By Michael Barbieri***“We’re OPEN!” With that joyful call, pianist Gerry Diffenbach began his opening set at The Duplex Piano Bar and Cabaret. That one statement elicited shouts of happiness from the already sizable crowd that had gathered for the second night of the club’s official reopening.
Most everyone who knows me, knows that I’ve been a part of the piano bar and cabaret world for many years. In 1981, I discovered Brandy’s, a little piano bar on the Upper East Side owned by Rob Hoskins and Erv Raible, who also owned The Duplex down in Greenwich Village (originally located at 55 Grove Street). I went down there one night and fell in love with it!
The Duplex has a long and storied past; briefly, the club first opened in 1951 as Upstairs at the Duplex under owner Jimmy di Martino. Jan Wallman, before becoming a legendary club owner herself, managed Upstairs at the Duplex from 1959 to 1962 and again from 1964 to 1968. Ownership eventually passed to Rob and Erv, who owned the club until 1984, when they sold it to Larry Shumel and Rick Panson. In 1989, Panson moved the club to its current location on the corner of Christopher Street and 7th Avenue. The current owner of The Dupex is Tony DeCicco, who was determined to weather the pandemic storm and keep the club going.
Over the 70 years of its existence, The Duplex has been a showcase for legendary talents like Joan Rivers, Barbra Streisand, Woody Allen, Joanne Worley, Richard Pryor and many others. In the 1980s, it was home to cabaret royalty including Charles Busch, Karen Mason, Nancy LaMott and Sharon McNight. The long-running Funny Gay Males show played there, and the original production of Nunsense—then known as The Nunsense Story—began there.
Oh, and The Duplex is where I got my start working as a cabaret technical director—a career I was lucky to enjoy for 20 years!
With all this history, Tony DeCicco certainly wasn’t going to let a global pandemic put the club out of business!
As with a number of piano bars these days, the set list was less show tunes and standards, and more pop-oriented, especially music of the 1970s. So, after Diffenbach’s welcome, he began his set with the Natalie Cole hit, “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love),” which segued into “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You),” recorded and made popular by both Marvin Gaye and James Taylor. The boisterous crowd was hollering and dancing (dancing is actually not allowed, but it was difficult to stop them) as they were clearly ready to party and have FUN! Gerry then gave us Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere” and “Landslide” before moving on to a selection of hits by The Mamas and the Papas. We heard “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” “California Dreamin’,” which had the crowd singing along at the top of its lungs and “Monday, Monday,” which Diffenbach introduced by asking audience members to sing with him in their native language, whether it be English, French, Spanish or… New Jersey!
Of course, the staff was beautifully represented at the mic! First we got Ryan Smith, one of the newest additions to the Duplex’s roster of singing servers. Ryan gave us Meat Loaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).” Tambourines have become a staple at piano bars and I had actually brought my own, so I provided tambo accompaniment! After Gerry provided an interlude of actual show tunes—“All That Jazz” and “I Am My Own Best Friend” from Chicago, server Sally Ann Hall gave us a wonderful rendition of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” and a spirited “…Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears. And that one was a BIG sing-along!
One of my favorite points in the evening came with Diffenbach’s Elton John medley, which featured “Bennie and the Jets,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “Rocket Man.” One of the regular patrons got up and sang “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me” to big applause from the crowd. The Elton set wrapped up with “Your Song,” which became something of a scream-along! Later, Ryan favored us with a Disney medley, Sally Ann gave us her sultry rendition of Alannah Miles’ “Black Velvet” and Gerry whipped up the audience again with, “Seasons of Love” from Rent, David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street.” Before I left, I contributed a little more tambourine on Diffenbach’s cover of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” All in all, it was a wonderful return to normalcy!
Despite the fact that this was only their second night open after more than a year of Covid closure, the entire staff handled the noisy, crazy crowd remarkably well—both indoors and outside in their new sidewalk seating areas. Yes, there were a few times when they showed some frazzled nerves and frustration, but overall, they were cheerful, hard working and professional. I should mention that the cabaret room and upstairs lounge had not reopened yet, but bar manager Jerry Schiffer assured me that the lounge would reopen in time for Gay Pride Day! (And he was true to his word. The upstairs lounge did, in fact reopen prior to Gay Pride and he assured me that it’s been wildly popular in the days since.)
New York’s piano bars have provided me with lots of fun over the years. But more than that, they’ve given me a career, an education and long-lasting friendships. I will always love the piano bar community, and these days, The Duplex has proven that you can’t keep a good piano bar down!
For more information, go to www.theduplex.com
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