Melissa Manchester, a singer-songwriter whose music was the soundtrack to an entire generation, is as strong as ever at Café Carlyle, hitting her songs home and performing classics with a twist, like a spicy Latin arrangement of “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” (Irving Berlin). Café Carlyle, a swanky Upper East Side cabaret bar that attracts top singers, has been on Manchester’s bucket list for a while, and she is thrilled to be making her debut there. She plays a selection of songs from her upcoming album in her show, and some songs that she plays “just for New York.” She has just the knack to make old songs feel timeless. When she slows down the Ronette’s too-peppy “Be My Baby” as a slow, melancholy love ballad, you forget that the song was written 50 years ago.

As an adjunct professor of pop music at USC, Manchester teaches her students to write songs that they want to write, and not be dictated by the current trends of rhythm-driven music. She stands by her own taste. In her show, Manchester told us how a studio recently rejected an idea for an album she wanted to do. “They said, ‘That’s too many styles of music,’” she recounted. “So I am now the president of my own record label.”

Before the show, I had little idea of who Manchester was. I now wonder how that’s possible. I had heard every song she played without realizing she was attached to them. She has many standards under her belt, including “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’,” which she wrote in 1978 with Kenny Loggins. Manchester’s vocal power blew me away. She has the kind of raw talent that makes seeing an evening of her work truly special. As a composer, she freely plays with arrangements, preparing an eclectic feast of music for guests at Café Carlyle, to go along with the real dinner you can have there.