Phoebe Snow Returns, Her Arsenal Still Intact

A superabundance of vocal talent can confuse not only listeners trained by the record industry and radio to pigeonhole every artist within a snug little niche but also the singer who possesses it. But as Phoebe Snow demonstrated on Wednesday at Birdland, it doesn’t matter how you describe her; she is a phenomenon unto herself. A fully formed musical talent when she emerged in the mid-1970s with the hit “Poetry Man,” she has changed little since then, except that nowadays she rations out her arsenal of vocal pyrotechnics more discreetly and to more precise expressive effect than she used to. She still has power to spare, along with a sound that is at once instantly recognizable and technically inimitable.

You can call her what you want: a rock belter with supersonic high notes (“Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu”), a rhythm-and-blues shouter insisting on sexual equality (“Do Right Woman, Do Right Man”) or a moody coffee-voiced folk-jazz diva (“Poetry Man”). She is all of the above and everything in between.

Ms. Snow, who was accompanied by an excellent quartet (Roger Butterly on guitar and mandolin, John Korba on keyboards, Skip Ward on bass and Shannon Ford on drums), dedicated the opening show of a four-night engagement to her daughter, Valerie, who died in March at the age of 31. At the expense of her own career, Ms. Snow had devoted her life to caring for Valerie, who was born severely brain-injured. She confessed that after Valerie’s death, she didn’t know if she herself would survive. She has resumed performing, she said, because there is nothing else to do.

Her caretaking experience has profoundly shaped Ms. Snow’s songwriting, which even in the days of “Poetry Man” was overshadowed by her vocal prowess. Two numbers in her set on Wednesday, the title song of her obscure 2003 album “Natural Wonder” and “The Other Girlfriend” (from the same album), showed her gift for writing solid pop hooks.

Although Ms. Snow joked about her reputation as a kook, the personality she revealed was that of a much sadder and wiser woman who is steadfast where it counts. With lyrical adjustments, “I’m Your Girl,” a song she wrote for her mother in the late 1980s, has become “You’re My Girl,” a tribute to Valerie, which Ms. Snow delivered in a penetrating alto using her wide vibrato to convey the heavy emotional weight of a musician who knows that there are things that matter even more than music.