Monument to Perseverance

Last week in New York’s Central Park, Bobby Short, perhaps the world’s best-known cabaret singer, capped an 18-year effort on behalf of his hero, Duke Ellington, with the unveiling of a memorial statue to the composer-bandleader.

“It was a stunning day in New York,” Short said from his Manhattan apartment. “There were over a thousand people there to see it. The mayor and two former mayors. Ellington’s sister and his granddaughter.

“It was quite a riveting spectacle with the monument veiled in gold satin and the wind blowing around and under it, making a kind of sculpture of its own. There were three wonderful bands playing Ellington’s music, and Wynton [Marsalis] played a wonderful selection. And the sculpture itself is monumental and quite beautiful.”

Short is the founder and president of the Duke Ellington Memorial Fund, which commissioned Venice, Calif.-based sculptor Robert Graham to create the work.

Ellington was always Short’s “great idol.”

“When I was 4, I was trying to play Duke Ellington songs that I heard on the radio. And I was thrilled to meet him in person when I was 12 or 13. It gave my life added meaning.”

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Though a self-described “saloon” singer, Short, like Ellington, is known for his sophistication, elegance and charm. His nearly 30-year run at New York’s Cafe Carlyle, where he presents the works of such master American composers as Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Ellington, has made him probably the most celebrated cabaret artist on the planet.

Still, Short has always found time for civic-minded causes. Besides his work on behalf of the Ellington Fund, he is a trustee at the Studio Museum in Harlem and a board member at the city’s Third Street Music School Settlement House. On Saturday, he will perform at Newport Beach’s Fashion Island to benefit the YWCA South Orange County’s Hotel for Homeless Women.

Short, 72, attributes his charitable leanings to his upbringing in Danville, Ill.

“We were middle class in spirit only,” he said.” We had middle-class ideals, went to school, got dressed up on Sundays and went to church. But economically, we had little.”

The experience, as outlined in his 1971 autobiography, “Black and White Baby,” continues to affect his life.

“It gave me hope and the courage to keep my feet on the ground. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, but unfortunately I’ve never had the kind of world-shaking success of many pop musicians, never had the lucky break to sell 5 million copies overnight. But it’s kept me anchored. I feel prepared for any shift in my fortunes because of my Depression upbringing.”

The pianist-singer, closely associated with New York City (Short has a second home in France), also lived in Southern California for 12 years in the 1940s and ‘50s, and it’s here that he polished his craft.

“I consider my years [in Los Angeles] as the beginnings of my saloon career.”

Most important to that period was his four-year stint at the Cafe Gala, above Sunset Strip in the building that until recently housed Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant Spago. Beginning in 1948, Short performed for many of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities at the Hollywood-adjacent nightspot.

The Cafe Gala “was a very special place,” Short said. “There’s been nothing like it before or since in Souther California. It had a very intelligent, very sophisticated crowd, lots of movie stars, lots of socialites, people of all kinds and colors, both gay and straight. It was very small, only seating some 75 people, but it was considered very chic. Everybody came in; Bette Davis, Robert Mitchum, Betty Grable, Cesar Romero, Lena Horne. It was very cosmopolitan.”

And a great proving ground for the emerging talent.

“You learned a great deal with an audience that sophisticated. There I was, a black performer seated at the piano singing songs from Broadway shows. There were no do’s and don’ts. I had the freedom to be myself.”

But Short had to go to Paris and, finally, New York, to gain international recognition. Appearances on the television program “Playboy After Dark” introduced him to the nation at large. Then, in 1968, he moved into the lounge in New York’s Hotel Carlyle, where he has performed a portion of each year since.

Short hasn’t seen much change in his audience in the intervening years.

“I have a young crowd, but with people of all colors, ages and persuasions, which is wonderful. But the Carlyle is a small domain. A packed house is 100 people, so it’s not like I’m playing Yankee Stadium. To reach a thousand people, I have to play for over a week.”

While the audiences haven’t changed much, the nightclub business has.

“There were a tremendous amount of nightclubs in Los Angeles when I was there,” he said, “but now that’s diminished to almost nothing. Outside of New York, the nightclub really doesn’t exist. In that sense, the Carlyle stands alone.

“There’s something wonderful about people sitting that close to an entertainer, the mixture, the response, the exchange between entertainer and audience. That’s all very precious. And it’s very much limited to the nightclub; you won’t find it anywhere else. When it finally goes out of our culture, it will be one of the truly sad things.”

* Bobby Short appears in a benefit for the YWCA South Orange County Hotel for Homeless Women at the Fashion Island Courtyard (in front of Bloomingdale’s), Newport Beach, 8 p.m. Saturday, $45. A pre-event black-tie dinner at 6 p.m with VIP concert seating is $150. (714) 542-3577 or Ticketmaster (714) 740-2000.