No Question, a Real Talent

Who is Jill Scott?

That teasing question is posed in the title of her striking debut album, and it was most certainly on the minds of the sold-out crowd on hand Sunday for the Philadelphia singer-songwriter’s formal Los Angeles debut at the House of Blues.

What was apparent during her 75-minute performance, which opened a three-night engagement at the club, is that Scott is a valuable and legitimate new star, with all the charisma, confidence and talent implied by the term.

Though she has done only a couple dozen live shows since launching her solo career last summer, Scott demonstrated the maturity and command to already fit comfortably in the neo-soul movement that also includes such rewarding female artists as Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu and Macy Gray.

In the album, “Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1,” she embarks on quite a musical journey, exhibiting the sexual aggressiveness of Prince, the sisterhood humor and combat of Millie Jackson and the social consciousness of Curtis Mayfield.

Mostly, however, she offers her own fresh and affecting take on some very old pop topics, chiefly the sweet and sour shadings found in the beginnings and endings of relationships. She writes about love that lifts and love that abuses, commenting frequently on the difference between love and mere sex.

She wraps the songs in relatively simple, understated arrangements that combine elements of R&B; and jazz, with sometimes silky and stylish supper-club edges.

At the House of Blues, Scott and her six-piece band added funk punctuation that was bracing and compelling, giving the music added traces of exhilaration and heartache.

Many pop newcomers are so tentative live that it’s hard for them to hold your attention for more than half an hour without supplementing their own material with familiar tunes. But Scott showed no strain as the show moved past the hour mark. She still had enough quality material from the album, notably the wry, eccentric “Exclusively,” to have come back for a second or third encore.

Scott was a high school teacher and poet before she was encouraged to try music by the rap group the Roots, and her poetic instincts are evident in both her singing and songwriting. She understands the value of change of pace in phrasing, often stepping back gracefully to allow the break to underscore her mood--or to allow one of the band members to step forward with just the right accent.

As a writer, she often brightens a song with detail. In “The Way,” she doesn’t just tell you she’s had breakfast, she provides the menu: toast, two scrambled eggs and grits. This kind of detail could seem clumsy, but Scott uses it to draw listeners into her experience--and the songs are rich with enough intimacy and intensity to make you feel they are from life, not just from imagination.

On stage, she made the connection all the more compelling by frequently expanding on the themes of the songs between numbers.

One of the evening’s highlights came when Scott drew on her writing roots to open the encore with a penetrating poem about a young girl’s self-hatred and self-abuse, creating an emotion that rose to gospel-tent fervor. Scott then applied much the same urgent declaration to one of her songs, testifying in “He Loves Me” to the intoxicating power of the right relationship.

It was a dramatic stretch, one that could only be pulled off by an artist of considerable ambition and vision. But that’s who Jill Scott turns out to be.

* Jill Scott, with Jamie Hawkins, plays Wednesday at the House of Blues, 8430 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, 9 p.m. Sold out. (323) 848-5100.