JAZZ REVIEW : Jimmy Scott Enthralls Before Packed House at Catalina

It might be said that there are three kinds of jazz vocalists: the male singers, the females and Jimmy Scott.

Singing for a packed house Tuesday at Catalina, Scott, who is now in the crest of a comeback triggered by his “All the Way” album, sounded less androgynous than earlier performances might have led one to expect. He sounded, in fact, just like what he is: a 67-year-old man with a high, piercing voice who manages to enthrall his listeners with a program composed largely of standards from the big-band era.

While giving communication a higher priority than intonation, Scott, who’s appearing through Saturday, has an emotional way with a ballad, be it “All the Way” or “When Did You Leave Heaven?,” that counterbalances some of his technical lapses. Arms constantly in motion and often outstretched, he shows a genuine feeling for the lyrics.

Scott is one of those singers who could lag so far behind the beat (often a full measure) that you wonder whether he will ever catch up, yet he and the band somehow managed to end together.

Much of the success of the show depends on the exceptional accompaniment and solos by his quartet, most notably Kenichi Shimazu, his pianist and musical director, and Eli Adams on tenor sax.

Anything he does at this stage of his career will be just fine with the audiences that are only now finding or rediscovering him.