Pianist Laurence Hobgood, a member of Kurt Elling’s group, is a perfect pianist for Allen, emphasizing the enthusiasm of her interpretations and providing fresh voicings that attract the listener’s ears. Anyone who remembers Paul Marriot’s cheesy pop rendition of the title track will be amazed by the brightness that Hobgood’s piano accompaniment brings to it. Allen underscores the song’s downhearted side as well with her phrasing and her decision to slow the song down. Allen also reclaims “A Taste of Honey” from the soulless snappiness of its Herb Alpert instrumental pop version. Slowing the song down, a formula with which she has had great success (on her last CD, The Men In My Life, she did extremely slow covers of “This Guy’s In Love With You” and “Fly Me to the Moon”), she generates intense fervor, turning things over to Moulder for a burning guitar solo before taking the song out in rock ballad mode.

Throughout the CD the basic piano, bass, and drum accompaniment is supplemented by other colors that give the listener a pleasant series of surprises: Rob Mathes’ Fender Rhodes and organ punctuation and John Moulder’s slinky guitar solo on “The Performer”, the marimba work of drummer Dane Richardson on “Lazy Afternoon”, and the clarinet solo by Frank Glover on “You Became My Song.”

Allen also demonstrates herself a capable songwriter with two excellent songs. “Go,” the album’s second track, was written by Allen more than a decade ago. She loved the melody but wasn’t happy with the lyrics, which eluded her through several rewrites. In collaboration with friend Oryna Schiffman she finally got it right; the song’s lyrics depict a woman who advises her male friend on reasons to end the relationship he is currently in. As the song progresses, we realize that the singer is motivated by her own feelings for the man to whom she is speaking. The chorus’ yearning, reaching melody fits the song’s subject matter perfectly. “Moon of Deception” turns poetic conceits about the moon on their ear. “It's about the deception that the moon gives us, and the lies suggested by the typical lyrics in countless songs that have been written about moonlight," explains Allen. "There are things the moonlight might make you believe, but they are rarely true."

Allen’s voice is a particularly wonderful vehicle for conveying these songs about relationships that don’t quite work out as one had hoped, offering a mixture of melancholy self-awareness, world-weary cynicism, yet still tinged with a ray of hope that still lies buried beneath the surface. She can also be devastatingly sexy, as on the beat-poetry inspired “Turn Around.” There are plenty of female jazz and pop singers out there these days, many of them with pretty good voices and a nice way with a tune. But there are very, very few with both a superb voice and the maturity to interpret such complex emotional material with the confidence and beauty of Jackie Allen. She is truly one of the best singers currently out there, and is now at or near the peak of her career to date. Don’t be the last on the block to find out about this extraordinary talent.