A dramatic evening with singer Rene Marie

Technically speaking, singer Rene Marie’s performance Friday night at the University of Chicago’s Logan Center could be called a jazz set.

More accurately, though, it amounted to an unlikely fusion of theater piece, performance art, self-styled choreography and, oh yes, some of the most expressive jazz singing one might hope to hear.

True, other vocalists command larger and more voluptuous instruments than Marie’s, a point made clear when she participated in a Sarah Vaughan homage in Orchestra Hall in 2016. Sharing a stage with Ann Hampton Callaway and Dee Alexander, Marie sounded small of voice and low of wattage by comparison.

But give her a stage to herself and an opportunity to shape an evening her way, and she clearly can make a statement that uses every inch of her vocal prowess and balletic grace.

In that regard, though, Marie made a slight misstep at the outset, polling her audience on which of two programs they might wish to hear: the entire repertoire of her most recent album, “Sound of Red,” or a mix of new and old material. The plebiscite — involving shouts from the audience — did not get the evening off to an enchanting start.

Ultimately, though, that hardly mattered, for once Marie began singing, talking, gesticulating, roaming the stage and otherwise giving the audience a sense of who she is, all was forgiven. Even Marie’s past club performances in Chicago, which have been quite effective, have not come close to the multidimensional appeal of this concert on the Jazz at the Logan series.

The heart of the program turned out to be the music from “Sound of Red,” a profoundly autobiographical collection of original songs that portray the artist’s desires, longings, frustrations, triumphs and more. No two songs mined the same emotional territory, each bringing forth a different facet of a singer who has lived life fully and has a great deal to teach us.

“If You Were Mine” launched this part of the concert, Marie’s saucy vocals, seductive turns of phrase and gently undulating movement telling the story. But it was when she turned to scat singing — the art of inventing intricate melodic lines, much as a saxophonist or trumpeter might do — that Marie established her vocal command. For the figurations she produced were not just dexterous but meaningful, every note given particular weight and color, every phrase shaped to indicate a beginning and an end. Not a pitch was thrown away.

Marie then told the audience of a magical trip she once had taken to Italy, the reverie of the occasion and hints of what occurred there bringing an air of mystery of her “Certaldo.” The tour de force here was the verse Marie had penned, these passages crafted so meticulously that one might have thought it had originated in the golden era of Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen.

Marie’s personal narrative became more evident as the evening progressed, the singer reminding listeners that she had come to this profession late, after her son encouraged to her to stop crooning at home and bring her art to the public. It takes a great deal of gumption to pull that off, and Marie showed how much with her aptly named anthem, “Stronger Than You Think.”

“Your battles scars mean that you survived,” she sang, and the grit of her voice and clenched-fist spirit of her delivery affirmed that she had lived every syllable of that line, and others. Once again, when she began scat singing, one was struck by the apparent ease with which she bounded from delicate high notes to dusky low ones and back, offering pitch-perfect accuracy and considerable emotional import.

The evening’s climax arrived in “Lost,” which Marie and her trio turned into something of an operatic aria on a most difficult theme: the pain that family members cause us. By constantly changing tempos, textures, moods, directions and message, Marie imparted a remarkably nuanced view of a most complex subject. That the color of her vocals shifted by degrees from darkness to light pointed to the depth of her work and the distinction of her art.

Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.

hreich@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @howardreich