Customer Reviews

Celebrating 30 Years at Cafe Carlyle

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This album was my first of Mr. Short's, and I eventually worked my way backwards. I was introduced to him about four or five years ago (I'm only twenty six) by someone I met while seeing Woody at The Carlyle. This album is the closest one can get to seeing Mr. Short, and what his modern shows are like. Great brass, intimate setting and wonderful songs performed by Mr. Short with his legendary phrasing and delievery, are soon to be no more after this year. For the past three years I have been around the world in the military, two or three times a year traveling back home to see him. But when I cannot, I put on this album, grab a drink, and listen to this wonderful recording. No one with any musical taste that I have played this album to did not enjoy it. Must buy.

If you don't smile seeing and hearing Bobby Short perform, check yourself for a pulse. Just hearing him on CDs like this one are enough to get me grinning for hours. After 30 years at the Cafe Carlyle, and at least 60 in the business, he still infuses each performance, each song, each phrase with an honest joy whose infectiousness is communicable by CD. Get yourself some.

I have enjoyed Bobby Short for a couple of decades. I have seen and heard him at the Carlyle and have never been disappointed. I have always felt, and I still do, that Bobby short and Mabel Mercer were the two best interpreters of American popular songs ever. I recall hearing Mable Mercer at the Carlyle when she was quite old, and she had lost her voice. We lovers of her music refused to hear the notes she missed; we heard only the young Mabel. Unfortunately in short's celebration of 30 years at the Carlyle reflected every one of those three decades. When I bought this CD I had assumed that I was buying the old standards, made when he still had a voice. But not so. These were re-cut when his voice was all gone, and to make matters worse, instead of the simple accompaniment of bass and drums, he has a full 10 piece orchestra that only adds to the sadness of it all. I was unable to listen to the whole thing. Oh, how the mighty are fallen. I shall probably never listen to it again. Sad, sad.

I SAW BOBBY SHORT SING THESE VERY SAME SONGS AT THE CAFE CARLYLE LAST YEAR. IT IS HIS BEST WORK. HIS VOICE IS LIKE SINATRA'S IN THAT IT HAS MELLOWED OVER THE YEARS. AN AMERICAN ICON.