JAZZ REVIEW : McGarry’s Engaging Show of Strengths : The vocalist’s disarmingly genuine tone and inventive, rhythmic pacing, as well as a supportive backing trio, make for a good time at Maxwell’s.

Kate McGarry is a vocalist with two strengths, both of which were on display Sunday afternoon at Maxwell’s as she concluded a three-day stand.

First, McGarry works with a disarmingly genuine tone. It’s the kind of voice you would expect from the girl next door: sincere, youthful and with enough sonorous character to make an impression in the memory.

She’s not one to get loud for dramatic effect. Instead, no matter what the register, she moves along at controlled volumes, preferring to let the lyric and her rhythmic placement carry the emotion.

That’s McGarry’s other strength: her inventive, sometimes offbeat rhythmic pacing. A veteran of jazz studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst with saxophonist Archie Shepp, McGarry brings be-boplike pointedness to every syllable.

Despite competition from the Lakers game on view above the bar and a chatty Mother’s Day crowd, the singer’s long set of standards was engaging from end to end.

While it would have been appropriate for the singer to temper the evenness of her delivery with a dynamic display here and there, the rhythmic variety of her material kept the 70-minute set from becoming tedious.

Her eyes closed and head swinging gently back and forth metronome style, she inserted words and phrases with just-so precision, even if they fell where you’d least expect. Even the most relaxed ballad was delivered in scat-like tones.

Credit must go to her backing trio--pianist Dave Witham, bassist Eric von Essen and drummer Paul Kreibich--for providing the kind of open-eared support that allowed her to dabble with beats.

Von Essen proved a particularly adept foil, responding to McGarry’s rhythmic high-jinks with tasteful counterpoints and echoes. Kreibich, always masterful behind a vocalist, kept the tempos open to receive this kind of open-ended play with to-the-beat timekeeping and occasional polyrhythmic displays.

The singer opened with “My Romance,” defining each word with assured enunciation. She seemed untroubled, maybe even a bit inspired, by a pair of children dancing lovingly with their mother in front of the bandstand. Witham moved from spare accompaniment into a lightly stated improvisation that bubbled melodically with chordal accents stated in the upper register and quick, splashy phrases.

“April in Paris” saw McGarry delivering sustained notes with only the sparest vibrato. As she moved up the scale, she maintained vocal clarity while adding breathy touches. Von Essen moved up the neck of his upright to provide rhythmic comment.

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Without the piano, McGarry, von Essen and Kreibich turned “Gone With the Wind” into a demonstration of musical clairvoyance with the drummer, sizzling on brushes, anticipating the singer’s every turn. An exchange of leads between the threesome turned into a double-time exercise with McGarry skipping across the melody with clear, yet firm, tones.

The group showed their up-tempo chops on an upbeat “Just One of Those Things,” a workout that highlighted the vocalist’s scat-like melody treatment. Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “A Felicidade,” featured McGarry singing in Portuguese with a more open, swaying approach, while Jerome Kern-Johnny Mercer’s “Dearly Beloved” was presented with the kind of emotion associated with the Mother’s Day celebration.