Steppin' Out at 54 Below: KATE BALDWIN & AARON LAZAR

More years ago than I choose to remember, in 1980 if you really want to know, I published my first book, co-written with my then-boss at Rolling Stone magazine, Susanne Weil. We called it STEPPIN’ OUT: A Guide to Live Music in Manhattan.

STEPPIN’ OUT was Susanne’s idea. It was to be (and remains) an ear-witness guide to Manhattan’s musical night life circa 1980, which at that moment still encompassed almost 30 piano bars (don’t get me started on the lost loveliness of piano bars), a commensurate number of cabarets, even more jazz spots, nightclubs, rock and roll joints, folk cafes, and more.

Writing STEPPIN’ OUT was a hoot and a holler, as you may imagine; Susanne and I divvied up the music map up and down Manhattan Isle, planning to cover the abundance of the city’s music scene in digestible alternating bites. We then largely went to every damn place together because neither of us wanted to miss any of them. The nights were long, and the eclectic sounds defied any mix tape.

The book has been out-of-print ever since and is today a not-even-collector’s item. I once thought it would make a great documentary or a compelling audio book or even a podcast, a passel of spiffy Instagram posts, maybe one tart TikTok video, but none of these ever came to pass.

The city’s live music scene has meanwhile contracted vertiginously since STEPPIN’ OUT first appeared; terrifyingly so, once COVID hit.

I’ve been itching to get back out there, but masked night crawling struck me as a sinister oxymoron, to say the least.  With COVID seemingly receding, however, I’ve slowly begun steppin’ out, hesitantly, once again, revisiting those survivor music venues that have managed to outlive the pandemic, like The Village Vanguard, as I recently wrote.

The other night, I returned to 54 Below, the finest old-school cabaret supper club left standing, a pressed-tin-paneled pleasure cellar coseted beneath the old Studio 54, that first opened in 2012. My plan, with the club’s blessing, is to go back weekly for a while and give a live-and-in-person account of what live-and-in-person means these days in a Broadway showtune sense; which is to say, as NYC has long romanticized itself.

The headliners at 54 Below this week (through tonight) are the divine Broadway songstress Kate Baldwin, teamed with the correspondingly divine Aaron Lazar. A jokey point they banter about is how stage work seems to throw them together every ten years or so. This patter patois of live cabaret is tempered sweetly by Ms. Baldwin and Mr. Lazar’s obvious, sincere affection for one another, a line between endearing and innuendo that they tread cleanly (Mr. Lazar even introduced his fiancé from the audience the night I went).

I also got a kick out of their showbizzy shout-out to Clive Davis, the beyond-legendary recording exec, who was seated at 54 Below’s center-banquette equivalent of the Queen’s Box. His presence brought me back full circle to Rolling Stone, where my first-ever assignment as a college intern was to interview Mr. Davis in his office about the audiophile intricacies of his stereo equipment. As I recall, he had hellaciously good speakers.

The real news I bring from KATE BALDWIN & AARON LAZAR: ALL FOR YOU at 54 Below is how superbly the two stars match up vocally and how gloriously they both sing. You can (and really should), catch one of their last shows live tonight, or at the very least Livestreamed at 7pm. Their set list is centered around Jason Robert Brown’s Tony-winning 2014 score for The Bridges of Madison County (which Baldwin and Lazar apparently co-starred in last year at New Jersey’s Axelrod Performing Arts Center). The lush songs from that show are among Mr. Brown’s best, with an emotional ranginess that brings out the rarefied dimension of the two singers’ artistry.

Ms. Baldwin also serves up her signature number, “That Old Black Magic,” from Finian’s Rainbow, the 2009 revival of which brought her first Tony nomination and launched her big-time career. Mr. Lazar counters with a smoldering “Il Mondo Era Vuoto,” from Adam Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza, a song that he originally sang in the 2006 “Live from Lincoln Center” broadcast of that Tony-winning production, after inheriting the leading role of Georgio from Matthew Morrison.

There are more fireworks — some of it Sondheim-eque, of course — “Could I Leave You” from Follies for Baldwin; “Finishing the Hat” from Sunday in the Park for Lazar; “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd for the both of them. (A gutsy choice, with the acclaimed Groban/Ashford revival just a few streets away. Yes, I’ve seen it. The piece is percolating and will soon appear.)

Accompanying all of this smashing nightclub singing was an eight-piece, string-dominated, ensemble (no horns) distilled from the American Pops Orchestra, with its leader Luke Frazier on piano, as music director. Of all the gin joints in all the pages of STEPPIN’ OUT, few (if any), ever offered accompaniment as generously and lustrously sized as this. In the New York nightlife continuum, score one for 54 Below.