Bobby Short

Sometimes we make friends in rather unexpected ways.

My wife and I met Bobby Short here in São Paulo, when he came to sing at the Maksoud Plaza Hotel. He was the best American cabaret singer of all time, and also a great pianist. And his show was fantastic. He gave Marlene an autographed copy of his latest album, with many beautiful songs.

Bobby Short in São Paulo

We went several times to hear him at the Café Carlyle, in New York, where he performed from 1968 until his death in 2005. His show was a little different there. Here he would sing very well known songs. In New York he would sing beautiful forgotten songs of famous composers, all worth knowing, intermingling them with original renditions of well known songs, almost always including their verses. He seemed to appreciate the circumstance that he had these Brazilian fans and he was always very cordial to both of us.

His repertoire included songs by Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Noël Coward, George and Ira Gershwin, Andy Razaf, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, and many others. He used to say that his favorite songwriters were Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen and Jerome Kern. I remember that he refused to sing New York, New York; he considered it a worthless song that became famous merely because of Frank Sinatra’s interpretation.

Bobby Short and his trio at the A Hebraica club

Among the jewels that I heard him singing were Jerome Kern’s Bojangles of Harlem, a song honoring an extraordinary dancer, All in Fun, from the musical Very Warm for May, which was a failure in spite of its beautiful songs, and Nobody Else But Me, Kern’s last song, written for the 1946 revival of Show Boat – he died before the opening of the play. Among Cole Porter’s “forgotten songs”, he introduced us to You May Know Paris but You Don’t Know Paree, By Candlelight, So Near and Yet So Far and How Could We Be Wrong.

But Bobby and us really became good friends when we invited him to sing here in São Paulo, in a fund-raising dinner for an non-profited organization that taught professions to mildly mentally retarded young people. My wife presided that organization at that time.

My wife and Bobby 

Contacting him in New York and bringing him to São Paulo for just one performance was  our chance to admire his professionalism and, at the same time, his friendliness and his  enthusiasm for our task. At the same time we found out that he loved caipirinhas, the Brazilian national drink.

This was a beautiful show, at the A Hebraica Club. His singing was superb, as always, the audience was mesmerized. You can see in these pictures how enthusiastic he was, but then, this was the way he always performed.

We returned to hear him at the Café Carlyle a few more times. We would then take him some bottles of cachaça, so that he could make his caipirinhas.