Relaxed Fits : Jazz Singer Kurt Elling Lightens Up the Message in His Trademark Improvisational ‘Rants’

To see Kurt Elling is, if not to love him, to at least like him.

The 29-year-old singer who received a Grammy nomination for his debut Blue Note release, “Close Your Eyes,” is among the most expressive of improvising jazz vocalists. He can turn a sweet tune such as “Nature Boy” into a seductively hard-driving vehicle, affix telling words to a dandy Dexter Gordon saxophone solo, as he does with “Tanya Jean,” or offer a fluid and literate off-the-cuff exposition--what he calls a “rant”--that’s part free-form poetry, part existential philosophy.

To get over, Elling, like all artists, needs good press. He’s gotten it, with positive write-ups in The Times, the New York Times and Down Beat magazine. But he really counts on people coming out to his shows, with the subsequent word-of-mouth forming the bedrock of a die-hard audience. The vocalist will appear Tuesday at Steamers Cafe in Fullerton.

About 18 months ago, the Chicago native, along with his regular pianist Laurence Hobgood and assorted bassists and drummers, took Los Angeles by storm, hitting more than a dozen spots, from the Viper Room and Highland Grounds to Catalina’s and the Jazz Bakery, in a month’s span.

“It was successful and fun,” he said in a recent phone interview at his manager’s office in Pacific Palisades. “We had real crowds by the end, and people were there to hear what we had to say.”

Elling tried the same tack in New York two months ago, working such disparate venues as the jazz-leaning Village Gate, Fez and Birdland, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and a country joint called the Rodeo Bar. “There were stuffed buffaloes on the walls and bumper stickers from the Dixie Diner, but we turned the volume up high so we were cool,” Elling said of the Rodeo.

As in Los Angeles, people in New York liked what they heard. “We established a toehold,” he said, the “we” referring to himself and Hobgood. “There were people that brought friends and came back a bunch of times.”

Elling also felt a boost in sales for his new album, “The Messenger,” which is currently No. 28 on the Billboard magazine jazz charts.

New York is intense, said Elling, and a performer needs plenty of attitude to get over. “It’s the capital of the world right now, and you have to be at the top of your game,” he said. Was he?

“Well, I don’t know,” Elling hedged. “I hope to be at the top of my game when I’m 65 or 70. I don’t want to reach my peak at 29. Not that I’m holding back anything, but there’s a bunch of junk I don’t know.”

The artist, who has appeared at Carnegie Hall and the Montreux and North Sea jazz festivals and who just returned from a 10-day stint in Japan, is learning, though. For example, when seen on an earlier trip to Los Angeles, Elling could be abstruse. His rants were often thorny, and they sometimes dovetailed into another tune. It could be hard to tell where one number ended and another began. He said he’s lightening up--a bit anyway.

“I’m a goof, man” he said. “I’m a guy who has more slapstick than Joe Cool moments in his day, so I’m not taking myself so seriously. I hope the show is still heavy, but I shouldn’t be laying a trip on everyone on every song. People just want to dig, they want to dance. They don’t want to work all through the night, and neither do I. I like getting ‘out there,’ but communication should be occurring on more levels than heavy-laden philosophical.”

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Elling will work at Steamers with Hobgood, bassist Tony Dumas and drummer Willie Jones III. He said the who will include pieces from his two albums plus “some surprises.”

Part of Elling’s new, relaxed performance posture stems from a more settled personal life. Last October, he married Jennifer Carney, and, while their union will be as much of a learning process as performing has been, it has grounded him. “I’m less apt to worry too much,” he said. “That low-level anxiety you have when you’re on your own--that’s gone.”

* Kurt Elling appears Tuesday at Steamers Cafe, 138 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton. 8:30 p.m. Two-drink minimum. Call (714) 871-8800.