Steve Ross at Birdland

Steve Ross
Birdland
New York, NY
May 19, 2025

The food was great and the service fine, so you'd be forgiven for confusing Birdland with the cozy confines of the Oak Room at the Algonquin, circa 1981. Nevertheless, there we were (or weren't) as cabaret great Steve Ross took the Birdland stage and wowed another adoring audience, as he first did more than 45 years ago. Dressed smartly in a rich velvety dinner jacket—purportedly a gift from the Noel Coward estate—Ross made the Great American songbook his own, reminding us once again of the wonderful heritage of Tin Pan Alley.

The evening's theme was "love songs old and new," or, as the Ross put it, "spelunking" through the Great American Songbook. Kicking things off in jaunty fashion with the Jule Styne chestnut "Just in Time" from the Broadway musical "Bells are Ringing" (lyrics by Comden and Green and, coincidentally, the title of the new Bobby Darin bioplay running eight blocks north at Circle in the Square), Ross smoothly segued into Styne's "Time After Time," cruising thru the Sammy Cahn lyric with a well-honed aplomb. As he propelled the piano through the Kern-Hammerstein classic "All the Things You Are," replete with a piano break full of rich, handsome chords, you had to concur that love was indeed in the air.

On, then, to one of Ross's staples, the Gershwin oeuvre, skirting between a lyrical "S'Wonderful" thru songbook stand-outs like "He Loves and She Loves," "Nice Work If You Can Get It," "Embraceable You" and "Our Love Is Here to Stay," Ross wearing each one like a comfortable pair of shoes. A trenchant "Look Over There" from Jerry Herman's Broadway hit "La Cage Aux Folles" touched hearts and prompted a few tears within the sold-out boite.

Broadway provided more than a few gems for Ross's repertoire. Pairing a winsome "Where Is Love" from Lionel Bart's "Oliver" with "Only Love" from "Zorba" compliments of Kander and Ebb, he repeatedly established his Broadway bona fides, including the late great Stephen Sondheim, represented here with "Who Could Be Blue," cut from "Follies" but resurrected in the off-Broadway revue "Marry Me a Little." Speaking of off-Broadway, particularly enjoyable was Ross's achingly lovely rendition of "Old Friend" from Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford's backstage musical "I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It On the Road."

No Steve Ross gig is complete without a tip of the cap to Cole Porter. Ross resonated with the boy from Indiana, vamping through versions of "I Get a Kick Out of You," "So Easy to Love" and the witty "Anything Goes," from which he quoted several rarely-heard stanzas. More Porter followed with "I Concentrate On You" and "In the Still of the Night."

Oscar Hammerstein knew his way around a lyric and Ross did him proud with two more paeans to love: "Only Make Believe" (music by Jerome Kern) and "If I Loved You" from Hammerstein's Broadway hit "Carousel" with Richard Rodgers. Rodgers' collaboration with Larry Hart yielded "With a Song in My Heart" and "My Romance," followed by a wistful rendition of Bob Hope's old theme song "Thanks for the Memories" and the Sinatra standard "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning."

Steve Ross thrives in this element, making the Irving Berlin classic "I Love a Piano" a perfect coda for the evening's delights. As long as it is Ross's hands on that keyboard and his voice behind a microphone, so do we.