A Jazz Aristocrat

You could live to be 80 years old, as Bobby Short did, and never read a kinder obituary/eulogy. Jazz trumpeter Eric Felten pens a poignant tribute to the cabaret singer in today's Wall Street Journal.

I'll confess to having just the slightest acquaintance with Mr. Short's music, but I will rectify that in the days ahead. I, too, like the standards, the ballads, the cabaret style. It's what I love.

I also liked this paragraph:

Mr. Short was born in 1924 and grew up in Danville, Ill., the penultimate of 10 children. One could say that it was ironic that Mr. Short--a Midwestern kid--became an iconic New Yorker. Ironic, too, that an African-American man would come to embody the sort of glittering, bygone world of high society that, in the 1930s, would hardly have welcomed him. But then again, it isn't really ironic at all. Mr. Short lived an American life that was in perfect harmony with the songs he sang, one in which any man, every man, can be an aristocrat if he just takes the trouble to gain some sophistication.

As my buddy AlexC might say: "F*ck Yeah!"

On the web Posted by jk at March 23, 2005 10:32 AM