Singer splices tunes for hybrid jazz sound

Some jazz singers forge a distinctive identity by finding overlooked tunes, while others put an indelible stamp on familiar standards through the force of their personality. And then there are the rarefied few who weave a new repertoire out of whole cloth, outfitting their book with material transformed by a bracing new concept.

Jacqui Naylor, a self-possessed San Francisco vocalist with a pleasingly smoky sound, belongs to the latter category. She started her career as a jazz chanteuse captivated by the American Songbook, but in recent years she's distinguished herself with a surprisingly effective strategy she calls "acoustic smashing." Through an ingenious process of musical alchemy, she melds seemingly disparate songs, combining beloved pre-rock standards with contemporary songs from the rock era.

She initially faced stiff resistance from her accompanists but finally convinced pianist/guitarist Art Khu to create an arrangement setting "My Funny Valentine" to AC/DC's "Back in Black." A gambit that sounds like a gimmick on paper has proved to be a durable technique, and she's developed a wide-ranging collection of smashes, such as Gershwin's "Summertime" set to the melody of the Allman Brothers' "Whipping Post," a piece featured on her latest CD, "You Don't Know Jacq."

"It's something I had wanted to do for a long time, mixing rock and jazz, but the musicians always said it's a terrible idea," says Naylor, who performs on Saturday at the Triple Door with Khu (now her husband), bassist Scott Steed and drummer Josh Jones.

"Art said it was a terrible idea, but he was intrigued. So we worked it out where I'd sing 'My Funny Valentine,' honoring the melody and lyric, and then we go into the music to 'Back in Black.' And it worked because they essentially have the same chord structure."

In many ways, smashing was Naylor's response to the jazz singer's plight. In 2000, she spent several months working in Japan, and requests kept coming in for "Summertime," "Autumn Leaves" and "Misty."

She decided she only wanted to tackle well-worn songs if she could do something really different with them. Smashing has also become a bridge to connect with audiences. The first time she solicited smashing requests was for a Seattle performance, which yielded Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" set to the groove of "Take Five."

For Saturday's gig, Naylor is paying tribute to Blossom Dearie, the great jazz singer, pianist and composer who died in February at the age of 84. With her small, pliant voice, superlative musicianship and savvy business sense, Dearie was something of a role model for Naylor on and off stage. They became friendly because their self-run labels shared a distributor, and the singers ended up hanging out quite a bit in New York. Naylor's latest smash, which sets "The Surrey With the Fringe On Top" to George Benson's "Breezin'," was inspired by Dearie.

Like Dearie, who arrived on the scene in the late 1940s looking like a cool, blond cabaret singer straight from central casting, Naylor doesn't get by on her considerable beauty. She tends toward understatement, and her whisky-tinged voice can bring to mind mid-career Peggy Lee. She doesn't scat, and despite her radical reworking of songs, Naylor always starts by honoring a composer's melody.

"For me improvisation is allowing all of my experiences and creativity to come in," Naylor says. "It's much more subtle than scatting."

Andrew Gilbert: jazzscribe@aol.com