Blossom Dearie, the Songwriters’ Singer : Jazz: She likes a quiet audience and the right working conditions. To that end, she has rented the Tiffany for her show.

If there were a word to describe the voice of Blossom Dearie, who’s at the Tiffany Theater through Monday, it would have to be sopranissimo . But no word or phrase can precisely pin down her special delicacy, the almost childlike grace, fragile on the surface, yet assured enough to bring honesty to every ballad and joy to every jump tune.

“I don’t want to be called a jazz singer,” she says, “though I certainly have some roots there. I’m not a cult singer either--that word is used too much with a political connotation now--and after being called a legend, that sounds too much like an epitaph. I think of myself as a songwriter’s singer. All the great Broadway and Hollywood teams are in my repertoire, along with contemporary people like Dave Frishberg and Bobby Scott. Writers bring their songs to me because they rely on me to define their work with respect. That’s very flattering.”

As a pianist, she considers herself mainly a self-accompanist. “I can’t play jazz choruses like my friend Joyce Collins--she’s marvelous at that.” For the Tiffany gig, she’s backed by bassist Joel Di Bartolo of “The Tonight Show” band.

“The job here is a new experiment for me,” said Dearie. “I rented the theater, which means finding a sound person and a lighting person and someone to sell the tickets and rent the piano and place the ads. It’s a nice hall and I do a two-hour show at 8 p.m.--6 p.m. on Sundays--and then sell my cassettes and CDs afterward.”

Though she had lived in Paris for several years and led a successful vocal group there, Dearie said her present career as a singer-pianist-songwriter began in London in the 1960s.

“London was absolutely swinging in the ‘60s. I started at Ronnie Scott’s club, and did a lot of television. I was on a show Peter Cook and Dudley Moore had called ‘Not Only But Also.’ When I was in Australia and New Zealand last month, I found a built-in audience of people who had seen me on the BBC programs that had been shown there.”

It was in London that her songwriting career took off. “I wrote ‘Sweet Georgie Fame’ with Sandra Harris; it was recorded by Tony Bennett. Later I collaborated with Johnny Mercer, who wrote the lyrics to ‘I’m Shadowing You’ and ‘My New Celebrity Is You,’ which was the one of the last songs he ever wrote.

“At present I’m working with Jack Segal. We wrote ‘After Me,’ ‘Good Morning,’ and ‘Bye Bye Country Boy.’ I regard him--and so does my audience--as a world-class lyric writer.”

(Dearie’s best-known song, “Inside a Silent Tear,” was written with a lesser-known lyricist, Linda Albert, and has been recorded by Cleo Laine and several others.)

Dearie’s recording career goes back to the days when Norman Granz was still producing for Verve Records (one of the albums from that era, “Blossom Dearie,” has just been reissued on CD), but in 1972 she founded Daffodil Records. “Johnny Mercer gave me the name for it. I have 10 albums out, with three on CD and more to come. My upcoming project is a video, which I’ll make in London, probably at Ronnie Scott’s.”

Because her style and sound are unique, one does not tend to think of Dearie in terms of influences, but she does admit to one. “Although I admire many singers and musicians, the one who truly stands out as an influence was Jeri Southern. I remember her record of ‘You’d Better Go Now,’ which was a hit in the 1950s. I fell in love with that; she was playing piano and singing, and it made a lasting impression on me. I have never stated this before, and I’ve never even met Jeri Southern.”

Like Southern (who retired in the 1960s and is now a teacher), Blossom Dearie requires a quiet, receptive audience. She has been very particular about working conditions; late-night hours, smoky clubs and cash registers that play the wrong chord are not for her.

“For five years I spent six months of each year at the Ballroom in New York, where I had just one show at 6:30 p.m. It was lovely, and people really paid attention. I hold my listeners in high regard, because they respect me; they are very polite and they deserve a good performance--which is why I’m at a theater here with just 99 seats. The conditions look ideal to me.

“I enjoy controlling my working circumstances and having my own record company and being at a great stage in my career. I’m at the top of my game, and still learning something new and wonderful every day.”