Singing saxophone star plays four shows at Jazz Kitchen

 Blending genres to express her musical identity, Grace Kelly opened her quartet's first set Saturday night

Grace Kelly holds forth at the Kitchen.

with a tightly fused mini-medley of a James Bond movie tune and Billie Eilish's "No Time to Die." It was a much-anticipated return visit to the Jazz Kitchen, a club about which she expressed enthusiasm repeatedly while noting the two-night stand was the last stop on her current Midwestern-East Coast tour.

Kelly, red mane waving as she acrobatically played her shiny alto sax, has increased the proportion of singing to her free-flowing instrumental prowess since I last heard her here. Remaining intact is her outspoken embrace of the audience and a knack for cultivating its heartiest responsiveness. By her encore, Huey Lewis and the News' "Power of Love," she was circulating through the dining-room audience in extended soloing on the groove-heavy tune.

But she has  based her appeal increasingly on vocals, being quite active as singer-songwriter. That specialty is well-represented in the pop-music universe. With the emphasis on romantic love, accompanied by spoken introductions to her creative work linking it to her own experience, Kelly's comfort in the genre is unmistakable. She sang effectively her "Missing Piece," "Trying to Figure It Out," and "'What I Wouldn't Do." The third one is her extension of the torch-song tradition beloved of female vocalists since time immemorial. 

"Trying to Figure It Out," a love song in the sense that it privileges a mother's wisdom during trying times, had an attractive "stop-time" bridge and ended with Kelly's lingering vocally over the title with a creative flourish that tickled my eardrums. "By the Grave" shifted its mood compellingly from heartbreak to anger at the death of a loved one — emotions often contending with each other during bereavement. 

Finding love in New York City, where she managed an extended stay in Jon Batiste's band on the Stephen Colbert show, brought forth "Feels Like Home," in celebration of her current relationship, apparently an enduring one. The set closed with an energetic number inspired by the demands of her physical trainer, symbolized by a brief face-to-face workout with the electric bassist, James Heazlewood Dole. 

Her other sidemen, pianist Maxim Lubarsky and drummer Ross Pederson, were fully engaged with Kelly's frequently overstated tone. Her sometimes keening, sometimes bumptious alto sound made the late David Sanborn's seem wimpy in comparison. Still, she's found a successful manner of partnering instrument and voice to put across her new material with a touch of spectacle. She's not just another hair act. 

[Photo: Mark Sheldon]