For nearly two decades, and whether at its previous location near Lincoln Center or its current home on Broadway and 51st next door to the Winter Garden Theater, Iridium Jazz Club has endured as one of the finest jewels in the crown of Manhattan nightlife. Not merely a mecca for jazz fanatics to catch such soon-to-be legends of their day as Diana Krall, or more recently when the Stanley Jordan Quartet took the stage, proprietress Ellen Hart Sturm (the brains behind Ellen's Stardust Diner) has launched a venue which people will most fondly remember as the room where legendary guitarist Les Paul held court every Monday night for years until his lamented passing.

And more than their jazz offerings, Iridium has always sought to allow cabaret artists to pass through its portals and dazzle audiences, whether that be the stellar Elena Bennett and Fred Barton, or Terese Genecco and Her Little Big Band. On Valentine's Night of 2010, however, the club truly reached a pinnacle with a one-of-a-kind midnight showing of the one and only Lillias White, in an evening comprised of love songs of all sorts.

White, who is currently blazing across the Broadway boards for her impeccable work in the hit show FELA!, has herself become legend for well over two decades, whether on Broadway, in cabaret, in film and on television. After making an initial (albeit short-lived) splash in the jukebox revue Rock'n'Roll: The First 5,000 Years following her replacement of Terri White in the role of 160-year-old Joice Heth in Barnum, she briefly portrayed the role of Effie in Dreamgirls in 1985; three years later, when the new revival came to the Ambassador Theater, she assumed her rightful place as a Broadway star in the role and set New York firmly on its ear, in a performance Joel Siegel claimed was superior to that of Jennifer Holliday. Simultaneously, she was offered a two-week stint at The Ballroom and electrified cabaret audiences at every turn, proving herself not merely ultra-talented but a virtual superstar. In the years that would follow shortly, she would show equal aptitude for such roles as Grizabella in Cats while also raising the roof in cabaret at the Greene Street Cafe, on television as home-care worker Lillian Edwards in Sesame Street, and providing a vocal performance for Disney's animated production of Hercules. However, she received the opportunity to set not merely New York but the world on its ear in 1990 when, after replacing Kecia Lewis-Evans in the role of Mama Earth at the Booth Theater in Once On This Island, penned by the team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty and based on the tales of Rosa Guy, she led the cast in the rousing "Mama Will Provide" on that season's Tony Awards telecast and set off a whirlwind of speculation as to exactly whom she was. It was a blink of an eye before White was casting the same sort of magic on the Great White way in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying opposite Matthew Broderick, and then came her Tony Award-winning turn in the darkly-optimistic Cy Coleman vehicle, The Life.

Such an impressive body of work in such a reasonably small amount of time merely proved why White's Valentine show at Iridium was such a hit on every level. To single out any one tune in particularly would be an exercise in futility, as her set (which relied most heavily on the catalogue of Duke Ellington) produced such a cornucopia of gold nuggets that to pinpoint one over another would be downright unfair. It was a performance that, succinctly put, could make the earth move and the angels weep. One must, however, mention the stupendous Miles Dalto on piano and the equally-splendid Patience Higgins on saxophone and flute, although the entire six-piece band provided flawless instrumentalism throughout.

One is left without quite enough superlatives with which to praise Lillias White to the high heavens. Suffice to say, attending her next show, be it on the Great White Way or the smallest club imaginable, should be a requirement for anyone seeking a true education in live performance.