Mindful Music

Jazz singer Debby Yeager has passed through Ventura before, exercising her subtle way with a song and a musical versatility that easily traverses jazz standards, pop-tinged songs and quirkier turf.

But there’s a new, deeper spirit behind the music-making of the Orange County-based singer these days. Just after the release of her 1996 album, “Mood Swing,” on her own Stress Records label, Yeager went through a debilitating self-exploratory phase.

Memories of child abuse suddenly resurfaced and undermined her. She dropped out of musical life and plunged into psychological and legal proceedings, as she examined herself and won a painful lawsuit against her father.

But she worked through the trauma, partly through the therapy of music, and has made another, album, the soon-to-be- released “Psychology of Jazz.” She’ll show up at 66 California Saturday night as part of a string of gigs with a stellar band of Los Angeles-based musicians, including pianist Milcho Leviev, drummer Ralph Penland, bassist Tony Dumas, percussionist Cassio Duarte and saxophonist Jerry Pinter.

There are plenty of adept female jazz singers around, even in Southern California, but Yeager has something unique. “Mood Swing” offers a solid portrait of her gifts and showcases her distinctive take on what defines the jazz palette.

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The gentle bluesy waltz and melodic charm of “Summer Dreams” suggests pop-jazz lubed with art, and Yeager slips in oblique quotes from the standard “It Might as Well Be Spring” on the fade. She also flexes a persuasive Brazilian touch with “Reza” and a samba-style version of “Chances Are.”

She digs deep with a slow, clear reading of “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” with re-harmonized chords. Giddiness rears its head on the “True Turtle Tale,” on which her disarming little narrative is backed by bassist Henry Franklin, the mainstay at 66 California.

A sure highlight of the set is her reading of “Nothing Like You,” the little treasure in jazz annals sung with inimitable twangy luster by Bob Dorough and heard as a delightful curveball at the end of Miles Davis’ “Sorcerer.” Dorough himself shows up in a duet, in an arrangement including bongos and trumpeter Oscar Brashear.

Past and present, jazz and pop meet on a happy common ground on the album. Her new one promises to be worth watching for as well, especially as a statement of where she’s been in the interim.

DETAILS

Debby Yeager, at 66 California, 66 California St., Ventura; Saturday from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Free. 648-2266.

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West African Songstress: World music--African in particular--has gained a growing audience in recent years, a healthy trend all around. One of the positive upshots of the boom has been increasing access to musicians from afar, in the always more thrilling context of live performance.

Take, for example, the Mali-based singer Oumou Sangare, who will appear with her band at UCSB’s Campbell Hall on Thursday. Mali is also the homeland of one of the world’s greatest singers, Salif Keita, who combines striking clarity with soulful expression, qualities also attributed to Sangare.

Sangare has been gaining attention lately, through her musical presence in the film adaptation of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and through her own album, “Worotan” (Nonesuch), the first domestic project in a large discography dating back a decade.

Her latest album celebrates the homeland but also includes American soul elements with a guest shot by saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, an alumnus of James Brown’s band.

Sangare is touring with an eight-piece group, bolstered by three vocalists and a reportedly ultra-tight instrumental machinery. Check it out. The concert will no doubt be a highlight of the cultural year in these parts and a chance to hear a star up close.

DETAILS

Oumou Sangare, Thursday at 8 p.m. at UCSB’s Campbell Hall. Tickets are $12-$20; 893-3535.

Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].