Jazz Reviews : Bob Dorough Plays a Hip Set at the Vine St. Bar

Bob Dorough might best be characterized as Dave Frishberg with an Arkansas twang. Actually Dorough, who opened Wednesday and will close Saturday at Hollywood’s Vine Street Bar & Grill, is several years Frishberg’s senior, but a decade or two ago both men eased out of early roles as nightclub pianists into popularity as songwriters who performed their own hip material.

Dorough and Frishberg, in fact, collaborated on the song “I’m Hip,” with which Dorough closed his set Wednesday. (Frishberg, who wrote those mordant lyrics, will be at Vine Street next week). For the most part, Dorough’s set matched his melodies with the stylish words of Fran Landesman. He proved his self-sufficiency as sole writer on, for example, “But for Now,” which he introduced as “My hopelessly sentimental ballad.”

His thin, engaging voice is just what you might expect from this pony-tailed stringbean who, when not singing words, may indulge in scatting, humming, whistling, or simply playing very adept quasi-bop piano. Now and then he sings standing up, backed only by the efficient bass of Monty Budwig and the drums of Luis Peralta, whose Argentine background brings authenticity to the Latin numbers.

For Henry Mancini, who was in the room, Dorough cooked up a hard swinging variation on “Moon River.” A highlight of the set was “I Get the Neck of the Chicken,” a 1942 Frank Loesser ditty, during which Jack Sheldon, seated in a booth, supplied an impeccable trumpet chorus. But with or without help from visiting hornmen, Dorough is the quintessential cabaret/jazz entertainer in a field that has produced very few genuine talents.