WESTSIDER BOBBY SHORT
Mr. New York to perform in Newport Jazz Festival
6-23-79
To some, he is New York City personified — Bobby Short, the eternally youthful singer and pianist who has been packing in audiences at the Cafe Carlyle five nights a week for the past 11 years. Regarded as the foremost living interpreter of Cole Porter, Short has recorded eight albums, published his autobiography, lectured on American music at Harvard and performed at the White House. His many television commercials have gained him national recognition in the last year or so, but he is proudest of the one he did for the "I Love A Clean New York" campaign, showing him sweeping the sidewalk with his customary savoir-faire.
Six months out of the year, he holds court at the Carlyle, a supper club at Lexington Avenue and 76th Street, where eager fans plunk down $10 for each one-hour set. Backed up by a bass player and a percussionist, the smooth, sophisticated Short sits behind the keyboard in a tuxedo, performing popular songs from the early 20th century to the present day. Every word and every note comes out a finely polished jewel, leaving the audience with the impression that they have never heard the song before.
Four months out of the year, Short takes to the road, giving concerts from Los Angeles to Paris, often as soloist with major orchestras. The hottest and coldest months of the year — January and August — he sets aside for vacation, sometimes taking a house in the south of France, since he is well versed in the French language and is constantly seeking to expand his knowledge of gourmet cooking.
While in New York, he occupies a luxurious nine-room Westside apartment with 18-foot ceilings that formerly belonged to Leonard Bernstein. Here, in a vast living room with a complete wall of mirror, a fireplace and a virtual forest of green plants, I thank Short for the glass of wine that he offers me from a crystal decanter, and I begin our interview by asking about the show he's co-producing for the Newport Jazz Festival. Titled A Salute to Black Broadway, 1900-1945, it will take place in Avery Fisher Hall at 8 p.m. on June 24, and is one of the highlights of the 26th annual jazz festival, which runs from June 22 to July 1.
"It's the chance to try my wings at something new," says the jovial musician, in a somewhat gravelly, high-pitched voice marked by flawless diction. "Also, it's a chance to inform. I suppose I'm a frustrated professor of sorts. This show is a way of stating that, in fact, there were blacks involved in productions on Broadway as far back as 1900 — perhaps even further back. Many were performers who wrote their own material. Others were composers and lyricists whose writing was not confined to black performers. Some of them wrote for the Ziegfeld Follies."
As co-producer with Robert Kimball, Short has been "researching material to find out what's good, what's bad, what's important, and also who's around today that was in those shows." Among the performers to be featured: famed jazz singer Mabel Mercer, a longtime friend of Short's; Adelaide Hall and Edith Wilson, two of black Broadway's original stars; Nell Carter, the Tony Award-winning star of Fats Waller's Ain't Misbehavin'; Eubie Blake, still an active pianist in his 90s, whose currently running Eubie! is the fourth Broadway show he has written; special guest artist Diahann Carroll; and the Dick Hyman Orchestra. Of course Bobby Short will be on stage too; he'll do at least five songs out of his repertoire of 1,000-plus.
Slender, debonair, and looking more like 40 than his actual 54 years, Short has been playing and singing in public ever since he made his debut at the age of 9 while growing up in Danville, Illinois. From the age of 12 to 14 he was a child star on the vaudeville and nightclub circuit. Then he returned to Danville, completed high school at 17, and began his second career. Producer/songwriter Anna Sosenko got him a job at the Blue Angel in Manhattan; after that he worked in California and France before settling permanently in New York in 1956.
A perennial name on the best-dressed list, Short says that "today I've got a tailor in New York, a tailor in London, and I buy a lot of things in between. But I've grown more sensible over the years. I no longer buy all I can get my hands on."
His secret for staying young? "Be sensible. If you use the most intimate parts of your body to make a living — like your throat — you can't abuse it. You can't drink too much, and you simply cannot smoke." Extremely knowledgeable about restaurants, he lists the Russian Tea Room and Pearl's Chinese Restaurant as his favorites.
His "Charlie" commercial for a cologne by Revlon has made Short one of the most recognized figures on the streets of New York, yet he doesn't mind being approached by strangers. "It's part of what I do for a living," he muses with a smile. "It never stops. You have to learn to live with it or get out of show business. Fortunately, I'm a very social person and I like people. I understand the need to say hello to someone on the street — so I can't knock somebody for speaking to me."