Barry Lloyd’s celebration of Bobby Short is indeed a tribute to the long-time Café Carlyle icon, but Lloyd makes no attempt to impersonate his subject.  There unquestionably are echoes of Bobby Short, as well as some of Mabel Mercer, in Lloyd’s part-conversational, part-dramatic delivery.  But Lloyd is a far more animated vocalist who, one might say, takes the baton from Bobby Short and runs with it an extra mile.

Although he claims his classical piano training ended when he was still in his teens, and he turned his attention to pop, Lloyd is a forceful and accomplished pianist.  At the Metropolitan Room piano, his arrangements are well tailored to his personalized, oft-playful renditions that are neatly supported by Saadi Zain on bass and drummer David Silliman. This is clearly Lloyd’s show.  The two instrumentalists are less part of an ensemble than a source of well-placed accents and backing to Lloyd’s keyboarding and singing.

Bobby Short had taste in the songs he selected, and Lloyd benefits from a rich collection from which to choose, mostly from the ‘twenties and ‘thirties.  Composer Vernon Duke garnered the most hits, with five selections included, two with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, two with Yip Harburg’s words, and one, the lovely “Autumn in New York,” where Duke created both words and music.

Lloyd handles all his songs well, but a few stand out: a exuberant “Hooray for Love,” an uptempo “Sand in My Shoes,” and a joyous, rollicking Bobby Short and Bessie Smith favorite, “Gimme a Pigfoot,” that had opening night heads swaying and feet tapping. At the conclusion of that one, he yielded to an impassioned plea from Julie Wilson, who was in the audience, and did it again.

Early in the show, Lloyd describes at length his teenaged search for Noël Coward songs (although he now admits he can’t conceive of why, at fourteen, he was looking for songs by Coward).  However, eureka!  The collection he found was recorded by Bobby Short, unknown to him before that, and was the source of Lloyd’s admiration for Short.  Oddly, after a lengthy exposition on the subject, Lloyd launches into Vernon Duke and Yip Harburg’s “I Like the Likes of You,” postponing the only Coward number in the show, “If Love Were All,” until much later.

Lloyd has piano skills, good pipes, enthusiasm and appeal.  If that doesn’t do it, I’ll wait until the real thing comes along.  (Okay, I “borrowed” that.)  Lloyd, a West Coaster, plays again at the Metropolitan Room on Wednesday, October 14.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
October 12, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org