Crooner Steven Maglio stirs up NYC nightclub nostalgia with ‘Not Just Sinatra’ show

Forget flying you to the moon. Steven Maglio wants to take music fans to the Copacabana.

The singer known for performing Frank Sinatra songs at the Carnegie Club since 2004 is introducing a new show Wednesday at The Cutting Room called “Not Just Sinatra.”

While he plans to do a few Sinatra tunes, the East Harlem born, Bronx-raised crooner is also throwing Bobby Darin, Steve Lawrence and Englebert Humperdinck into the mix. The idea is to transport audiences back to the golden age of New York City nightclubs when folks dressed to the nines to see Sinatra sing at a hotspot like E. 57th St.’s Riobamba or Milton Berle yuck it up at the Latin Quarter on W. 48th St. with an orchestra providing rimshots and sad trombones.

“When you hear people talk about the old days, they talk about places like the Copacabana and the Latin Quarter, and how you would have dinner and see the show and there was a comedian and a big band and the whole thing,” he told the Daily News. “Now you go to a supper club, they bang you over the head for, you know, $500 a person and you only see a trio. When was the last time you went to a nightclub and saw a conductor leading the band?”

Fans wanting to see Maglio’s 12-piece band on E. 32nd St. — complete with a conductor and a comedian — pay $95 for the show.

Audience members will be told little bits about the songs they’re going to hear, who would have sung them and where those performances may have happened, according to the 64-year-old crooner. Maglio said he isn’t interested in giving a history lesson, per se, but he does offer context for songs like Ol’ Blue Eyes’ 1966 hit “That’s Life.”

“O.C. Smith made a record and in 1965 Sinatra was driving in his car and he heard the record on the radio and he wanted to sing it,” Maglio plans to tell his audience before kicking off that number. “And the next thing you know, we have ‘That’s Life.’”

He hoped to do a weeknight show for his fans before the pandemic hit, but COVID-19 lockdowns put that plan on hold. Maglio said he was clued into the idea he could pull off a show like this one when singer Connie Francis came to see him do Sinatra songs a few years ago years ago at the Carnegie Club, where cigar smoking is allowed.

“She’s looking around and with the big band and the smoke, she said ‘I feel like I’m back at the Copa,’” he recalled.

Maglio thinks fans who want to hear Sinatra but don’t want to sit in a smoky room will get a kick out of seeing him perform hit tunes by the “My Way” icon in a healthier environment. He will continue doing Saturdays at the Carnegie Club and may add regular performances at the Cutting Room if Wednesday’s “Not Just Sinatra” debut goes well.

While Maglio never got to see a show at the original Copacabana before it stopped operating as a supper club in the early 1970s, he calls that W. 51st Street venue “absolutely the top” and claims playing there meant more to artists like Darin, who grew up in the Bronx, than making movies or records.

Many of Maglio’s favorite memories of the city’s nightclub glory days were made at Marty’s on 73rd St. and Third Ave.

“I saw Vic Damone there,” he recalled. “He was the last person I saw and I brought my parents with me.”

Maglio doesn’t plan to do Damone tunes like “You’re Breaking My Heart” Wednesday, but if “More Than Sinatra” becomes a regular event, he said that’s a possibility. He also may do songs by Dean Martin, whose daughter Deana Martin performs with him on occasion. The biggest problem Maglio potentially faces is getting New Yorkers off their sofas.

“A lot of people are getting their entertainment at home,” he said. “You have Netflix and quality shows, sometimes better than what you get at the theater.”

But just maybe old timers who remember the aforementioned clubs from the 1950s and 1960s, or newcomers curious about places like those including El Morocco, the Stork Club and The Rainbow Room — which have been featured in many movies — will swing by for a gin fizz and stay for the roaring horn section. Maglio doesn’t mind at all if fans bring their cell phones.