Haynes Is in Fine Voice at Giorgio’s : Jazz: The appealing singer puts together a performance that should find a wider audience.

Stephanie Haynes is one very appealing singer.

She has a marvelous voice, a warm, personable alto that’s distinctively her own. She chooses terrific tunes which she performs terrifically, remaining true to the songs’ emotional intentions and musical constructs, yet not reluctant to nudge them this way or that to suit her feel-free-to-fool-around jazz-based rhythmic concept. She enunciates clearly, so you can hear every word and she’s got a dandy ear that keeps the pitch right on target and handles a modulation from A flat to G with nary a slip.

Friday in the cozy back room of Giorgio’s Place (located at the base of the Arco Towers in Long Beach, where singers and trios have been the call for a few months), Haynes brought along all the above qualities and, backed by her regular accompanists--pianist Larry Flahive and bassist Jack Prather--gave listeners there an aural treat.

The medium-plus tempoed “The Best Thing for You Would Be Me” proved to be a lively opener that displayed Haynes’ horn-like approach in her rhythmic choices, and found Flahive soloing with spritely repeated attacks of a single note, bluesy phrases and lines that constantly curved. A slight bossa nova feeling underpinned the subsequent “Deep in a Dream,” and led to Jerome Kern’s “I’m Old-Fashioned.”

This evergreen, which was done as colorfully as the purple print dress with a black-and-silver-sequin-embroidered shoulders that Haynes wore, found the singer extending some of her phrases like pulled taffy, so that a word such as “rain” became “ray--aa--ain” and “fancies,” as in ‘passing,’ became “fan-seeeees.” On still other passages her words were separated as crisply as the texture of fresh cucumber slices.

Flahive and Prather offered ever-at-the-ready support for Haynes, and scored with three opening duo tunes, among them “For All We Know,” where the pianist caressed the melody as if he were slow dancing with his one-and-only.

Haynes is a rare vocalist and in a area that is known for its fine singers. She should be heard more often.