Propelling much of the hype around Peyroux is the awed intimation that she channels the spirit of Billie Holiday. It's true that she's picked up the lilt and a hint of the ethereal pitch. But this was no seance; Peyroux is her own woman, and she repeatedly switched her tone and style as she ambled through a set list that recapitulated her album, leaving Lady Day's eternal soul blessedly unmolested.
Peyroux's repertoire draws on artists as varied as Holiday, Bessie Smith, Leonard Cohen, Josephine Baker, and Hank Williams Sr. More jazz-infused than Norah Jones and more organic than Diana Krall, she has the presence and the chops to still a crowded room. But she connected the best when she let herself swing in full interplay with her band, which German bassist Johannes Weidmuller, in particular, anchored with brio.
Peyroux projected a similar assurance when interpreting the complex lyrics of others, for instance executing Cohen's ''Dance Me to the End of Love" with a connoisseur's delectation. But with such writerly craft on display, her self-penned hit ''Don't Wait Too Long" could not help but fall a bit flat.
A little jarringly, Peyroux was saddled with an opening act, the 16-year-old singer-songwriter Sonya Kitchell, who's made waves recently well beyond her home in Western Massachusetts. Kitchell is a fine young talent, but she'd do well to take a hint from Peyroux's choice of material. By insisting on singing her own compositions, Kitchell showed that her writing is far from ready, almost pedestrian. She walked the audience through the gamut of adolescent cliches. But to be fair, the crowd didn't seemed to mind.
