VOICE, HUMOR, STYLE--ROSS HAS IT ALL

Annie Ross, who opened Thursday and closes tonight at the Vine St. Bar & Grill, has evolved from a superior jazz singer into the consummate, state-of-the-art vocal performer.

From the opening “Cloudburst” to the closing “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” (both are from the Jon Hendricks lyrical gold mine), the pace almost never let up. When it did, she might be relaxing with a wistfully understated “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” or milking every witty line out of a unique “Ipanema” parody, written by Stephen Sondheim and Mary Rogers and cryptically titled “The Boy From . . . “

Humor is a pervasive element in a personality that radiates friendliness and warmth. Whether it’s Marcos Valle’s “Crickets Sing for Anamaria” (complete with a tin-whistle solo) or the old-timey “Six Feet of Papa,” which suggests an updated Bessie Smith, or her own ageless lyrics to Wardell Gray’s “Twisted,” the laughs are never more than a beat away.

The jazz values are unimpaired and potent as ever. In the Hendricks words to Horace Silver’s “Come on Home” she would turn the phrasing around and repeat words for emphasis, withdrawing notes here and depositing them there, drawing on a vocal bank account that never stopped paying interest.

She is a nonpareil jazzwoman; she’s also the best gowned, best coiffed and the most amiable of jazz performers. At one point, asking her listeners if she should talk, she told us where to go to buy soft-shell crab.

She has an incomparable rhythm section, with everyone’s favorite pianist, Gerald Wiggins; her nephew from Scotland, Domenique Allen, playing first-rate guitar and adding a few Hendricks-like vocal touches; Ralph Penland on drums, and Bob West, whose bass provided the backing for her laid-back opening on “Bye Bye Blackbird.”

Technically, Ross still has it all together, even that daunting bottom note, the low B flat, on “Wave.” In fact, the 1986 Annie Ross model is a more complete, more mature, funnier and more affecting artist than all the Annie Rosses through the years. It just doesn’t get any better than this.