POP MUSIC REVIEW : Short: Eclectic Mix at Ebell Theatre

Bobby Short was in fine form Wednesday night during a rare L.A. appearance at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.

Performing a benefit concert for AIDS Project/Los Angeles, he sounded a bit hoarse at the start of his program. But the Short singing style--so precise, articulate, up-front and declamatory--is far too good to be bothered by a rampant frog in the throat.

Backed by Beverly Peer on bass and Robert Scott on drums, the cherubic-looking Short played and sang a characteristically fascinating mix of the familiar and the obscure.

An easy-rocking “Drop Me Off in Harlem” featured a chorus of rhythmic Short humming. “There’s an Island in the West Indies” was rich with elusive cross-rhythms, and Short used lesser-known choruses to reinvent “I Can’t Get Started.”

Promising to provide a medley of “very, very grown-up songs for an advanced person to sing,” he dug into the Cole Porter closet and came up with the sardonic “I’m a Gigolo” and “Mr. and Mrs. Fitch.”

Every piece, despite Short’s deceptively casual manner, was performed with a remarkable meticulousness; Peer and Scott know every twist and turn in the Short manner, and underscored his interpretations with brisk, subtle, vitally important musical underpinnings.