She has a crystal-clear voice, a strong sense of swing, and intimate knowledge of the jazz tradition. Her crowning achievement is her peerless interpretation of the Great American Songbook. One hears the original song while understanding that Galloway’s experience, education, and personal style contribute to the singular adventure of hearing that song made fresh. Though her musical tastes are broad, she chooses to sing only those songs whose lyrics she understands so well that she makes them her own.
She performs each as a musical conversation with her band-mates, letting each song unfold. “I really believe in the conversation of the music, in letting everyone have their say,” Maggie says. “It’s like a wonderful dinner party. Sometimes you’re all chatting at once; other times, one person has something important to say. What matters is that each of us tell the story in a way we can all feel and connect with.”
That philosophy has served her well as she has developed her career and built a loyal following around Boston’s fertile music scene over the past two decades. She has released two fine recordings as a leader: 1998’s More Than You Know on the Brownstone label and 2004’s Azure on her own Little Muse Records.
A professional singer since 1976, Maggie Galloway has been performing in and around New England for more than two decades and has led her own club band for twenty years. She has been a regular, featured performer at the Top of the Hub (high atop Boston’s landmark Prudential Center), since 1984. Maggie has played a variety of other well-known jazz venues through the years, including Turner Fisheries, Casa Veccia, Scullers Jazz Club, and 75 Chestnut; the Press Room in Portsmouth, N.H.; Amsterdam’s and the Jazz Room in Providence, R.I.; the Franklin Cape Ann, the Acton Jazz Café, the Bangkok Paradise, and the Natick Center for the Arts and Peabody-Essex Museum concert series.
She grew up near Flint, Michigan, where community music performance encouraged her to take singing seriously. She studied summers at Michigan’s acclaimed Interlochen Arts Academy and was awarded a scholarship in classical voice at the University of Michigan. There she soon began singing with a jazz trio. She left college for a year on the road with a Top 40 show band, then resumed her education at Boston’s Berklee College of Music.
Awards came early and often—she received DownBeat magazine’s DeeBee award as the best student jazz vocalist in 1981, and a special Judge’s Award from DownBeat in 1982. A regional award in the American Collegiate Talent Search led to a U.S.O. tour of Asia and the Caribbean in 1982. After graduating from Berklee, she sang with both a fusion and a rock band before finding her niche interpreting treasures from the Great American Songbook—in its very broadest sense.
Maggie recently discovered that her musical roots ran deep within her own family—lots of wonderful singers across the generations, and even some horn players—although she wasn’t conscious of it growing up. “We are products of our heritage,” she admits. "Attractions to various genres can be genetic, not just taught." Her high school drama teacher reminded her that thirty years ago she told him she aspired to be a jazz singer—long before she remembers having that desire.
Maggie’s debut recording, More Than You Know on the Brownstone label, was quickly embraced by the jazz community near and far after its 1998 release. It was chosen as an “Editor’s Choice” in Cadence magazine’s poll of the year’s best records, as “CD of the Week” by the Jazz Review, as a “Pick of the Week” in The Boston Globe, and was named “Best Vocal Jazz CD” by South Africa’s Cape Town Jazz Appreciation Society—which invited Maggie to Cape Town in 2000, and also in the following year for a repeat performance.
The disc showcased Maggie with her working band, featuring pianist Jeff Auger, bassist Bob Nieske, saxophonist Jim Cameron and drummer Rick Considine. It showcased her ability to make familiar tunes her own and reveal new facets for each listener, while also presenting exquisite, less-known gems. One such is “Baltimore Oriole,” an under-recorded 1930s blues by Hoagy Carmichael (lyrics by Paul Francis Webster). One of many Carmichael tunes that never escaped the formidable shadow of “Stardust,” it’s about a songbird on a romantic fling with a two-timing blackbird that singes her wings. And the pure notes in “Moonlight in Vermont” fall softly on new snow that crunches under the listener’s feet. Galloway’s magic is to make these songs, performed by so many others in so many ways, sound novel, delightfully recreated, and classic at the same time.
“The tunes I sing have to do with my age and where I am in life. There was a time when I couldn’t sing some of them,” Maggie says. “Now I pick songs that I’ve lived, with lyrics I really understand.”
That statement, which was true for her first CD, is doubly true for Azure. From start to finish, Azure is suffused with a profound mood of reflection—the sense of someone exploring a new phase in her musical and personal life. Composers such as Gershwin and Porter (“I Loves You Porgy” and “Every Time We Say Goodbye”) are balanced by Ellington’s prayer “Come Sunday,” his more familiar “Sophisticated Lady” (given new life as a duet with bass), and the obscure, haunting title track (a classical guitar duet, as is Luiz Bonfá’s “The Gentle Rain”).
Alec Wilder’s rarely-recorded ballad “Blackberry Winter” glows especially bright, with its cathartic yet strengthening lyrics. Here, too, are the neglected “Autumn Nocturne,” and the American folk song “Wayfaring Stranger,” heard in a treatment of unusual power and majesty. The trio’s special ability to dream as a detailed ensemble soars in Steve Kuhn’s “Tomorrow’s Son” (recorded by the pianist with singer Sheila Jordan in the 1970s).
Both her supporting musicians on Azure have played beside her for years. Jazz and classical guitarist Anthony Weller works frequently with trumpeter Herb Pomeroy, and has recorded with violinist Stéphane Grappelli. Bassist Bob Nieske is Jazz Artist-in Residence at Brandeis and an accomplished composer; for twelve years he toured the world with Jimmy Giuffre’s Quartet.
Maggie released the new CD in September 2004 on her own Little Muse Records. She has a recharged band for her continuing Top of the Hub gig that includes pianist Joe Mulholland, bassist Bob Nieske and drummer Bob Tamagni. The thoughtful trumpeter Phil Grenadier joins the team when he is available. She also has a working duo several nights a week with guitarist Anthony Weller.
“I feel blessed,” Maggie says. “The music tells me how important it is to stay true to your course—trusting your instincts and your heart.” Every night—every performance—yields the sound of surprise for listeners, revelations that Maggie finds endlessly energizing. “When the band is smoking and you finally hit that ‘higher plain’ as a group, it is the best feeling in the world. The love of music motivates me more than anything else.”
