Hopping off a plane from Australia before hitting the small club's stage, Patti Smith was jet-lagged and in self-deprecating joke-mode last Friday at Zanzibar in Santa Monica, where she turned in a riveting short performance for 100 or so people assembled to benefit the Silver Lake Conservatory of Music, co-founded by her friend and Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist Flea.

"I picked up the guitar 34 years ago and I'm still on the same four chords," Smith joked at the onset, before launching into emotional versions of 'Grateful,' 'Beneath the Southern Cross' and Hank Williams' 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.' The event also served as the pre-party to the L.A.-opening of 'Patti Smith: Dream of Life,' the Steven Sebring-directed documentary that was more than a decade in the making.

The unplugged, unaccompanied show was a rarity for Smith, who started performing in 1973 with guitarist Lenny Kaye. "Me and Lenny Kaye wrote this," she said by way of introduction to 'Beneath the Southern Cross.' "The song's a lot better with Lenny." She made her lack of guitar expertise her running joke. But Smith isn't about instrumental prowess; when she raises her voice, all accompaniment or lack of it is forgiven and forgotten. Patti Smith connects with words and performance.

Smith later delivered a spoken version of 'People Have the Power,' and made a hopeful reference to candidate Barack Obama. Taking a request, she did an impromptu reading of 'Elegie,' explaining how she wrote it for Jimi Hendrix. Asking for further requests for her Orpheum Theater show scheduled for the following night, Smith mock-intoned, "I like to ask the town's people what they like to hear. That's how I make my set list." Then off she went to sign the companion book to the film, and to address the audience assembled at the film's premiere. Seems a poet's work is never done.