Horn's survivors include her husband, Sheppard Deering, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, her daughter, Rainy Smith, of Maryland and several grandchildren.
Horn had been fighting breast cancer for some time when complications of diabetes led to the amputation of her right foot in 2002. For a few years she performed sitting in a chair and facing the audience directly, away from the piano, which was played by George Mesterhazy.
But in her final performances in New York, a two-week stretch at Le Jazz Au Bar that started last Dec. 30, she was back at the piano again, with the help of a prosthetic device that helped her to use the instrument's sustain pedal.
Three of those performances will be released this month on a Verve anthology of her work, But Beautiful: The Best of Shirley Horn.



