Bobby Short Centennial Celebration

Dizzy’s, Jazz at Lincoln Center
October 10
Loston Harris Trio, 7 p.m.
Charles Turner III and His Trio, 9 p.m. 

Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center
October 23
‘I’m In Love Again’ With Bobby Short – A Centennial Celebration

The late Bobby Short told me that he was so determined in 1971 to do a Cole Porter songbook album — which turned out to be an ambitious two LP package — that he went to his producers at Atlantic Records and offered to subsidize the project out of his own pocket: If the records didn’t sell, he would take the hit himself. 

He needn’t have worried: “Bobby Loves Cole Porter” not only sold fabulously well, but it led to three more equally spectacular double-LP sets: “Bobby Short is Mad About Noël Coward”  (1972), “Bobby Short is K-R-A-ZY for Gershwin” (1973), and “Bobby Short Celebrates Rodgers & Hart” (1975).

Thus it follows that since Dizzy’s at Jazz at Lincoln Center is now presenting a two-night, two-artist celebration of the 100th birthday of the great Bobby Short, Cole Porter should predominate. I’ve never seen Dizzy’s do this before: As was the case on Wednesday, pianist and singer Loston Harris goes on at 7 p.m. Thursday, followed by vocalist Charles Turner III at 9 p.m. Both artists are fronting trios, and they both are opening with Cole Porter.

Loston Harris still seems like a young man even though he has already enjoyed a 22-year residency at the Cafe Carlyle and Bemelmans — where he got to know Bobby Short very well, at the end of Short’s career and the beginning of his own. He is a fine singer and an absolute demon of a piano player, a hardcore improviser who really digs into the chord changes and swings like crazy.  

Mr. Harris conveys a reckless sense of abandon as well as an overarching capacity for structure and organization — somehow those two things can exist at the same time in his playing — qualities that always remind me of Erroll Garner. He also demonstrates an understanding of and respect for the Great American Songbook that places him in the same spectrum as Bill Charlap.

Mr. Harris started with “You’re the Top” and “At Long Last Love,” offering enough harmonic and rhythmic thrills in the latter to assure us that we were indeed in Granada, and not Asbury Park. His current trio features the veteran drummer Carmen Intorre Jr. as well as bassist James Camack. The latter played for so long with the legendary Ahmad Jamal that every time I now hear him with a younger, contemporary pianist, such as Joe Alterman or Mr. Harris, I can’t help but hear a little of Jamal in the mix.  Together, the three of them translate not only Porter, but Andy Razaf (“S’posin’”) and Jule Styne (“All I Need is The Girl,” “I Fall in Love Too Easily”), into a series of rolling, rollcking riffs.

Charles Turner III took the stage with his trio, pianist Addison Frei, drummer Kevin Congleton, and even bassist Brandi Disterheft, all in traditional, Bobby Short-style tuxedos. They launched with “All of You,” and the set also included Porter’s “Just One of Those Things,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “I Happen to Like New York,” and “From This Moment On.” 

It’s been too long since I’ve seen Mr. Turner in performance, and he has matured considerably. He sings in a high baritone — a kind of bari-tenor — that, should he so desire, would enable him to also sing the songbook of Little Jimmy Scott or even Bill Kenny and the Ink Spots. The voice is high and light, but powerful and full of conviction — swinging too, when it needs to be.  

He also treated us to works by two of Short’s favorite composers: Stephen Sondheim, with “Good Thing Going” and “Losing My Mind,” and Cy Coleman, with “Real Live Girl.” The latter was an unusual chart set in 4/4 instead of the customary waltz time.

Mr. Turner started “Just One Of Those Things” with a Short-like audience-participation routine in which he began with the familiar verse, “As Dorothy Parker once said to her boyfriend,” and then asked the crowd, “What did she say?” And so on through the quotes of Columbus to Queen Isabella, Abelard to Eloise, and even what Juliet cried in her Romeo’s ear. Messrs. Turner and Frei also gave us the full force of “I Happen to Like New York,” one of Porter’s most harmonically adventurous anthems.  

The Bobby Short Centennial Celebration at Jazz at Lincoln Center continues Thursday night at Dizzy’s and then, in two weeks, at Rose Hall with an all-star concert produced by the Mabel Mercer Foundation and hosted by the inestimable Natalie Douglas. That’s great news, but the way that the combined legacies of Bobby Short and Cole Porter continue to inspire young and contemporary musicians and singers is the best news of all.