First things first. The Melissa Morgan playing at Kerrytown Concert House Saturday is not the woman of the same name who was eliminated earlier this year on the TV reality show “The Biggest Loser.” Nor is she the R&B singer who spells her first name Meli’sa.

This Melissa Morgan is a jazz vocalist and 2004 Monk competition semi-finalist hoping to make a splash in the Midwest after earning a name for herself on the east and west coasts.

For the Kerrytown performance, she will offer tunes from her new release, “Until I Met You,” showcasing the influences of top jazz vocalists from the recent past.

Morgan is a friend of local-gone-national jazz guitarist Randy Napoleon; in fact, that friendship is the reason why she’s making her area debut at KCH.

“At 1 time, there were 2 full-time jazz clubs in Ann Arbor,” Napoleon, who plays on Morgan’s CD, said. “It's important in a personal way to me that the scene in this area remains vibrant and diverse. Michigan is home to some of the finest jazz musicians I know. It's a natural step to integrate some of the great musicians I've met from the coasts. The audience is there, there is a hunger.”

Besides Morgan, Napoleon has plans in the works to bring alto saxophonist Dmitry Baefsky, trombonist Josh Brown, and organist Jared Gold to Ann Arbor.

“You hear strong influences from Nancy Wilson and Dinah Washington, but Melissa has something different,” said Napoleon about Morgan. “She is a quietly confident musical personality.”

Morgan said she’s excited to be coming to Ann Arbor.

“I haven’t been much in the Midwest, although we were on Mackinac Island last summer and really had a wonderful time,” she told AnnArbor.com in a phone interview. “We did the Labor Day jazz festival and opened for Dave Brubeck. It was like a fairy tale there.

“My goal is to introduce myself to the area, connect with Randy’s musicians, and use it as a jumping off point to grow and play more in the Midwest. It’s an area I haven’t been able to get to yet.”

In the past few years, Morgan has been a regular at some of New York’s top jazz rooms with her own trio and quartet, and with other artists that include Harold Mabern, David Hazeltine and Sam Yahel. She was featured in performances with Jon Faddis and the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars at the Blue Note in New York and also performed at the 2002 New York Women of Jazz Festival. Recently, she’s been a regular fixture in clubs on the California coast.

In addition to the Ann Arbor show Saturday, Morgan’s quartet will appear at St. John's Episcopal Church in Royal Oak, in a benefit for Open Hands Food Pantry, on Sunday. Joining her on both dates are guitarist Napoleon and bassist Kurt Krahnke. The Royal Oak show also features Sean Dobbins on drums.

She said her earliest exposure to jazz was by way of her grandmother’s record collection when she was growing up in Teaneck, New Jersey. Some of the 1st jazz voices she ever heard from among those old LPs were Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson.

When she started to record her CD, Morgan said she knew exactly what she wanted.

“I wanted to do a really old-school record with young, hip musicians to give it just that fresh breath of air but really pay homage to why we all started with jazz,” she explained. “I didn’t want to sound too polished, I didn’t want it to sound very modern, I didn’t want it to sound too clean. I really wanted a very organic, gritty sound, almost like you were playing a record. … I wanted to really have a live sense, and once you start overdubbing it really ruins the whole energy of a recording.”

Melissa Morgan talks about “Until I Met You”:

Morgan said a lot of time was spent researching great tunes that hadn’t been recorded for decades. “I wanted to find those few standards that the real jazz aficionado would appreciate and maybe not know, or, in some cases, appreciate that we found it.”

Some of the tracks on the CD include Etta James’ 1950s track “Cool Cool Daddy,” the jazz standard “Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?” and “The More I See You,” which has been recorded by many artists over the years, including Nancy Wilson and Michael Bublé. Listen to a clip of Melissa Morgan “Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?” (MP3).

“We’re really going to mix it up, play some beautiful ballads and some real swingin,’ soulful standards,” she said, adding that she and the band are looking forward to the intimate setting Kerrytown Concert House affords.

“I really prefer that over larger, warehouse-type jazz clubs. You get a chance to connect more with the audience. I’m a firm believer that the audience contributes to the quality or special moments of the music on any given evening.”

Roger LeLievre is a freelance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com.