Life is too Short

It saddens me to note the passing at 80 of famed New York cabaret singer Bobby Short.
Mrs. TD and I saw Bobby Short, live at the Cafe Carlyle in the Carlyle Hotel, exactly twice. The first time was on Mrs. TD’s birthday just two weeks before the Loquacious Pup was born, and then precisely five years later (last November, actually) on another of Mrs. TD’s birthdays. (After the performance, Mrs. TD managed to track Bobby down, and had him autograph a c.d. for her.) Short was scheduled to retire, but was talked out of it, and went out the way he had been going since he was a child: still working as a performer.
Bobby Short held court at his piano, surrounded by his nine-piece (or was it fifteen-piece?) combo, as he belted out standards by Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, and the like, in a genuine, and now gone, piece of New York style and sophistication. Short managed to become one of the few African Americans inducted into the Social Register, for whatever that’s worth. Hanging out with the elitest of the elitist, but for a couple of hundred bucks for dinner and the show, anyone and everyone were welcome… the democracy of elegance.
There was something so human about the whole thing. An entertainer who sang using his actual voice (which had been more velvety smooth in an earlier era, but in its mature state, had a character all its own) in a human size room, singing standards…
Something that will be missed. Someone who will be missed. Life goes on, of course. Just a little bit diminished.