Growing up in Manchester in the 1970s, Susan Werner says she remembers watching musicians like Leo Kottke perform on Iowa Public Television’s “Live From the M-Shop.”

“I remember thinking it would be really cool to play there someday,” Werner says. “I would know I’d really made it if I got to play at the M-Shop.”

Friday will mark her fifth appearance. Werner says her relationship with the city of Ames has been a long one.

“My oldest brother was the first person in my family to go to college,” Werner says. “I remember it was a big trip for us to take him to Iowa State.”

She recalls dropping her brother off at Knapp Hall, which Werner says at that time was surrounded by cornfields.

Having just finished the initial stages of recording a new album, Werner’s fans can expect a sneak preview at where the artist is headed musically when she performs at the M-Shop.

“I’ll be playing a lot of new songs … a lot more piano,” Werner says. She refers to the current popularity of artists Diana Krall and Norah Jones and says she thinks people are interested in hearing women play jazz standards.

“There is a concentration to those old songs,” Werner says. “They have so few words — they’re all tune. Within seven words of the first line the main idea comes through.”

Werner says people respond to the jazz standard format because they can be sung to anyone — they’re not about just one person’s lived experience.

“They are an expression of a feeling,” Werner says. “They are compressed emotion, dense like a fudge brownie.”

Werner says due to a lack of female presence in the jazz field, she looks to George Gershwin and Cole Porter as influences.

“There is a moment when, as an artist, you are done with the work of assembling a self, and you can get on with things,” Werner says.

“You can establish an interest, a compassion in the lives and moods of other people.”

Werner says as she gets older, she finds she has less she needs to say about herself, and this has freed her artistically.

Having played large arenas while touring with artists including Joan Armatrading and Richard Thompson, Werner says she likes the intimacy of the smaller venues like the M-Shop.

“I like singing to people. I like seeing them,” Werner says. “You can feel the cycle of emotion — what you give to the audience comes back because they are right there.”

Werner will be performing without an opening act, but Eric Yarwood, M-Shop coordinator, says fans of Werner won’t be upset.

“People who come to see Werner, come to see Werner,” Yarwood says.

Who: Susan Werner

Where: Maintenance Shop

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Cost: $10 students, $12 public