Shirley Horn: The Swingin' Shirley Horn (Jazz Club)

When Shirley Horn sings a song, she changes the way we hear it forever. Horn is considered the first singing pianist in jazz since Nat "King" Cole. Horn discovered the appeal of her singing when she was seventeen and performing at a local restaurant/nightclub. "One night, just before Christmas, an older gentleman who was a regular for dinner came in with a teddy bear as big as I was. Somehow I knew that was for me," she recalls. In fact, the guest sent her a note that said, "If you sing 'Melancholy Baby,' the teddy bear is yours." "I was very shy and it was hard for me to sing," Horn says, "but I wanted that teddy bear."