Meshell Ndegeocello is focusing on jazz and a collective spirit

''Dance of the Infidel" is Meshell Ndegeocello's first straight jazz album, yet the vital, adventurous spirit of the genre often called ''America's classical music" has always saturated her work, beginning with her 1993 debut, ''Plantation Lullabies."

Yet the singer, songwriter, and much-sought-after bassist insists making a jazz CD wasn't part of some well-thought-out career plan.

''I'm an in-the-now kind of person, and I try to do what feels right in the moment," she says during a telephone interview from San Francisco. ''I just keep doing what I'm doing every day. I'm happy to get up every morning, and I'm thankful to have an opportunity to make music, and I'm happy to enjoy this experience right now. I don't look back in the past or think too much about what I'll be doing down the road. I just want to play music."

In stores this week, ''Dance of the Infidel" takes its name from the frisky, beloved composition ''Dance of the Infidels," from legendary jazz pianist Bud Powell. Yet the music is most deeply influenced by Miles Davis's 1960s work featuring such acclaimed musicians as pianist Herbie Hancock, sax man Wayne Shorter, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams. During those years, Davis took a step back and allowed his musicians to steer the music's power and flow.

That's what Ndegeocello envisioned with her new album, for which she created her collective, Spirit Music Jamia. In Urdu, a language spoken in Pakistan and northern India, ''jamia" means university. On the album, the group includes trumpeter Wallace Roney, saxophonists Kenny Garrett and Ron Blake, drummer Jack DeJohnette (who played on Davis's seminal 1969 album, ''Bitches Brew"), and singers Cassandra Wilson and Lalah Hathaway.

''It wasn't hard getting the group together," Ndegeocello, 35, says. ''I just got together with people I like." Ndegeocello's Spirit Music Jamia plays the Paradise Rock Club tomorrow, on a bill with the Joshua Redman Elastic Band.

So far, Ndegeocello hasn't played with Redman onstage during their shared dates, but she does play bass on his latest album, ''Momentum," on the original Redman composition ''Greasy G."

''I find that generally the musicians I really enjoy playing with, that I can have a chemistry with, most of them, regardless of what genre they come from, are very open-minded in terms of their musical attitudes," Redman says. ''They're very eclectic in their musical tastes, and I find those are the musicians I relate to the best."

Jason Koransky, editor of Downbeat magazine, recently saw Ndegeocello and her jazz band perform at New York's Birdland.

''I was impressed by how good they sounded live," he says. ''You can really tell how much she's enjoying this, how much she enjoys starting a groove, watching the band building, and layering upon that.

''She's a phenomenal bassist," Koransky adds. ''When someone is such a great musician, they're gonna gravitate toward a music like jazz because it offers the freedom and challenges that pop music can't necessarily provide."

From the Beatles to Destiny's Child, it's common for a group of band members to yearn to break out and do their own thing. Yet after spending her entire career as a solo artist, Ndegeocello found she most wanted to be part of a band.

''I've always liked the idea of being surrounded by musicians I admire," she said. ''With this album, I didn't feel any desire to be out front."

Ndegeocello wrote or co-wrote seven of the album's eight tracks, the exception being the 1930s standard ''When Did You Leave Heaven," which has been recorded by such artists as Nancy Wilson, Little Jimmy Scott, and Louis Armstrong. Here, the song becomes a bluesy showcase for Hathaway's intense, moody voice. ''The Chosen" floats on the dusky sexiness of Wilson's voice, which here sounds a bit like Ndegeocello's. Still, that's as close as the album ever gets to a Ndegeocello vocal, since she doesn't sing a note.

''I just wanted to play bass; I didn't want to feel like the leader," she says. ''It felt very natural to me."

''Dance of the Infidel" is Ndegeocello's first album since 2003's ''Comfort Woman." More significantly, it's her seventh album but the first not to be released on Maverick Records. (This album is on Shanachie, an independent label.) In the early 1990s, she became one of the first artists signed to the label owned by Madonna and scored a modest hit with the delectable funk song ''If That Was Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)."

Still, despite such well-crafted albums as 1996's ''Peace Beyond Passion" and 1999's ''Bitter," she has remained more of a critic's favorite than a commercial draw, never compromising her musical ideas for bigger sales. She's a fearless, eclectic musician who has played with rockers and rappers, at the now-defunct all-female music festival Lilith Fair, and with jazzmen Roy Hargrove and Redman. (Redman's Elastic Band is currently on tour with Ndegeocello.) She may be best known for her duet with John Mellencamp on a rollicking cover of the Van Morrison classic ''Wild Night."

Of course, don't expect Ndegeocello to spend a lot of time discussing or cataloging her past achievements. There's simply too much she wants to accomplish with her music today.

''I'm a moment-to-moment person, and right now I'm concentrating on what I'm doing now," she says. ''I feel like I can't really explain to people what I'm doing now. They just have to come experience it for themselves."

Meshell Ndegeocello’s Spirit Music Jamia plays the Paradise with the Joshua Redman Elastic Band tomorrow at 8 p.m. Tickets $33.50. For information, call 617-562-8800.