BOBBY SHORT: Live at the Cafe Carlyle

BOBBY SHORT
Na postagem do álbum de Michael Feinstein, contei um "causo" envolvendo MF e Bobby Short. Portanto, faz todo sentido complementar aquela história, com a postagem de um álbum de Bobby Short.

(*)Como São Paulo é mesmo a nossa New York, o empresário Roberto Maksoud promoveu, nos anos 80,  três longas temporadas de Bobby Short no "150", do Maksoud Plaza Hotel - na época o mais importante "night club" de Sampa.
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BOBBY SHORT
Robert Waltrip "Bobby" Short (September 15, 1924 – March 21, 2005) was an American cabaret singer and pianist, best known for his interpretations of songs by popular composers of the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Noel Coward and George and Ira Gershwin. He also championed African-American composers of the same period such as Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Andy Razaf, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, presenting their work not in a polemical way, but as simply the obvious equal of that of their white contemporaries. His dedication to his great love – what he called the "Great American Song" – left him equally adept at performing the witty lyrics of Bessie Smith's "Gimme a Pigfoot" or Gershwin and Duke's "I Can't Get Started." Short always said his favorite songwriters were
Ellington, Arlen and Kern, and he was instrumental in spearheading the construction of the Ellington Memorial in his beloved New York City. He was born in Danville, Illinois, where one of his school classmates was Dick Van Dyke. He began performing as a busker after leaving home at the age of eleven for Chicago, with his mother's permission.  He started working in clubs in the 1940s. In 1968 he was offered a two-week stint at the Café Carlyle in New York City, to fill in for George Feyer. Short (accompanied by Beverly Peer on bass and Dick Sheridan on
drums) became an institution at the Carlyle, as Feyer had been before him, and remained there as a featured performer for over 35 years. There, a combination of traits – his seemingly-effortless elegance; his vocal phrasing (perfected, as was that of Frank Sinatra's, at the feet of Miss Mabel Mercer, with perhaps also some help from Ethel Waters); his talent for presenting unknown songs worth knowing while keeping well-known songs fresh; his infectious good cheer; and his resolute, self-disciplined professionalism – earned him great respect and made him tremendously popular. Bobby Short was generous with his impromptu all-night performances at his various favorite cafes and restaurants. He was a regular patron at Ted Hook's Backstage, located at Eight Avenue and Forty-Fifth Street.
~Source: wikipedia
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ALBUM REVIEW
After springing for three double-LP songbook albums in three years devoted to Cole Porter, Noël Coward, and George Gershwin, Atlantic Records tracked Bobby Short to his lair for a fourth two-disc collection in December 1973, setting up recording equipment in the tiny confines of the Cafe Carlyle where Short had maintained a permanent residency since 1968. There, over two nights, the tapes picked up a typical selection of standards by Porter, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, and other interwar songwriting masters, plus some more recent material, played by Short's piano trio, which also featured Beverly Peer on bass and Richard Sheridan on drums. The singer/pianist's talent lay in mixing his spirited readings of pop standards like "On the Sunny Side of the Street" and "I Get a Kick Out of You" with sophisticated, amusing fare like "Miss Otis Regrets," earthy blues pronouncements like "New Orleans Hop Scop Blues," and the cream of contemporary Broadway. This last was represented by several selections by Broadway's leading songwriter of the early '70s, Stephen Sondheim. Short borrowed "Sorry-Grateful" from Company, "Losing My Mind" from Follies, and "Send in the Clowns" from A Little
Night Music. In each case, these were ballads of romantic frustration, and Short treated them reverently, perhaps a bit too reverently. Thankfully, the listener was never far from a change of mood on this album, making for a full evening that mixed uptown with down-home, all delivered by a smiling man in a tuxedo. Given the live setting, however, the editors might have been advised to include more spoken remarks and to refrain from fading the sound out after every track. As it was, most of the time, Live at the Café Carlyle came off as a regular studio album that happened to have applause rather than evoking the spontaneous and seamless feel of a live album.  
~Source: All Music
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MINHA OPINIÃO
BOBBY SHORT foi o mais importante componente de um seleto elenco de artistas, típicamente novaiorquinos, que - durante muitos anos - reinou na noite da "big apple" e se constituiu numa instituição daquela cidade. Poderiam ser rotulados como "cabaret entertainers", cantores que se acompanhavam ao piano e, eventualmente, contrabaixo e bateria - como era o caso de Bobby Short. Seu  repertório era sempre o mesmo: o maravilhoso "American songbook", com as eternas canções, da lavra dos grandes compositores da época de ouro da  música: Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Rogers & Hart, etc. A revista NEWSWEEK definiu Bobby Short, com absoluta propriedade: "He is an easily acquired taste -- like champagne and caviar. And, so he was. The hallmark of cabaret sophistication and intimate entertainment, husky-toned Bobby Short was one of a kind". Acho que isso diz tudo...

(*) Depois da morte de Bobby Short, o cetro e a coroa de rei do "cabaret" passaram para as mãos do veterano e competente STEVE ROSS.
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BOBBY SHORT: Live at the Cafe Carlyle

TRACKS/FAIXAS:
1.Real Live Girl
2.Miss Brown To You
3.On The Sunny Side Of The Street
4.Mister And Missus Fetch
5.Losing My Mind
6.Losing My Mind (Reprise)
7.All Of You
8.Let's Misbehave
9.Sorry-Grateful
10.I Get A Kick Out Of You
11.New Orleans Hop Scop Blues
12.Medley: Four Walls & Roller Coaster Blues
13.Send In The Clowns
14.When A Man Loves A Woman
15.Ill Wind
16.Miss Otis Regrets
17.It's Not You
18.I Happen To Like New york
19.One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)
20.As Time Goes By
21.I've Got The World On A String
22.Medley: If I Had A Talking Picture Of You, I'm A Dreamer & Turn On The Heat
23.For All We Know
24.I Like The Likes Of You