Versatile singer Ledisi looking looks to "mix it up in Seattle"

Ledisi isn't the kind of performer who's content to let her audience sit back and bask in her music.

At a rip-roaring Monterey Jazz Festival set last month, the Oakland-based soul singer turned an overflowing, sun-splashed crowd into part of the show with call-and-response choruses, chanting, clapping and general booty gyrating. It was a masterly performance by an artist who attained sudden national visibility last year when "Lost & Found," her major-label debut on Verve/Universal, garnered Ledisi Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best R&B Album.

Ledisi (pronounced led-duh-see) opens a four-night run at Jazz Alley on Thursday, and while she's played the club before, it's her first appearance there with her full band. A supremely versatile singer, she draws from the entire spectrum of African-American music, infusing soul melisma into standards and jazz improvisation into smooth R&B grooves. She can scat Charlie Parker's blues "Now's the Time" with the harmonic sophistication of a bebop saxophonist and deliver Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child" with keen emotional insight.

"I'll definitely mix it up in Seattle," Ledisi said in a conversation after her Monterey set. "A lot of people think I only sing one style. I can't wait for them to hear all the things I have hidden away. I like surprises. I have even more to say."

If Ledisi expects a lot from her audience, it's because she's got so much going on herself. A musical-theater veteran, she made her bones on Broadway in Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's Tony-nominated musical "Caroline, or Change" and earned composing credits for Oprah Winfrey's Tony-winning stage adaptation of "The Color Purple."

She's been a rising force in R&B since landing a coveted spot on the 2004 Grammy-nominated Luther Vandross tribute album "Forever, For Always, For Luther" (GRP), singing a sultry version of "My Sensitivity" with saxophonist Boney James. Now veteran R&B stars are embracing her as one of their own, as she's forged friendships with artists like Chaka Khan, Patti Austin and Rachelle Ferrell, often performing alongside them on jazz and R&B cruises. A day after she finishes her Jazz Alley run, Ledisi opens a weeklong gig at New York's famed Blue Note Club with the Count Basie Orchestra.

"I don't know who I am anymore," Ledisi said with a laugh. "I'm all over the place, and it's my own fault. I'm heading to my third cruise next week with Patti Austin and Rachelle Ferrell. I just did the gospel channel in Atlanta ... to promote my upcoming Christmas album."

She might sound aesthetically scattered, but Ledisi couldn't be more grounded. Born in New Orleans, she grew up listening to her mother sing with Carnova, a popular Crescent City soul cover band. In the early 1980s, her family moved to Oakland, and Ledisi spent five years studying opera and piano in the University of California, Berkeley's Young Musicians Program, which provides budding musicians with conservatory training.

Ledisi came into her own on the Bay Area scene when she founded Anibade (pronounced a-NEE-bah-day), a group fluent in jazz, funk and hip-hop that matched her intense energy on stage. At the same time, she was the featured singer in the long-running, outrageously topical North Beach cabaret show "Beach Blanket Babylon." Now she's creating her own drama on stage, following her muse wherever it takes her and bringing her audiences along for the soul-drenched, genre-bending ride.

Andrew Gilbert: jazzscribe@aol.com