It’s unfortunate that Galloway hadn’t recorded earlier, for she’s a tasteful and charming interpreter of lyrics.

Listeners preferring pyrotechnics to subtlety will not much care for this release, but those who admire nuance will revel in this masterful recording by Maggie Galloway.

She meets every melody more than halfway, taking just enough sly liberties with a tune to add the element of surprise without disguising the original. And she has a relaxed, easy way with lyrics that makes each tune unfold like a conversation.

Ms. Galloway is a most unusual talent and one deserving of much wider recognition. She blends the precision and control of a classically-trained singer with a natural, playful jazz phrasing and imagination. She’s a singer who would fit just as well into a jazz party lineup as onstage in an intimate club in Boston (or New York or Chicago or Los Angeles or Tokyo or Minneapolis-St. Paul)

An artist who interprets "The American Songbook" with sensitivity, bearing the mature articulation and improvisational skills that come with years of experience, focus and dedication, may be a rare find for music lovers in the future. Imagine!

There are a lot of ladies singing jazz today, or trying to. There always have been. But the ones who succeed usually feel jazz down to their toes, fully understand themselves as jazz instruments, extensions of the musical form. Galloway is such a singer. She has a warm, full voice that can’t fail to nestle in your heart.

Her confident voice is a bit like an alto saxophone, with a sound that has a bit of froth around a solid center and in the way she hits the high notes cleanly.

A brilliant practitioner on the ultimate instrument.

Her voice is just lovely, and her singing combines that natural beauty with a sweet, uncomplicated approach that creates a classic effect. The best analogy might be to imagine if Karen Carpenter had lived long enough to tackle some serious jazz material. It’s an incredible coupling of talent and quality that keeps this disc in the CD player play after play.

Let’s stipulate that I’ve exhausted my superlatives on Maggie Galloway’s CD. Even so, that doesn’t begin to suggest how exceptional she is. Every note she hits is dead on. Every word she breathes is as clear as a New England winter wind. This lady would be as ‘at home’ at Rainbow & Stars as she would have been at the Royal Roost.

Her repertory takes us through the realms of thoughtful jazz and into pure inventiveness, but always with a musicality and richness of feeling that carries deep respect for the nature of the text and its meaning. To hear her is an expedition into lyricism.

Over many decades as a professional jazz and classical guitarist, with an international career, I have been privileged to work with three dozen superb singers of diverse genres and backgrounds. By far the finest was the American jazz singer Maggie Galloway—the most musical, the most flexible, the most artistic. She can sing anything. She has an uncanny ability to communicate a song’s meaning and to reach deep into its essence, while responding instantaneously to what the musicians around her are doing. She understands on every level what the composers and lyricists are after.

The classic songs of American jazz have been covered so many times that it takes an exceptional singer to make them come alive. Maggie Galloway is such a songstress.