Jane Monheit

One of the jazz world’s most acclaimed vocalists, Jane Monheit is at the height of her powers as a singer and song interpreter. Her recent recording, The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Me, reveals a new level of maturity while still showcasing her dazzling vocal prowess on tunes by Cole Porter, Ivan Lins, and Paul Simon. It is perhaps her most dynamic record to date, and shows that she is just getting better.

Growing up on Long Island in New York, Monheit studied clarinet and theory early on, and started vocal training at 17 with Peter Eldridge at the Manhattan School of Music. She started gigging with pianist David Berkman and drummer/boyfriend (now husband) Rick Montalbano. It was her second place finish in the 1998 Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition that turned people’s heads and led to more gigs and recording projects. Her debut record, Never Never Land, was voted Best Debut Recording by the members of the Jazz Journalists Association, and stayed on the Billboard Charts for over a year. Her next release, Come Dream With Me, entered the charts at Number One and was nominated for a Grammy.

After 9 tumultuous years in the spotlight, Monheit is coming into her own. Originally modeled as the Next Great Jazz Singer after Diana Krall, she has taken her own path, showcasing her sumptuous voice on a variety of projects: Brazilian bossas, symphony orchestras, Christmas classics, and standards. With her latest release, she is in complete control, presenting pop tunes and standards alike, and sounds more like Jane Monheit than any other singer.

“Jane Monheit has so many natural gifts-a phenomenal ear, wide vocal range, rhythmic poise and musical ingenuity-but perhaps the most precious of these is restraint. It is fatally easy for a virtuoso singer to reduce a beautiful song to rubble. Monheit decorates a melody, lights up a lyric, but never loses the essential thread of the song itself.” -London Guardian