JAZZ REVIEW : Sonia Santos: Lively Tone, Presence : The zesty singer of Afro-Brazilian music displayed warmth and range in Newport Beach.

Brazilian singers have a wealth of strong, rhythmic material from which to work. Sonia Santos put that advantage to good use Monday at Cafe Lido with a first set that covered a range of Afro-Brazilian music from familiar names such as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sergio Mendes and Gilberto Gil as well as Santos’ own upbeat compositions.

A native of Rio de Janeiro, Santos has worked in Brazilian revues and spent a good part of last year touring the United States with the acclaimed stage show “Oba Oba.” She has recorded four albums in Brazil since 1975 and has also worked in film and television there. Since last July, she’s made regular appearances at La Vee Lee, a Studio City club and restaurant that features Brazilian music.

Backed by a quartet led by a fellow Brazilian, keyboardist Antonio Adolfo, the singer won over a largely attentive audience with a lively stage presence and a shadowy tone that, at times, recalled Eartha Kitt’s. Though it carries a bit of roughness, her voice has the depth and character to convey a lyric’s content and emotion even when sung in Portuguese (as most were), and her strong rhythmic sense meshed well with the quartet’s double percussion.

Santos opened with her own “Historia Da Capoeira,” a spritely, uptempo number that had the singer prancing back and forth across the modest-size bandstand. The tune was tempered with bassist Antonio Carlos Santana’s somewhat buzzy solo, a problem that disappeared when Santana slipped into the lower range of his fretless instrument for support. Rhythmic variations injected interest into Sergio Mendes’ well-known “Mas Que Nada,” in which the chorus’ full-steam-ahead tempo balanced with a more reserved percussive treatment during verses.

“Dindi,” the only ballad presented during the set, gave the singer a chance to display warmth, range and a wide vibrato. Her up-close, considered style was contrasted with Adolfo’s bluesy keyboard improv while drummer Ron Wagner added shading to the melancholy number with shimmering cymbals and rolling mallet play. Santos followed the tune with a funk-based flag-waver, Tim Maia’s “We Are America,” a song with obvious pop potential that bassist Santana accented with deep, quivering tones.

Santos’ efforts on a pair of numbers to involve the crowd interrupted the pacing of her set and drew attention away from her voice. Though anxious to join in, the audience’s lack of rhythmic punctuality threatened to stop the songs dead. Even one tune involving call-and-response with the audience seems too much from a singer this good.

Adolfo’s quartet opened with three tunes (Jobim’s “Wave” and “One Note Samba” and the keyboardist’s own “Juliana”) that set the evening’s rhythmic tone. Percussionist Nailton (Meia Noite) Dos Santos layered congas, bongos, chimes, triangle and a shallow drum (much like the zambumba used in the Forro music of northeastern Brazil) into Wagner’s timekeeping while Adolfo stirred streaming, lyrical lines into thick, block-chord statements.

Sonia Santos plays Mondays at 8:30 p.m. through January at Cafe Lido, 501 30th St., Newport Beach. Admission: $3. Information: (714) 675-2968.