In the “jazz vocal renaissance” of the last decade, the 49 year-old Bridgewater has emerged as one of the greatest living jazz singers, possessing effervescent swing and soul-dripping nuance, like Ella Fitzgerald if she had come of age in the ’70s.

In fact, there’s an unforgettable moment on this disc when Bridgewater does an impression of Ella singing and scatting James Brown’s “Sex Machine.” It’s surprising and hilarious, and hints at just how entertaining this record can be in addition to the spellbinding music.

Bridgewater knows how to work a room, scatting up a summer rain storm on “Undecided,” “Cotton Tail,” “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” and “Cherokee” (which features a stellar Thierry Eliez organ solo). On “Stairway to the Stars,” she somehow makes her voice moan and vibrate like a muted trumpet. But these devices never sound forced or contrived, rather like the perfect foil for her lyrical delivery, which is relaxed, poignant and at times devastatingly luminous, as on the Johnny Mercer/Lionel Hampton classic, “Midnight Sun.”

Great chops are one thing, but this record has that extra dimension of “soul-kitchen” intimacy that can make a live vocal set irresistible. During a fourteen minute “Love for Sale” (re-arranged wonderfully over the Headhunters’ “Watermelon Man”), Bridgewater works the crowd into hysterics, pretending to fall passionately in love with an audience member named Paul (and simulating orgasm with him to boot). It’s all in good fun, but when she mewls “I’ve got love, sweet love, honey coated love, chocolate covered love, sugar dripping love,” the proverbial male tongue has rolled out onto the carpet.

Kurt Elling’s recently released Live in Chicago shows how easy it is for a talented, though less experienced singer’s shtick to go stale on record. But Bridgewater never hits a false note on Live at Yoshi’s, and for an hour the listener feels like one of those lucky people who sat in the front row of a hip little joint in Oakland, captivated by a tremendous personality.