ONE of the last great divas of the jazz world, Shirley Horn — once a protégée of Miles Davis and Quincy Jones — effectively had two careers. The first was as a clear-voiced ingénue in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the second was as a more mature, world-weary and experienced singer after she returned to the stage in 1982.

She took almost two decades away from the limelight to raise her daughter, returning with a voice that was lower, breathier and darker in tone than her youthful sound. It gave her a much greater emotional range, which she exploited to the full.

It was in this latter stage of her working life that she received most acclaim, particularly for her daringly slow tempos, on which she accompanied herself at the piano, often placing her vocal lines so far behind the beat that it seemed impossible that she would catch up with her own playing. She was nominated for seven Grammies during her contract with Verve, which began in 1987, and she finally walked off with best jazz vocalist in 1998, for her album I Remember Miles, on which the young trumpeter Roy Hargrove played homage to Davis.

Indeed, Davis had played a formative part in Horn’s career. He had asked her to open for him at the Village Vanguard in New York in the 1960s, thereby bringing her considerable critical attention and, not long before his death, he made one of the very few guest appearances of his career on her 1991 album You Won’t Forget Me.

Shirley Horn originally harboured no ambition to be a singer, intending to become a pianist. She began piano lessons at her home in Washington DC at the age of four, and pursued her study at Howard University. Other musicians admired her prowess, and other pianists at the very highest level, such as Ahmad Jamal, enjoyed playing informal duets with her. But the piano was destined to take second place to her singing after an engagement at a local bar at the age of 17. Three years later Horn was leading her own trio, and her 1961 debut album for the tiny Stereo-Craft label, Embers and Ashes, is probably the last example of her early career in which her dramatic keyboard playing is given centre stage.

Her most significant records of the 1960s did not feature her piano playing at all. Hank Jones and Bobby Scott played the piano on Loads of Love, and Quincy Jones’s orchestra backed her on Shirley Horn With Horns, both made for Mercury in 1963. Soon afterwards, however, she gave up public performance to focus on her family, only occasionally returning to the studios. Even so, her infrequent recordings from this period away from the stage were always brilliant, particularly a mid-1960s disc with Joe Newman, Frank Wess and other sidemen from Count Basie’s band.

Horn began playing again in public in the late 1970s, appearing frequently in Europe, where she recorded for the Danish Steeplechase label and appeared at the North Sea Festival at The Hague. Her return to the public eye in the United States after almost twenty years was heralded by John S. Wilson in the New York Times in May 1982. With such high-profile support and new accompaniment — bassist Charles Ables and the drummer Steve Williams, Horn found herself an acclaimed talent once again, and her recording career reached new heights.

Somewhat rotund and bespectacled, Horn seemed an unlikely diva, but her ability to deliver a ballad at a breathtakingly slow tempo, to play with the words and the time at will, and yet never lose sight of the contour of the song, won her a huge fan base. Among her admirers were many musicians, including Dame Cleo Laine, who recently praised Horn’s unerring sense of time in a BBC Radio 3 broadcast.

Horn’s long association with Verve, which continued until her 2003 album May The Music Never End, was characterised by very high production values (including the use of a full orchestra on Here’s To Life) and a sparkling array of guest stars, who — like Miles Davis — were only too pleased to work with her.

She repaid the debt on her 1995 album The Main Ingredient, which featured stars such as Hargrove, Joe Henderson and Elvin Jones, by recording it at her home and cooking for everyone during the week-long recording session. She continued to play until 2004, when complications from diabetes — to which she had lost her right foot in 2001 — forced her to retire once again.

At 21 Horn married Shepherd Deering. He and their daughter survive her.

Shirley Horn, jazz singer and pianist, was born on May 1, 1934. She died on October 20, 2005, aged 71.