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Murphy: a continuing inspiration

The release date is still to be confirmed but Gearbox records hopes it will be in time for what would have been Shirley Horn’s 79th birthday on 1 May. The release in question, Mark Murphy’s vinyl EP A Beautiful Friendship Remembering Shirley Horn, with tracks ‘A Beautiful Friendship’, ‘But Beautiful’, ‘Get out of Town’ and ‘Here’s To Life’ were recorded in the US as recently as November 2012 as previously reported in these pages. It’s a rare chance to hear Mark Murphy on a record at all these days and recently even though he was to have appeared at Ronnie Scott’s in London for club dates, Murphy, who’s 81, on doctor’s orders, wasn’t able to fly to make the gigs.

The only jazz singer (possibly the only person) on the planet to make Kurt Elling seem unhip, Murphy is no stranger to the UK and lived in London for a spell in the late-1960s and later in the acid jazz years the young retro clubbers took to Murphy with some fervour and he found a new young listenership. Murphy’s setting of lyrics to Oliver Nelson’s ‘Stolen Moments’ was just one point of entry for new fans, and he still retained the affection of the beats. Many think of Murphy as the only jazz singer truly on the same artistic wavelength as Jack Kerouac. Murphy’s last great album, one of the best vocal jazz albums of the 1990s, was Song for the Geese for which he was Grammy nominated, but Murphy has continued to work with younger musicians such as the driving Five Corners Quintet. On A Beautiful Friendship: Remembering Shirley Horn two of the songs, ‘But Beautiful’ and ‘Here’s To Life’ Horn recorded, apparently at a New York spot called the Au bar, and was released in 2005 with Roy Hargrove her muse, as Miles Davis once regarded Shirley Horn as his.