Sometimes dismissed as a mere “lounge singer” and entertainer of the upper crust, Bobby Short spent his career recreating the Great American Songbook, enthralling audiences with his interpretations of the ballads of Arlen, Ellington, Gershwin, Porter, and Rodgers and Hart. His name was nearly synonymous with “café society” and the Hotel Carlyle in Manhattan. Bobby Short died of leukemia at age 80 on March 20^th.

Born in Danville, Illinois, Robert Waltrip Short was the ninth of 10 children in a musically oriented family. From an early age, he could accompany singers he heard on the radio on the family's piano. Following his father’s death in a mine accident, young Short earned money playing piano in saloons and at dances. When talent scouts “discovered” him, he took his music on the road, promoted as the “Miniature King of Swing” and modeling his dress on Cab Calloway. At clubs he sat in with no less than Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, but soon felt the need to return home and complete his education. Earning his high school diploma in 1942, he returned to touring as a pianist, landing at New York's Blue Angel club. Yet his career seemed to stagnate, and he noted that “I had become the young colored boy who was all chic . . . and that was as far as I could go."

Trying his luck in Europe, Short moved in fast company, and particularly became a protégé of columnist Dorothy Killgallen. A real turning point came in 1968 when he performed in concert with Mabel Mercer at New York's Town Hall, receiving rave reviews. Filling in at the Café Carlyle, he was soon performing there regularly, a favorite of such high brow patrons as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Norman Mailer. His gig at the Carlyle would last the rest of his life; recently he extended his run there to mark the venue’s 50^th anniversary.

Short’s career as a black musician performing for predominately white upper class audiences generated considerable criticism and controversy. Yet his music was also regarded as “a continuing dialogue between uptown and downtown that demonstrated the depth of communication between Harlem and Broadway. His performances and recordings played a crucial role in leveling the racial playing field of American pop and helping bring a shamefully obscured history to light” (Stephen Holden, New York Times).

Short’s sparkling stride piano and his increasingly dusky baritone contradicted his contention that he was but a “saloon singer.” He was, for sure, an institution, not only on the Upper East Side, but on an international scale. Someone will no doubt take over the piano bench at the Carlyle, but no one will replace that playfully elegant stylist that merged cabaret and jazz, the one and only Bobby Short.