Short on Music, Long on Charm

Mabel Mercer also became a meaningful influence. Short’s career took a major leap forward in 1968 when he appeared at Town Hall in New York City with Mercer, who was by then a cabaret icon. In that same year, Short was to get his first engagement at the Cafe Carlyle, where he has performed every year since. About Mercer Short says, “There was an intelligence about what she did, rare in a nightclub singer in those days. She influenced many singers: Sylvia Syms, Barbara Cook, Lena Horne. She had come to the U.S. in the 1930s, like many European performers, to escape the war. She played nightclubs in the late ’30s and early ’40s because that was all she thought she could get. Performers played anywhere they could in those days.”

During his enduring and illustrious career, Short has also performed at the White House, regaling the administrations of Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton with his uniquely sophisticated style. Over the years, reviewers have not stinted on superlatives. Recently Stephen Holden from The New York Times described, “When Mr. Short lights a musical match, he casts a spell that infuses the tiny Cafe Carlyle with the exuberance of a private party at which everyone present shares his sense of the preciousness of the moment and of life’s fleeting pleasures.” Yet, in 1997, Whitney Ballie of The New Yorker observed that Short “has been edging steadily away from his jolly, shouting Cole Porter mode to being a kind of jazz singer who likes to perform slow, late-night husky-voiced versions of ‘Body and Soul.'”

To the latter, Short counters with: “Critics can be shallow sometimes in their evaluation of a performer. Yes, as I’ve gotten older. I’d like to think that I’ve grown more intense, more philosophical, more knowing. But nothing is more boring than sitting through an hour of heartbreak and misery. I am aware of the downside of life, but more than that, I am aware of my role as an entertainer. People come to see me to be entertained, to escape from their problems.”

In a gesture that further counters Ballie’s criticism, Short has expanded his trio to a nine-piece band that now includes three saxophones, trumpet and trombone. He will be bringing this lively ensemble with him for his show at Scullers. When asked to describe what his Boston show will be like, he responds, “I don’t like to label a show. I generally just put some songs together that I think will work for an audience and for me.”

And whether he offers an ebullient “From This Moment On,” sung with reckless abandon, or an intensely sung “I Concentrate On You,” it is clear that Short will never dwell on the maudlin. The philosophy he shares with his audience remains most closely aligned with the Dorothy Fields’ lyric where, in the face of misfortune, you just “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.” He confesses, “I’m a naturally giddy person. I have an extended sense of humor, and I like to laugh. I think laughing is best thing you can do for yourself.”