McKnight’s Smooth Art of Seduction

Among the current crop of R&B; Lotharios, Brian McKnight is perhaps the sexiest--but not because he resorts to gratuitous crotch-grabbing or hip-thrusting. Granted, the L.A.-based singer, whose latest album, “Anytime,” has been a bestseller for more than a year, isn’t exactly opposed to indulging in bedroom pantomime onstage. At one point during his performance at the Wiltern Theatre on Wednesday, he actually stripped down to his skivvies behind a backlighted screen.

His burlesque histrionics notwithstanding, McKnight’s sex appeal flows primarily from his astounding vocal technique. At the Wiltern, he conducted a master class in the art of seduction through showmanship, whipping the females in the audience into an overheated frenzy with his carefully calibrated phrasing and melisma-crazy melody lines.

In a genre that’s overrun with technically proficient singers, McKnight (who also appears at Sunday’s KKBT Summer Jam at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre) is at the head of the class. His muscular, impassioned wail infused even the most generic material with emotional depth. At the Wiltern, McKnight wisely chose to stick to his strength, which is slow-burn balladry. Whether he was singing his most recent hit, “Anytime,” or Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love,” McKnight squeezed every last ounce of drama from each line, exploring his limitless octave range one moment, resorting to falsetto pillow talk the next.

Unfortunately, McKnight, who also played some thumb-popping bass and jazzy piano, filled his set with a few too many bland, banal love songs. McKnight owes it to himself and his audience to write material that’s commensurate with his singing talent.