No one who saw Dianne Reeves perform at the Lucas during the 2007 Savannah Music Festival could ever wonder what the phrase "star power" really means.

With a perfect combination of vocal power and warm sensitivity, Reeves interacted seamlessly with her small band, bringing the audience along on a sonic tour of the heart and reinforcing the vibrancy of live jazz to longtime fans and newer listeners alike.

Though her name is now routinely uttered in the same breath as Billie and Ella, Reeves is comparatively young and at the peak of her abilities as a musician. With a career that began in the '70s, Reeves hit the pinnacle of fame in 2005 due to a short but unforgettable turn in George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck, the soundtrack to which won her a Grammy the following year.

(Speaking of Grammies: Reeves has done something no other artist has done -- winning a Grammy for three consecutive recordings, from 2001-2003.)

Dianne Reeves performs March 20 at the Trustees Theatre. She spoke to us last week from her home in Denver.

This is your second time playing the festival. Why? What do you like?

Dianne Reeves: I just love the festival. The surroundings and the city are so nice, it's just beautiful down there.

The audience really responded to you. Was that an unusually hot concert, or was it just another routine Dianne Reeves performance?

Dianne Reeves: No, there's nothing routine about our performances (laughs). They're always different, a lot of it depends on the audience, and the audience was an amazing audience. I remember that. We try as a band to make it so we do this music but we try to make it so the audience is following, because it's such an intimate exchange between all of us. And they did, and it was really great.

I have to say that of all the performers I've seen, I don't think I've ever seen anyone so comfortable onstage. Have you always been like that?

Dianne Reeves: No way. Took me years of just doing it. Now I'm comfortable. That whole thing of singing the musicians' names and all that. There used to be a time when I could never talk to the audience, but I could sing to them. It was almost like people who stutter don't stutter when they sing. I'm not a stutterer, but I just had a hard time just talking. But I could sing and I could say anything.

How does that fit in with the scatting you do?

Dianne Reeves: Scat is basically improvisation. In our lives, and we're not really aware of this, we improvise all the time. Like in conversations with people, whatever. You always have certain tools at your disposal and are you able to make up things in the moment?

I talk to a lot of chamber musicians for this festival, and what you do almost seems like chamber music, the way you interact so sensitively with your fellow musicians.

Dianne Reeves: Oh, yes. We have all these wonderful arrangements of songs, but they take on a different light when they're performed. They breathe. A lot of times in jazz music, because improvisation is such an important part of the music, the harmonies can change ever so slightly we're really breathing together and feeling and trusting one another. We create in the moment. We're a very tight-knit group and it's important that we hear each other so we can make that happen.

It's not like you're a front person with a backing band. You are very much another instrument in the band.

Dianne Reeves: Of course! That's kind of how jazz music is. All the great jazz singers they never had backup bands.

The flip side of that is, can you just go out and perform with a different band tomorrow and have that work?

Dianne Reeves: Yes, yes it can. If they're really good musicians and they can read and we can have a rehearsal, absolutely. It's as if a sax player goes and gets a pickup band. I have to be the leader because they may not know some of the cues. We make music together because it's all about the melding of musical personalities. Hearing ideas that people have. I like when people bring their ideas to the table as long as they keep the music flowing.

It's interesting that in the other indigenous American musical genre, bluegrass, there's no written music and no one can read a note. But in jazz you really do need some knowledge of sheet music and arrangements.

Dianne Reeves: But at the same time have that ability to sit in every genre and play. Improvisation has nothing to do with anything that's written. You don't write improvisation. I remember one time in a restaurant I heard a group of Turkish musicians doing indigenous music which I'm sure was not written. They came to the end of the table and they were serenading us. We're all jazz musicians, and everybody started playing. And we closed down the restaurant, just because of our ability to improvise. We could hear what they were playing and we were able to have a musical conversation, the most important thing in jazz music.

It seems like a lot of technical ability has been lost in the newer generation of popular R&B singers. They just have very weak voices.

Dianne Reeves: I never thought about it because some of the most powerful voices come out of gospel music. Amazing voices, amazing musicians are coming out of gospel, especially singers, who write and play and arrange and perform nightly. I just can't even imagine the things they do with their voices. The music industry dictates what's the cool thing. I really don't know.

What is your gospel background, if any?

Dianne Reeves: Growing up I sang a lot of music in church, and my gospel background comes from that. More than anything my biggest training has been in jazz music. There were jazz musicians in my family.

It seems that jazz musicians, more than other musicians, tend to grow up in families with a lot of jazz players. Why is that?

Dianne Reeves: You hear it. You go with what you hear, what's around the home. A lot of jazz musicians come out of the church, too. Someone like Russell Malone, my amazing guitarist from Albany, Ga. He comes straight out of the church. It was his surroundings. Another guitarist I work with is Romero Lubambo. He comes from a very rich Brazilian music culture, but he's an amazing jazz guitarist. So you take what you know and where you come from and develop it into what you want to be.

 Do you ever purposely include other jazz influences in a song? Do you ever say, 'I want a Brazilian feel for this?'

 Dianne Reeves: No. Some songs just come that way, I don't even think of it like that. They just end up being that.

I get the impression you're a very instinctive performer who doesn't overanalyze what you do. Is that correct?

Dianne Reeves: Yes.

When you do analyze, what does it tend to be? The stage show, the set list?

Dianne Reeves: It's more being able to listen to something and if I can see myself on stage, see what I can do to be better. I'm really conscious of what's on stage, about the moment. Certain things just feel really good and they work. When I work with two guitarists sometimes, there's a whole different sound and a whole different approach.

You are the only person to win three Grammies in a row in the same category. What is your feeling about industry awards?

Dianne Reeves: They're nice, but at the end of day, the most important thing is the people that keep coming to see you. The awards can sit on the shelf and when you receive them, the moment is the most amazing thing. But then after that the next year somebody else gets the award. They bring fond memories and they inspire you, but at the end of the day it's the audience, not the award.

Does it weigh heavily on your shoulders to always be compard to Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald and the like?

Dianne Reeves: I don't even think about it. You think about what you're going to do, you don't think, ‘Oh, my name is connected to theirs.' You don't think about that. Who does? There's so much work to be done.

What is some of the other work to be done?

Dianne Reeves: I'm open, there's always something different coming down the pike. There's a whole world of music out there, and hopefully I can be a part of it.

Your life really changed with the part in Good Night, and Good Luck, didn't it?

Dianne Reeves: I always had a really amazing following and never had any problem selling records. But it brought a whole different audience that may not have known I existed. It was nice, it was like being discovered by a whole new group of people. You start to realize just how broad this whole thing is.

There are a lot of people in other genres of music that I don't know about, and maybe they'll do something and I'll go, "Wow, who was that?" And I'll go and read about them and they've been around a long time doing amazing things. But because they did something that came over into a place that I'm interested in, I was able to discover them. That's how I view what's happened with me.

Clooney seems like a pretty cool dude.

Dianne Reeves: He's a really cool guy. Very down to earth, funny, extremely intelligent, works really hard, and he's really nice. He really made that film happen and it was great.

Dianne Reeves

When: March 20, 8:30 p.m.

Where: Trustees Theatre

Cost: $25-55

Info: www.savannahmusicfestival.org