“Bobby Short came to personify what he sang about. He was that miraculous instant when Ginger Rogers takes Fred Astaire’s hand and whirls toward him, white gown alight. He was every bulb in the Chrysler Building’s crown, every first grown-up kiss, every Tiffany box hidden in a pocket. When Bobby Short entered the small spotlight in that Upper East Side hangout, depression large and small dissolved into the champagne; history’s headlines and your own true stories were gladly left at home. When his job was over, you strolled into the New York night, succored. Of course we knew it was fool’s gold, but the glamour and potential that the big city offered us when we were young became real again in the Cafe Carlyle, at the other end of a voice.”