You Won't Forget Me (1991)

After a decade on the comeback trail, singer Shirley Horn has finally arrived. Admiring guest stars Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Toots Thielemans, Buck Hill, and (big surprise) an overdubbed Miles Davis appear as part of the welcoming committee. Not that Horn's strengths don't speak for themselves. She's an uncanny self-accompanist on piano, and her voice has a subtlety and richness that can generally sustain her exceedingly protracted readings of ballads, of which this album has perhaps a couple too many. The uptempo numbers are more conventional, but Horn always finds a way to put a personal imprint on the carefully assembled material — mostly standards that are rarely performed. This is moody stuff by a virtuoso of mood. A-

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