Here, where the sneaker-clad jazz movement is in full effect with artists like Mishka Adams, Isha and Kate Torralba leading the pack, it’s time bossa nova and its various Latin jazz iterations were given the same due.

Enter the bright flair of Sitti Katrina Navarro Baidin, or just Sitti. 22 years old, freshly graduated with honors from a University business course and the kind of girl whose perkiness, straight-laced disposition and cheery smile are the kind you’d take home to mom post-haste.

Jobim would have approved of her singing his stuff, and would have checked out her curves while he’s at it. We know this because Sitti has the string of accomplishments to prove it. From beauty titles like Miss Visayas 2001 in the Miss Travel Girl Pageant and winning 1st runner-up in Miss Silka where she won Best in Swimwear, to the cherry on her cake that is the 2004 MTV Pilipinas’ Supahstar Search. Now that’s evidence of real, 100-proof blend of performance and beauty.

"`Girl From Ipanema’ is, like, the national anthem of bossa," says Sitti in a cross between a shy whisper and a giddy enthusiasm as she explains how she went from performing pop songs to bossa. "I went through the usual musical stages like Britney and Mariah, but it was only three years ago that my manager and my musician friends encouraged me to attach to it kasi mas bagay daw sa kin. Bossa is really nice. When you listen to it it’s very happy, but when you look closely at the lyrics and the arrangement it’s very complex and melancholy."

A statuesque, young thing like Sitti singing jazz and Latin standards soon became a hit at the dozens of lounges she performed at. By then, Warner Records took notice and the last five years of doing the round of hotels, cafes and lounges paid off.

The product is CAFÉ BOSSA, Sitti’s debut album rife with 18 tracks of all your favorite covers of that fiery, pastoral genre. Old standards like "One Note Samba" and "Close To You" are given a fresh, tangential reworking while the more recent tunes like Lighthouse Family’s "Lost in Space" or Bong Pinera’s "Samba Song" become curiously loveable as you repeatedly listen.

Sitti’s voice is perky, liquid and succulent without the saccharine overbearingness that often clouds singers who try to tackle samba and bossa with too much gusto. Her minimalist approach works well and lets the music breathe in apt places. The girlish spirit in her delivery has its own charm and recalls young jazz chanteuse Renee Olstead without the bombast.

Now that the album’s promotional tour is well underway, Sitti has been swamped with gigs and she confesses that the grind, the print interviews and TV appearances are "overwhelming. And I’m learning lots on the fly. [But what I love and enjoy most about music is that] it’s free. Freedom. Pwede mong bali-baliin ang mga piyesa. I love it on stage even if the gigs are piling up."

Café Bossa’s tracks are relaxing and well-chosen, the covers amended where they were once weak and left as they are where they’re robust. Her rendition of "At 17" is particularly resonant. Mixed just right with equal parts disdain, amusement, aloofness and bitterness it exemplifies Sitti as trying to grow up both as performer and girl on her own terms. In the upbeat melancholia of the notes and weight of the lyrics she finds herself in a place where she can draw on, and harness, her pageant, TV host, modeling and lounge singer experiences.

While the album’s tracks are arguably well-made, familiar classics, that’s also their flaw. I didn’t know people still bought all-cover albums. But Sitti, climbing and then sitting for weeks on end at the number two spot on Tower Records’ "units sold" list kicks my argument right into the gutter. This, however, will have a novelty shelf life and she’ll have to take it to the next level soon.

Still, we do hope Sitti (who’s penned notes to two original songs for her next album so far) finds her compositional voice amid the rich, elegantly sexy genre she’s chosen to decipher in her twentysomething voice.

We’d like to hear her make her own samba song and see what she comes up with. Then our own sneaker-clad bossa movement can, by then, start in earnest, as it rejoices in finding its muse.