Acuna Deftly Fuses Latin Roots With Imagination

Claudia Acuna’s life story is so compelling that it sometimes has obscured the much more important fact that she is a superb jazz singer who is improving with every outing.

That’s not to minimize the extraordinary journey she has made, leaving her native Santiago, Chile, at the age of 18, moving to New York City on her own, working as a baby sitter and a dog walker to keep herself going as she developed her skills. But none of that would have mattered much if those skills hadn’t been at the service of an inventive musical imagination.

On Wednesday night at the Jazz Bakery, Acuna displayed how the skills and the imagination have come together into a performing style that reaches comfortably from her Latin roots to the vanguard of the contemporary jazz world.

Much of the program was devoted to material from her highly praised new Verve CD, “Rhythm of Life,” accompanied by a sterling ensemble consisting of pianist Jason Lindner, trombonist/flutist Avi Leibovich, bassist John Benitez and drummer Eric McPherson. As a bonus, Acuna did a few numbers with pianist Billy Childs, who co-produced and wrote some of the arrangements for the album.

Acuna’s versatility dominated the set. Moving easily from standards such as “I Fall in Love Too Easily” and “My Romance” to Milton Nascimento’s “Maria, Maria” and Violetta Parra’s “Volver a los Diecisiete,” she was fully in sync with the inner workings of each of the songs. Her ballad phrasing on the standards revealed an intimate understanding of rhythmic flow of jazz singing. The Spanish-language numbers emphasized her smoothly articulate expressiveness and innate story-telling powers.

If there was a problem with the set, it traced to Acuna’s great generosity with her accompanists, allowing them extended solos (sometimes too extended).

In the early stages of her career, she understandably worked hard to establish her credentials with instrumentalists. But it now is time for Acuna to take center stage, to find a workable balance between her creative goals and her obvious star potential. She’s simply too fine an artist to do anything less.

And Verve executives would be wise to recognize that they already have one, enhanced by Acuna’s value as an attractive, talented performer with the rare capacity to reach listeners in both the jazz and the Latin communities.

Claudia Acuna at the Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Ave. Tonight through Sunday at 8 and 9:30 p.m. $25. (310) 271- 9039.