Jeeves! Fetch me my white slacks and yachting cap! The summer cabaret season is well nigh upon us!

As the big, hotel cabaret rooms take a well-earned sabbatical during the dog days of July and August, the concert halls and clubs work overtime to supply New Yorkers with outstanding interpreters of the Great American Songbook. First, Carnegie Hall will present “Showboat” on June 10 with a rare opportunity to hear the original Robert Russell Bennett orchestrations of Jerome Kern’s classic score. Then, the New York tradition of presenting classic musical theater works in concert-style productions will be extended with City Center Encores’s semi-staged “Damn Yankees” throughout July.

Elsewhere, other, lower-profile companies will be presenting both famous and obscure musicals in low-key form. Notably, the York Theatre’s Musicals In Mufti series is mounting three works by “Muppet Show” composer Larry Grossman between the end of May and the middle of July.

Heading into the clubs, the Oak Room is currently winding down with headliner Karen Akers (until June 14). She’ll be followed by a newcomer named Sheera Ben-David (June 17-28) and her show entitled “Come Summer.”

The Carlyle will roll out Eartha Kitt, by far the world’s sexiest 81-year-old, to finish the season for the month of June, and she’s still worth every penny of the extravagant cover charge.

The final headliner this season at Feinstein’s (following Bebe Neuwirth in May) is Tony Danza, who can’t sing or do anything remotely musical, but is enormously entertaining just the same. Also at Feinstein’s, two of Broadway’s funniest ladies — Emily Skinner (June 1, 8) and Orfeh (June 2) — will put on one-woman shows. But for those who like Barbra Streisand, I personally have a much better time with Julie Budd (Feinstein’s, June 22-23) and Steven Brinberg (Birdland, June 9).

As the big three prepare to go into hibernation in July and August, it falls to Birdland and the Metropolitan to pick up the slack. Birdland will get it started in June with performances by Keely Smith (June 3-8) and Phoebe Snow (June 17-22), the living embodiments of what a great jazz-pop and a great soul singer, respectively, should sound like.

The Metropolitan has not announced a summer run by the marvelous Marilyn Maye, but Annie Ross is extending her terrific Tuesday series, and her longtime partner, Jon Hendricks, will light up the stage at Jazz Standard (July 3-6). The Metropolitan is also initiating a Thursday series by Tom Wopat, who is absolutely killing in “A Catered Affair” on Broadway. The concert venues, too, have a few more tricks up their sleeves: Town Hall will present two big songbook events in June, beginning with K.T. Sullivan and Mark Nadler’s birthday salute to Cole Porter (with pianist-saxophonist Loren Schoenberg, June 9), and wrapping with Scott Siegel’s final “Broadway by the Years” event for the season (June 16). The year 1979 may seem like slim pickings for Broadway musicals (and I liked “The Grand Tour”), but these shows are always entertaining.

But the singer to whom I’m most looking forward in June is the only one whose engagements I never miss: Freddy Cole will arrive at Jazz Standard on June 12. If anyone can send me off to the beach with a smile on my face and a song on my lips, it is Mr. Cole. The man is joy personified.