Monday

New jazz singers are popping up everywhere these days, threatening to drown us in a tidal wave of ultrahip deconstructions of standards and self-indulgent scat choruses. Carla Cook, who makes her Blues Alley debut tonight, soars above this pack of wannabes. At 5, Detroit-born Cook began singing with the Angelic Choir of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. After high school, she attended Boston University, where she combined a major in speech communication with music courses. Now based in Brooklyn, she has sung with big bands and cutting-edge combos; appeared at jazz festivals in Europe, Africa, and Australia; and provided the voice of Teriyaki Oko for the Sony PlayStation game Parappa the Rapper II. Cook’s first CD, It’s All About Love, showcases her versatility. Backed by a supportive ensemble featuring pianist Cyrus Chestnut and violinist Regina Carter, she performs Broadway and Hollywood standards, songs by Marvin Gaye and Neil Young, a Milton Nascimento composition (in Portuguese), an original, and a traditional hymn. Her scatting, usually the stumbling block for young singers, is as inventive and thoughtfully structured as the improvisations of a master instrumentalist. With her beautiful sound, uncommonly wide range, razor-sharp intonation, and sensitivity to lyrics, Cook is set to emerge as one of the major jazz voices of the coming millennium. At 8 and 10 p.m., Monday, Nov. 15, at Blues Alley, 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Rear. $16. (202) 337-4141. (Joel E. Siegel)