makeup called "Light Egyptian" was created for her and then slapped on Ava Gardner and Hedy Lamarr, white actresses who played black roles that should have been Horne's.
Of the evening's twenty-seven tunes, most of which predate rock & roll, at least a dozen are showstoppers. No one has ever explored Rodgers and Hart's "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" as tellingly as Lena Horne does. After placing it in its dramatic context–"This is a sad song about an old broad with money who falls in love with a young, young stud"–Horne delivers a three-octave tragicomic monologue about a woman who, to her immense joy and anguish, has rediscovered her long-suppressed sexuality.
Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top," as done by Horne, isn't simply a cute little ditty from Oklahoma! but a prototypical celebration of going mobile – as fresh and exciting as, say, the Eagles' "Take It Easy." The singer elevates the Charles Aznavour-Herbert Kretzmer ballad "Yesterday, When I Was Young," a sudsy lament for one's lost innocence, into a bluesy howl of painful determination. In a stunning change of pace that suddenly launches the number from a French-cabaret setting into an operatic mode, Horne communicates Aznavour and Kretzmer's message – that most of us squander our youth and fail to realize it until it's far too late – with a devastating, almost vengeful, conviction.
In the Forties and Fifties, Lena Horne's aura of aloof sophistication made her the very model of a black nightclub entertainer, yet despite her fine sense of phrasing, her records from that period have nowhere near the soulfulness of those by Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, et al. In recent years, however, Horne has looked into herself and brought forth the anger and hurt pride she kept hidden under the pose, and it's transformed her singing. Proof of this is illustrated by The Lady and Her Music's two versions of the star's signature song, "Stormy Weather," one done Forties style, with polite restraint, and the other with all stops out.
In the depth and range of its emotion, Lena Horne's singing hits peaks of ferocity, tenderness, playfulness and sheer delight that would have seemed unthinkable in
