Bobby Short Sings Coleman and Leigh: My Personal Favorite

"Delightful!"  Dad said, listening to Bobby Short sing songs by Cy Coleman; and then, a few rhymes later, "Just delightful!"

Forty years after I first played Bobby Short's LP My Personal Property, I can't add much to Dad's one word review.  But I'll try to be more specific.

Opening with the promise that "The Best is Yet to Come," the first minute of the album exemplifies what we'll hear all the way through.

First, there's elegance: Cy Coleman's signature vamp, still used in ads today as shorthand for sophistication, is a series of chords snaking down in half-steps, lightly struck on the off-beat, with bass and brushes softly setting an ambling tempo.

Then, there's a playfulness that keeps us off-balance, surprising us from first song to last. Carolyn Leigh's first line is a bit ripe, but her idea clicks in place with the second and third rhymes (numbers highlighting the pattern of rhymes):

Off of the Tree of Life, I just picked me a plum (1);
You came along, and ev'rything started to hum (1).
Still, it's a real good bet (2), the best is yet (2) to come (1). 

Coleman sets "plum" and its rhymes on two syllables, two pitches, sliding down to suggest -- what? a tease? sensual pleasure? Playfulness, for sure.

Pulling it all together is Bobby Short's presence, vocal and instrumental.  He draws out the"m" in "plum" as if savoring something sweet; the "t" in "yet" and "bet" is percussive, contrast to the languid end rhymes. He plays rich block chords or perky little fills in the spaces between phrases, an updated version of how an opera musician accompanies classical recitative:  The music punctuates, but leaves space for the words.  Short's longtime accompanists Beverly Peer on bass and Dick Sheridan on drums discreetly offer variety and emphasis, but the words are always paramount.

Bobby plays a different character with an edge of sarcasm in his voice when he begins "I've Got Your Number":

You've got no time for me,
You've got big things to do.
Well, my fine chickadee,
I've got hot news for you!

For all the playfulness of Coleman and Leigh, Bobby can wring deep feeling from their songs, too.  I'm touched by the final line of "It Amazes Me," because Leigh has set it up so well.  She piles up rhymes, assonance, alliteration, with words in quick succession, amazes, dazzles, dazes, ways, praises, leading us to a conclusion that clicks into place as the inevitable, right, and meaningful topper:

I'm the one who's worldly wise
And nothing much fazes me,
But to see me in her eyes --
It just amazes me. 

Bobby's voice is tender, here, as he plays the sophisticated man of accomplishment who hasn't thought of himself as lovable.

Coleman and Leigh spring their surprises on us in every number, here.  In the liner notes to the album, Rogers E.M. Whitaker says it well:

The Coleman-Leigh legend could live forever on "Witchcraft" alone.  Its glittery, stainless-steel structure, the diamond-cut-diamond humor in the wording, offer a fully equipped playground for Master Short, who knows exactly where every accent, every twist of the tongue should fall.

Just today, Mom and I had to laugh over a triple - rhyme from "Witchcraft" that we've heard dozens of times:

When you arouse that need in me, 
My heart says "yes, indeed" in me.
Proceed with what you're leadin' me to.... 

 Other examples abound from other songs.

On the other side of that line
Where the life is fancy and free,
Gonna sit and fan
On my fat divan
While the butler buttles the tea...  ("On the Other Side of the Tracks")

It's the kiss that defies every dictionary.
Tell you this, though, whatever it is,
It's very.      ("It's")

My favorite may be the one with outrageously long phrases, a dozen "-ate" rhymes (including "reprobate!") and double-entendre that points up the tension between our singer and the silent object of his attention:

I have a feeling underneath that little halo on your noble head
There lies a thought or two the devil might be interested to know.
You're like the finish of a novel that I'll finally have to take to bed -
You fascinate me so!    ("You Fascinate Me So")

I know from reading Bobby Short's The Life and Times of a Saloon Singer that he recorded this album just when this kind of song was being edged out by Bob Dylan and folk music, just a year before the Beatles made their US debut.   It's such a shame, because Coleman and Leigh were bringing new life to the tradition of Porter and Gershwin, building on the work of those pioneers to create songs even more dazzling in variety and wordplay.

I got to see Bobby Short at the Cafe Carlyle in June, 1977, but I was so distracted by not having enough cash to pay cover charge, minimum tab and required tip, that I don't recall the experience, except that Mr. Short, passing by me on his way to the piano, really was short.

When he came to Atlanta around the same time, I had reservations to see him with my mentor Frank Boggs, but I got flu, and my buddy Mark went instead.  Mr. Short invited my friends up to his hotel room for hours of talk after the show.  Reportedly, he was very kind, and pretty annoyed at how customers continued to talk while he played.  "I imagine the two or three people who are out there appreciating every word, and I sing to them," he told Mark.

He and I did sing a duet, once.  In  June 1983, he performed at Chastain Park Amphitheater north of Atlanta.  I sat with eighth graders in a back row.  Mr. Short began a famous verse by Cole Porter: "As Dorothy Parker once said to her boyfriend --."  He paused, and said, "What did she say, Atlanta?"  I shouted, "Fare thee well."  "Very good!" he said, and we continued line by line to the end of the verse, he setting it up, I finishing the rhyme.  "Who says Atlantans aren't smart?" he said, before launching into the chorus of "Just One of Those Things."  Everyone turned to look; the eighth graders were mortified. 

I had plans to see him in New York in 2005, when he died of leukemia.

This album stands out, even above his tributes to Porter, Gershwin, Rodgers & Hart, and Coward.  The title song, the one with lyrics by Dorothy Fields, ends a catalogue of New York sights with this exuberant line:  "Since today I feel New York is really my personal property -- I'm gonna split it with you."

I'm happy to share the good news about Bobby Short's My Personal Property.