It's not exactly groundbreaking anthropology to suggest that, typically, bright people are intellectually curious.

In that spirit, listeners who revel in "Southern Comfort," the new album by virtuoso violinist Regina Carter, are as impressed by her creative vision and scope as they are transported by the glorious heart of the music therein. It's a remarkable album that explores the breadth and depth of the music of the Deep South through the prism of her family ancestry - but, in terms of a perceived artistic departure, well, fans and critics have come to relish and anticipate Carter's varied sonic explorations.

In addition to a jazz career in which she's worked with Wynton Marsalis, Kenny Barron and Straight Ahead, she's done session work with artists from Faith Evans to Mary J. Blige. As a solo artist, she's released a (literally hands-on) tribute "Paganini: After a Dream," paid tribue to her mother's musical heroes on "I'll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey," and infused African styles into her own musical visions with "Reverse Thread."

She's also a 2006 recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, so, yes, you can literally catalog Carter as one of the truly "bright people."

"I'm never sure where the music is going to go on any particular project," Carter says by phone from her New York City home last week. "It's like a tree with all the different branches, and that was definitely the case with 'Southern Comfort.'"

Carter performs Friday in Connecticut College's Palmer Auditorium and also appears at noon today in The Telegraph Record Shop in New London for The Day's "Live Lunch Break" concert series.

On "Southern Comfort," Carter and a rotating cast of musicians and arrangers came up with a dozen tunes that span musical Dixie - from sprightly Cajun rhythms and spirituals to work songs; cowboy to N'Awlins funk; and children's songs to hoedowns to Swamp blues.

"The whole project came about when I was on ancestor.com, trying to fill out my family tree," she explains.

Her grandfather was a coal miner in Alabama and, despite her Michigan upbringing, Carter spent summers in the south and has a rich mental scrapbook of images, scents and sounds in her brain. Between the website and talking with relatives, Carter became interested in exploring the music of region.

"I'm always curious about what was going on at any particular period in history - whether fashion or politics or music -and the more I found out, the more I remembered. And the more I remembered, the more I looked into it and this whole world of musical styles just unfolded," she says.

In Carter-like fashion, though, it wasn't enough for her to simply pick archival material and record an album. Along with the ancestor research and family interviews, Carter began listening to archival field recordings like the Lomax collection. She also reached out to more contemporary works including Gram Parsons' "Hickory Wind" and Hank Williams' "Honky Tonkin'." The overall affect is a remarkably diverse but yet unifying collection.

"While I was hearing this material - usually just a voice or single melody lines - I started thinking of musicians I know who would be perfect to arrange particular songs," Carter says. "I'd send out three or four tunes to each one and ask, 'Do you feel a connection with anything here?' And most of the people I approached felt an immediate resonance with one or two and came up with these amazing arrangements."

There are two immediate things to note on listening to "Southern Comfort" beyond its overall joy and beauty. One is that while, yes, Carter and the musicians are schooled and cream-of-the-crop jazzers - and as such expected to be virtuosic - their skill at empathetically recreating a variety of rhythmically and harmonically diverse styles is amazing. It's also tremendous what a lovely and melodically captivating player Carter is.

"Well, all of these pieces are so strong," Carter says in self-effacing fashion. "It was probably easier on the one hand to deal with the naked melodies of the field recordings than the Parsons or Williams, which are familiar in full arrangements. I wanted the musicians to know that there was freedom to interpret and put a different spin on things as long as we didn't recreate the wheel. It was never about that. I just wanted the music to take me where it wanted to go."

Regina Carter, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Palmer Auditorium, Connecticut College, 270 Mhegan Ave., New London; $22, $20 seniors and $11 students; (860) 439-2787.

Live Lunch Break, noon Thursday, Telegraph Record Shop, 19 Golden St., New London; free; theday.com.