National treasure. International treasure, even. In this day and age, utterly unique. In the 1960s you could perhaps compare her to contemporaries like Rosemary Clooney, Sarah Vaughn, Helen Merrill, Dinah Washington or June Christy. Perhaps even to the great – and a bit older – Ella Fitzgerald, who once called Marilyn Maye “the greatest white female singer in the world.” At 90, Maye’s the only jazz singer in that style left. That’s not the only thing though. She sounds nearly the same now she did then. Also, she has never for a moment ceased working on her craft, and so is now such an impossibly stylish and expressive singer that there has perhaps never been anyone like her.

At the new Birdland Theater right now, she’s turning her towering talent mostly to showtunes. Maye has been rediscovered by New York audiences over the last decade or so, and the ever growing lovefest between fans old and new is palpable in the room, which only adds to the fun. She’s always included showtunes in her act, so there’s plenty of familiar stuff, especially from Hello Dolly and Mame, shows whose title roles she played in now-legendary regional productions. She also does a a medley of songs from My Fair Lady that climaxes in a stunning, hard-swinging rendition of “On the Street Where You Live.”

There are several other medleys, but Maye and her music director Tedd Firth – a gifted jazz pianist she coaxes into some hilarious deadpan interplay – handle medleys in an unconventional way, undercutting their potential for corniness with thoughtful storytelling and sophisticated jazz musicianship. If you love show tunes sung in sparkling and surprising ways, it just doesn’t get any better than this.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.