Snap and crackle in that pop

“When I think of cabaret,” says Lee Lessack, “I think of the Great American Songbook” -- a phrase often used to describe pop standards from the ‘20s through the ‘50s. He thinks of small clubs and the intimacy they promise.

But Lessack will perform what might be the highest-profile gig of his cabaret career Sunday, and it has nothing to do with the Great American Songbook. Nor is it in a small club.

The singer, who also has his own record label with a catalog of more than 70 artists and more than 100 CDs, will take the stage at the 1,250-seat John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood. The “In Good Company” concert will mark the release two days later of Lessack’s new album with the same name, on his LML Music label. As he does on the CD, Lessack will perform a series of duets with a lineup of other cabaret vocalists.

The music is not only post-Great American Songbook but it’s almost devoid of theater songs -- another genre that often is associated with cabaret.

“This is really a pop album,” Lessack says. “These are pop standards from the ‘60s through the ‘90s.” Among the more familiar titles: “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “The Look of Love,” “Open Arms,” “Summer Wine,” “If You Go Away,” “Let It Be Me,” “The Rose” and “Vincent.”

“If you have 17 voices” -- 18, including Lessack’s -- “what unifies it?” he asks.

He promptly answers his own question: “The arrangements by Johnny Rodgers are the key. I set out to create a mood -- a romantic, easy-listening, smooth jazz feeling,” and he enlisted Rodgers in that effort.

In the recording sessions, Rodgers “kept pulling us back. When you’re in the moment, it’s hard not to keep soaring” -- but Rodgers served as the mellow meter, keeping the sound more conversational, less belting.

Not that Lessack is by nature a belter. In a review of a Cinegrill appearance in 2000, Daryl H. Miller of The Times wrote that Lessack “floats phrases in a sort of half-whisper, his dusky tenor rippling with just a touch of vibrato.”

Now, however, Lessack says he wants “to broaden my listener base.” With this album, he says, “you can listen to it closely or you can put it on over dinner.”

“Or it’s music to have sex by,” notes the puckish David Galligan, who directed that 2000 club date and who is Lessack’s “toughest critic,” according to the album’s liner notes. “It won’t intrude.”

You also can listen to the music live at the Ford. Asked whether a large alfresco venue is really right for music so smooth, Lessack says that although the Ford “is sizable, it’s very intimate. When people sit under the stars, it creates intimacy. And the hillside backdrop that dwarfs the theater helps create an intimate atmosphere.”

However, he says the concert will also include a few surprises -- songs not heard on the album -- that might offer a few up-tempo interruptions of the otherwise easy listening.

There also might be a few less welcome interruptions -- noise from helicopters and sirens. “Not during my show,” Lessack responds, but then adds, “I’m praying a lot.”

The concert and CD mark the 10th year of Lessack’s LML label, which has grown from a device to market his own performances to a healthy business, although it’s still based in Lessack’s Hancock Park home.

LML is “a springboard for artists who aren’t big sellers and gives collectors a chance to experience that kind of artist,” Galligan says.

How did a singer learn how to run a label? Lessack attributes some of his business smarts to his first job in Hollywood: working for more than six years as personal assistant to actor Henry Winkler and family.

But he also says his experience as a singer, who still earns the bulk of his income from concert tours and cruise gigs, makes LML particularly performer-friendly.

He’s loath to admit the label’s darkest secret -- what does the M stand for, in between the Ls for Lee and Lessack, in the LML title?

“Marvin,” he confesses. “What were my parents thinking?”

*

In Good Company

Where: Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood

When: 8 p.m. Sunday

Price: $30-$35 (proceeds beyond production costs go to the relief organization Operation USA)

Info: (323) 461-3673; www.fordamphitheatre.org