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Ms. Horne was a consummate star who appeared in many musicals in the thirties and forties including Stormy Weather, which yielded her a signature theme. By the 1950s, Ms. Horne began concentrating more on her singing career and only returned to film for 1969’s Death of a Gunfighter and as Glenda, the good witch, in 1978’s The Wiz. She then stormed Broadway in 1981 with the wildly popular Lena Horne: The Lady And Her Music and went onto record some of her best music for the Blue Note label in the 1990s.
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Since I didn’t even know she was going to call, I was completely unprepared for the conversation. So in my star-struck frenzy, I muttered and stuttered until I realized she was the friendliest, loveliest person you could ever want to talk with.
In late 1964, the Chico Hamilton group of which Gabor Szabo was then a part was in London backing Lena Horne at the Talk of the Town club and recording some striking music to Roman Polanski's film, Repulsion. Hamilton had performed behind Ms. Horne many times before, but this was the guitarist's first collaboration with Ms. Horne, a musical relationship which would elaborate and deepen in the coming years.
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For Lena Horne, it was an opportunity to reach a younger audience with more contemporary material (by the Beatles, Michel LeGrand, Burt Bacharach and Harry Nilsson). While the two had performed on stage together in the past, this collection presented the first opportunity for record buyers to hear how special their collaboration was.
The following year, the two reunited on Ms. Horne's television special and were seen and heard again together on a 1973 episode of The Flip Wilson Show.
My conversation with Ms. Horne became more about her warm reminisces of Gabor Szabo and what she called “his soulful playing.” And when Lena Horne says that, she means it. You can feel it. She also had so many good memories that she would add to the conversation about so many of the other people she knew and worked with over the years. She was a delightful human being and I was so happy she sat and talked with me about her amazing life for a few minutes.
Obituaries: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times.
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