A Cabaret Star Who Puts Songs in the Spotlight

In what insiders like to call the “intimate art” of cabaret, it isn’t easy to spot a male singer among the stars. Names like Bobby Short and Michael Feinstein are rarities in a largely female galaxy, ranging from Julie Wilson and Eartha Kitt to Weslia Whitfield and Andrea Marcovicci.

But make way for Phillip Officer. The winner of a bundle of awards from the Manhattan Assn. of Cabarets & Clubs, he has been described by the New York Times as “the most talented male cabaret singer to emerge in the last five years.” He makes his Los Angeles debut tonight at the Cinegrill at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with a program of songs by Oscar Hammerstein II.

Officer, 40, is medium-sized and slender, with Beatle bangs covering his high forehead. Quick to acknowledge that he is less relaxed during interviews than he is on stage, he nonetheless communicates some of the quiet sensitivity that has been noted so frequently in extremely complimentary reviews. He does not, however, completely agree with the labeling.

“I don’t see myself as being all that quiet or sensitive,” he said last week at the Roosevelt. “I’m really very active and, I believe, outgoing when I’m performing. In fact, I use a body microphone instead of a hand [microphone] so that I can move around more freely. I think the sensitivity comes from the storytelling, from not letting my personality get in the way of the song.”

Which also may help explain Officer’s ascendancy in a field dominated by female artists.

“Many of the people who come to see cabaret in New York are couples,” he said. “And the husband may be a lot less enthusiastic about it than the wife is, but he’s happy to see an attractive female performer. I can’t compete with that, as a male singer, so I try to take everything back to the song, and draw people in with the song’s story.”

But his most important asset is his voice, a sweet-toned instrument that soars easily across a surprisingly wide range. In the past few years, his versatile vocal skills have adapted comfortably to everything from Rodgers & Hammerstein and lyricist E.Y. “Yip” Harburg to Bing Crosby.

His two recordings--”Fancy Meeting You,” of Harburg songs, and “Many a New Day,” of Hammerstein’s--frame his thoughtful vocals in settings tinged with laid-back, soft jazz.

“I don’t think of myself as a jazz singer, at all,” he said, “although I sometimes get reviewed in that category. And that’s OK, because I like the intensity of jazz.”

Unlike such performers as Short, Feinstein and Johnny Pizzarelli, Officer does not play an instrument. He is obliged to face his audience without a prop, a piano or guitar or microphone to use as a protective barrier. He depends only upon the communicative powers of his voice and his proficiency as a musical dramatist.

For a farm boy from Missouri, Officer’s burst of success in one of the most cosmopolitan of musical theater arenas is still a bit mystifying.

“Sometimes, when I think about all those cornfields, it’s hard for me to grasp that this is all happening,” he noted with a slight chuckle. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m so attracted to the Hammerstein lyrics, especially in the songs from shows like ‘Oklahoma!’ ”

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His choice of Hammerstein’s lyrics as the theme for his Cinegrill appearance may be the only controversial aspect of his performance.

Hammerstein’s name does not usually pop up on many critics’ lists of the top five lyricists, superseded as it is by Lorenz Hart (with Richard Rodgers), Ira Gershwin (with George Gershwin), Johnny Mercer (with everybody) and composer-lyricists Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. This even though Hammerstein wrote book and lyrics for the pioneering “Show Boat” (currently in a splendid revival at the Ahmanson Theatre) and partnered with Rodgers for the equally innovative “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel,” “South Pacific,” “The King and I” and “The Sound of Music.”

“I know he’s viewed as somehow being too simple, too direct,” Officer said. “People say he’s not as sophisticated as Porter or as witty as Hart. But he’s written plenty of songs that are filled with poetry. ‘All the Things You Are’ is a classic, of course. But there also is a song like ‘Don’t Ever Leave Me,’ which was also written with Jerome Kern, that is poetic and simple.”

Officer will sing both songs at the Cinegrill, as well as “It Might as Well Be Spring” (from “State Fair”), “Surrey With the Fringe on Top” (“Oklahoma!”), “Why Do I Love You” (“Show Boat”) and the bouncy “Honey Bun” (“South Pacific”).

“I think it’s that direct, get-to-the-point quality that makes Hammerstein so appealing,” Officer said. “He doesn’t hide the emotions in a song, and neither do I. I guess that’s why his songs feel so right for me.”

* Phillip Officer sings at the Cinegrill in the Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill, 7000 Hollywood Blvd, tonight through Saturday at 8 p.m. $15 cover, $10 minimum purchase. (213) 466-7000.