Bobby Short went five years without recording in the mid-'60s as the British Invasion swept all before it. But his Town Hall concerts with
Mabel Mercer in 1968 led to live duo albums that brought him back to record stores, and his residency at the Cafe Carlyle in New York gave him renewed cachet. Thus, he returned to the recording studio for
Jump for Joy, which he performed with the usual trio of himself on piano and vocals,
Beverly Peer on bass, and
Richard Sheridan on drums. For once, the purveyors of the Great American Songbook were absent: no
Porter or
Gershwin or
Rodgers. Instead,
Short performed a combination of recent songs from Broadway and old, bluesy numbers. The latter seemed to draw the greatest enthusiasm from him as he revisited some tunes he might have played in Midwest roadhouses back in his youth, songs like "Romance in the Dark," "I'm Confessin' That I Love You," and the newly trendy "If You're a Viper," an ode to marijuana use. The inclusion of such a song was a sort of backhanded acknowledgement of the times, and like other middle-of-the-road entertainers during the '60s,
Short also sifted through the work of contemporary writers for suitable material. He found it in
Randy Newman's "Simon Smith & the Amazing Dancing Bear" and
Burt Bacharach and
Hal David's "Whoever You Are I Love You," the latter drawn from the Broadway musical Promises, Promises.
Short also drew from other recent stage shows, plucking "I'm Glad to See You've Got What You Want" from Celebration by
Tom Jones and
Harvey Schmidt of The Fantasticks fame, as well as "I Cannot Make Her Jealous" and "Just for Today" from
Ervin Drake's Her First Roman. Of course, the title song was taken from
Duke Ellington's 1941 musical. This was not material on a par with the songs
Short had sung on past albums and that he was known to play every night at the Cafe Carlyle, and his singing had begun to take on a huskier tone after decades of nightclub work. But even second-drawer
Short on record was welcome after so many years away. ~ William Ruhlmann