JAZZ REVIEW : Oscar Brown Jr. Covers All the Emotional Bases

Storytelling, in the jazz world, usually has more to do with tone and tempo than with drama and message. Even the great jazz singers have usually been revered for their skill with musical variation rather than their ability to interpret a lyric.

One of the rare and remarkable exceptions is Oscar Brown Jr., jazz’s most durable and persistently creative teller of tales. Wednesday night, in his opening performance at the Vine St. Bar & Grill, Brown was in top form with his furry, warmly communicative baritone voice as appealing as ever and his program overflowing with a rich collection of nonpareil yarns and fables.

Accompanied by a duo consisting of his son, Oscar Brown III, on bass and Calvin Brunsen on piano, Brown touched a startlingly wide array of emotional bases on his lyrics for two jazz standards, “Walkin’ ” and “All Blues.” He was concise and to the point, his phrasing filled with implicit swing subtleties.

Nat Adderley’s “Work Song,” a staple of Brown’s repertoire for nearly 30 years, sounded surprisingly new with an interpretation that resonated with passion. And the loving paean to childhood that Brown derived from Bobby Timmons’ “Dat Dere” was highlighted by the presence of Brown’s son--the original inspiration for the lyrics--in the backup group.

Humor, always important to Brown’s shows, bubbled over in “Signifyin’ Monkey” and “But I Was Cool,” and his striking ability to create a dramatic tableau was never better illustrated than in a bittersweet reading of the nostalgic “Rags and Old Iron.”

Brown finished his set with a quietly thoughtful rendering of “Brown Baby,” the one song from his repertoire that is virtually certain to become a standard. Like everything else in the program, it had the kind of balance between words and music that could only come from a performer who knows how to tell a story.

He continues at the Vine St. through Saturday.