The New York Times-20080128-Bernstein-s New York- West Side And Beyond- -Review-

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Bernstein's New York: West Side And Beyond; [Review]

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In case you've forgotten: New York, New York, it's a helluva town! Those words by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, borne aloft on the music of Leonard Bernstein, were wafted high into the stratosphere by the singers Gavin Creel and Kate Baldwin at the Allen Room on Friday evening.

The occasion was a thrilling tribute to Bernstein conceived by the conductor, pianist and music-theater scholar Rob Fisher. This was no tossed-together anthology but a conceptually focused, musically incisive celebration of Bernstein's passionate identification with New York City and with George Gershwin. It was made all the more magical by the view of the city through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the performers.

Only 20 years Bernstein's senior, Gershwin was as obsessed as Bernstein with capturing the essence of the city that never sleeps. During a program that combined Bernstein's songs and instrumental dance music into an 80-minute suite with minimal interruptions, Mr. Fisher pointed out passages in which Bernstein briefly quoted Gershwin while adding his own modernist touches. As a conductor Mr. Fisher has brought a special airiness to his performances of Broadway music. Friday's selection of songs emphasized a mood of euphoric anticipation, broken only by the Lonely Town dance music from On the Town.

That Mr. Fisher could create such a rich musical portrait using only seven musicians, including the singers, was a tribute to his understanding of the scores and his skill at paring down full-bodied orchestral arrangements to a skeletal core. The Mambo, from West Side Story, with which the Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the populous Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra recently blew the roof off Carnegie Hall, lost little in Mr. Fisher's reduction to the percussive essentials.

If anything, this astounding fusion of bebop and Afro-Cuban rhythms in a theatrical format sounded more radical. This is American melting pot music at full boil. The cooler but marginally less tricky Something's Coming, sung by Mr. Creel, sounded almost as innovative with the rhythmic bones jutting into its flesh.

A crucial element was the percussionist Erik Charlston, whose vibraphone often doubled Mr. Fisher's piano to produce a marimbalike effect. Rounding out the ensemble were Steve Kenyon on woodwinds, Greg Utzig on guitar, and Dick Sarpola on bass.

The near-perfect casting of Mr. Creel, a clean-cut male ingenue who didn't overplay the apple-cheeked innocent, and Ms. Baldwin, a red-headed lollipop in a shiny red dress lent their 1940s and '50s postcards the right blend of sweetness and sass. There's only one word to describe Ms. Baldwin's frisky presentation of culinary and erotic delights scrambled mischievously together in I Can Cook Too: delectable.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Gavin Creel and Kate Baldwin singing Bernstein songs. (PHOTOGRAPH BY RICHARD TERMINE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)