LEATA GALLOWAY AS A CABARET SINGER

Leata Galloway, currently at the Roosevelt Hotel’s Cinegrill through Saturday and returning Tuesday through Oct. 11, was described here as “beyond category” four years ago. The characterization no longer applies; she can now clearly be categorized as a cabaret singer, with all the values implied by that term.

It’s not that she has lost any of the obvious advantages that place her above run-of-the-mill nightclub artists. A small, striking woman with olive skin, black hair, a black gown and long black gloves, she made as much of a visual impression as ever. Her voice projects great power and smoky, sensuous timbre, along with a razor-sharp sense of phrasing.

What has changed is the apparent intent of her show, which now has all the earmarks, and eyemarks, of a prefabricated, packaged performance in which soul too often yields to slickness. One senses the influences either of a drama coach or of time spent watching someone like Liza Minnelli on the tube--the outstretched arm at the end of the song, the linking of tunes with a common word in the title.

Her opening song was “New Attitude,” an apt summary of what has happened. The attitude, judging by Tuesday’s audience reaction, should serve her well commercially, as may some of the rather vapid pop songs such as “One-Track Mind” and her own “When You Come to L.A.” It was not until “Moody’s Mood for Love” that real sensitivity, and a sense of humor, emerged. Even her “Lush Life” was a trifle too melodramatic to convey the sense that she fully understood the world-weariness of Billy Strayhorn’s lyrics.

Galloway is a pleasure to watch and, at her best, a joy to hear. The pleasures could be augmented were she to strip away some of those come-to-the-cabaret effects.

In her trio were Andy Howe, keyboards and backup vocals; Mark Sanders, drums, and Al Criado, bass.