Bobby Short, the long-acknowledged first gentleman of Manhattan cabaret, died Mon., March 21, at New York–Presbyterian Hospital. He was 80. The cause of death was leukemia, according to his press agent.
Designated a living landmark in 1994 by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, Short attained his title by dedicating much of his life to performing in piano bars and cabaret rooms on several continents. Initially earning local notice at the Blue Angel, where he played in the front room—and where patrons could appreciate him without paying a cover charge—he became a worth-every-penny fixture at the Café Carlyle 35 years ago.
Although he'd cut back on his appearances there in recent years and was due to leave his perch entirely at the end of this year, he was still the embodiment of joy every spring and fall when he sat down at the piano, raised his voice and his expressive arms, and attacked the keys with brilliant confidence, smiling so broadly his round face looked as if it might burst.
In the early days of the Café Carlyle era, he worked as part of a trio, but when bassist Beverly Peer died in 1997, Short took the opportunity to enlarge his backup group to seven musicians, with the brass section emphasized. Thus he was able to include at least one Duke Ellington instrumental in each of his sets, along with the expected bows to top-line songwriters like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Billy Strayhorn, and Andy Razaf.
Short was loved by many for remaining true to the Great American Songbook and for ensuring that some of the more obscure African-American composers and lyricists were included in it. In the past 30 years or more, he may have never completed a Café Carlyle set without singing either "It Was Just One of Those Things" by Cole Porter or "Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)," which Bessie Smith sang to fame, or both.
Acknowledging Short's death, James McBride, managing director of the Carlyle, said in a statement, "The Carlyle is deeply saddened by the passing of Bobby Short. With his quintessential style and sophistication, Bobby Short captured the hearts of us all over the past 35 years at the Café Carlyle. He is an American treasure who will be greatly missed."
Short was born Robert Waltrip Short in Danville, Ill., on Sept. 15, 1924. Teaching himself to play the piano, he began working at saloons in his hometown, and by the time he'd reached his early teens, he was playing the vaudeville circuit. He landed his first cabaret gig in Los Angeles and then lit out for London and Paris. Eventually he recorded for Atlantic Records, under the supervision of its founders, jazz lovers Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertegun, making vinyl noise with a live album he cut with Mabel Mercer in 1968 and with "Jump for Joy" in 1970. In his later years, he recorded six albums for Telarc. Short became such a Gotham fixture that Woody Allen, another Café Carlyle entertainer and New York City chronicler, included him in his film "Hannah and Her Sisters."
Just as everybody who was anybody went to hear Mabel Mercer sing, they went to hear Bobby Short as well. It wasn't unusual for philanthropist and socialite Brooke Astor to be among his first-nighters and to listen to Short lightly mock the Astors in the E.Y. Harburg–Harold Arlen song "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich."
Short reviewed his singing-and-playing years in two memoirs, "Black and White Baby" and "Bobby Short: The Life and Times of a Saloon Singer."