her medley of “Ten Cents a Dance” and “Here in This Hotel,” now one of her most striking offerings, was done with extraordinary poignancy and with a sense of layered emotion that sometimes slips away in her quest for careful musical craftsmanship.

Her closing rendering of “Here’s to Life,” also a signature number for her, as it was for Joe Williams, was stunning, clear and present evidence that Horn is far and away the preeminent jazz vocalist of her generation.