Jane Scheckter : Loves, Adores, Misses Bobby Short
Loves, Adores, Misses Bobby Short
Cafe Noctambulo at Pangea, NYC, April 2, 2015
Reviewed by Elizabeth Ahlfors for Cabaret Scenes
Jane Scheckter Loves, Adores, Misses Bobby Short—it’s one of those shows that refuses to go away. And why should it, when she so eloquently evokes memories of Bobby Short at his Café Carlyle grand piano? When Scheckter opens her show with “Sand in My Shoes” (Frank Loesser/Victor Schertzinger), remembering to include a Short-stress in the line, “that was Havana,” you automatically reach for a cocktail. When pianist Tedd Firth digs into the vamp of Harold Arlen and E.Y.Harburg’s “Down with Love,” we all celebrate Bobby.
Jane Scheckter first tipped her hat to Bobby Short with this show at Erv Raible’s Eight-Eight’s in 1996, and later at Danny’s Skylight Room in 2006. Now, ten years after his death, Scheckter is reviving it in a three-performance run—April 2, 9, 16—at Cafe Noctambulo at Pangea. Her Great American Songbook selections rangs from Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s dreamy “My Romance” to Bobby Short’s familiar finale, Cole Porter’s racing “Just One of Those Things.” A theatrical highpoint is three views of love: “(I’ve Got) Beginner’s Luck” (George and Ira Gershwin), and Porter’s “So Near and Yet So Far” and “It’s Bad For Me.”
One of cabaret’s premier songbirds, Scheckter caresses all the seductive nuances in songs, like Porter’s “I’m in Love Again.” She relates to the young love in Alec Wilder”s “Is It Always Like This?,” with phrasing that is astute and a full voice with breath control that lands her note right where it belongs.
Short always chose the best accompanists to play with him and, similarly, Scheckter is accompanied by a black-tie trio led by Firth on piano, Jay Leonhart on bass and Peter Grant on drums. Who swings better than this group?
Jane Scheckter, with her confident vocal power and joy of singing, recalls that first show at Eighty-Eight’s, when the honoree himself exclaimed to guests at his table, “I adored it. It was adorable. It was a valentine to me.” Bobby Short would surely agree that her tribute is still a valentine he can treasure.
Jane continues to “love, adore and miss Bobby Short” at Cafe Noctambulo at Pangea April 9 & 16 at 7 pm.
Category: Cabaret Reviews, New York City, New York City Cabaret Reviews
