I can't imagine a better showcase for Bobby Nesbitt than the Rooftop. The piano bar allows fans to get up close. Bobby is such an intimate performer. The friendly atmosphere is perfect. Devotees are in abundance, friends like Jim and Anne Fisher, Michael Mulligan, Marjorie Paul Shook, Vera Schiff and so many others.
"Stardust" is a great opener. Bobby Nesbitt knows his audience and sings their favorite songs without prompting. "From This Moment On" is rousing. Now Bobby slows down the tempo for "Lullaby In Ragtime", one of his best numbers.
He celebrates Anne Fisher's birthday with "You Make Me Feel So Young". Mr. Nesbitt has a magical quality that brings people back again and again. Bobby gives us a brand new Bob Esty arrangement of "I'll Be Seeing You".
Now that he has us captured, he sings an original, claiming he's "Stuck Behind the Conch Train", a feeling we locals know well. For Ginger, Bobby sings "Skylark", a marvelous Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer ballad. "Mame" is wonderful. It is followed by another besutiful ballad, "The Nearness Of You". Nesbitt is irresistable with this kind of romantic material, which reminds me of his newest CD, "Big Time".
If you love this kind of music, go get yourself a copy. I've never heard anyone perform "Teach Me Tonight" better, anywhere on any recording, and I've probably heard a hundred singers do the song. The CD is pure magic with Bob Esty's sublime arrangements.
Is it doing well? In addition to the some five hundred radio stations playing it, you can hear "Big Time" on Delta Airlines flights. They've added another two-month run. The big news, however is that the CD is one of 24 chosen for the Olympics venues.
Bobby is a fine pianist as well as a singer. He entertains us with a medley from "Mack and Mabel" by Jerry Herman (a former Key Wester), "Movies" and "I Will Send Roses". Next we hear Bobby's favorite song (and one of mine) "They Can't Take That Away From Me", followed by an emotional blockbuster, Steven Sondheim's "Not While I'm Around".
Bobby finishes the set with the humourous "Money" and a tune from the movie "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", "You and I Are Going On Together", and his own "Key West Song".
If you want to hear this kind of music performed flawlessly in a delightful ambience, go hear Bobby Nesbitt at the Rooftop, Tuesday or Thursday from six pm.
Stay cool.