McCorkle Has Voice of Experience : Jazz: Her new recording showcases her more mature vocal timbres.

Susannah McCorkle is growing up. Or, at least, her voice is showing definite signs of change. The slightly manic, effervescently off-the-wall McCorkle personality is fine just the way it is.

The gifted singer--one of the most visible of the younger performers who are revitalizing the American classic pop song catalogue--opened at Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood Tuesday with a richer, darker tone to her singing.

“Gosh, it’s really exciting,” she said. “I almost feel like a teen-age boy whose voice has changed.

“For so long I felt that I had such a girlish sound, and now I really like that my voice has grown into a kind of womanly, more mature sound. Some of the change is just getting older, of course, but I feel my life has been fairly difficult, and I used to be annoyed that the difficulties weren’t reflected in the sound of my voice.

“Now,” she said, with a typically conspiratorial chuckle, “they are.”

McCorkle’s new Concord recording, “Sabia,” showcases her maturing vocal timbres in a collection of Brazilian-styled songs, many by such veteran tunesmiths as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vincius De Moraes and Luiz Bonfa.

“I think the sound I’m getting now is really well-suited to the Brazilian songs,” said McCorkle. “I love the breadth and scope of the subjects they deal with. They don’t seem to hesitate to grapple with life and death themes in 32 bars.

“I mean, look at the lyrics to the songs in ‘Black Orpheus’--the way they describe the experience of watching the sunrise, knowing that life is starting over, the feeling that dreams can come back to the heart. We don’t usually write discourses on the nature of happiness in American songs, and I’m so happy that the Brazilians do.”

McCorkle, whose checkered background includes a UC Berkeley education in the contentious mid-’60s and several stretches in Europe as a translator and interpreter, did not come to singing until she was in her mid-20s.

The two catalysts that provoked the change from language translation to lyric interpretation were the movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s and the singing of Billie Holiday. Lonely for the sound of English during one of her Parisian sojourns, McCorkle spent hours in darkened theaters watching gritty detective stories and spectacular Busby Berkeley musicals.

“Then, when I started listening to Billie Holiday, who is my very favorite singer,” she said, “everything came together. I hadn’t grown up hearing classic American songs, but I just knew--maybe because I felt a little cheated from not having heard them earlier--that I wanted to carry on the music and the traditions of the era.”

She has done so with nine previous recordings that include tributes to Johnny Mercer, Harry Warren, Yip Harburg and Leo Robin. The material in the albums ranges from the familiar to the obscure, but in her heart of hearts, it’s the sad songs that touch her the most.

“Oh, I definitely became a singer to sing sad songs,” said McCorkle. “In fact, I learned the other kinds of songs because you can’t sing sad songs all night or nobody will listen.

“And I’ve discovered that I like to make people laugh, too--with things like Dave Frishberg songs and witty Cole Porter lyrics. But I’m also aware that I tend to pace a show so that when I do something sad, people will be especially receptive to it--because that way the whole evening hasn’t just been a dirge--or, as one critic said, filled with too much rue.”

McCorkle has managed to sing sad songs, classic songs, witty songs and rueful songs while appealing to cabaret listeners and jazz fans, alike.

“Listen,” she said with a laugh, “I’m glad that I’ve got an audience that crosses boundaries, but it doesn’t really surprise me. It’s nice to be working the classy rooms now, but in my time I’ve worked in every kind of place you can imagine. I’ve sung in Greek tavernas and pizza parlors, and I’ve sung in terrible rooms that were totally out of character, so nothing daunts me.”

“Somebody called me a ‘bruised romantic’ once, and I like that,” said McCorkle. “It describes what I hope I bring to these classic songs. Because the truth is that--even with everything I’ve gone through--I still have a basic optimism about life. And my belief in Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers & Hart and Jobim has given me a real sense of mission, as well as a creative way to express that optimism.”