If you try to do that in pop music – to play only rare show tunes, for example – people don’t come.
About Bobby Short
Robert Waltrip Shortwas an American cabaret singer and pianist who interpreted songs by popular composers from the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Richard A. Whiting, Vernon Duke, Noel Coward and George and Ira Gershwin.
Short also championed African-American composers of the same period such as Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Andy Razaf, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, presenting their work not in a polemical way, but as simply the obvious equal of that of their white contemporaries.
More quotes from Bobby Short
If you try to do that in pop music – to play only rare show tunes, for example – people don’t come.
American singer and pianist (1924-2005)
Even in today’s opera world, the position of the black tenor is problematic.
American singer and pianist (1924-2005)
Once in a while, I try to sneak in something less known anyway.
American singer and pianist (1924-2005)
I was very young at the time, and I mainly appreciated their vocal qualities, even though I was already living as they did – as black performers in a white world.
American singer and pianist (1924-2005)
But life is tough and if you’re creative, it’s tougher.
American singer and pianist (1924-2005)