“Going beyond standards to thoughtful storytelling…”
Jane has a “flair for setting the emotional thermostat to precisely the temperature that can melt the ice from a cold, cold heart.”
Jane Monheit was born on November 3rd, 1977 and grew up in Oakdale, Long Island. She started singing as soon as she could talk, which is no surprise as her family was very musical. She really began to develop her voice in college at Manhattan School of Music with vocal instructor Peter Eldridge, a founding member of New York Voices. In Jane’s senior year, at age 20, she entered the 1998 Thelonious Monk Institute Vocal Competition finishing as second runner up – the youngest in the history of the competition. After this success she was offered a record contract and found a manager and her career began to take shape from there.
Photo by Steven Sussman
It has been a lifelong musical journey from the dreamy innocence of her debut album, Never Never Land, to the world-weary delusion of “Something Cool,” a track on her latest album, The Lovers, the Dreamers and Me (Concord). Yet, Jane Monheit, now firmly established as one of the post-millennial jazz world’s foremost vocalists, has managed to make the trip in just eight years. The latest album’s powerful, glorious maturity can, Monheit agrees, be linked to the fact that the past year has been a significant one for her, with the celebration of her 31st birthday and the birth of her and husband Rick Montalbano’s first child, a son named Jack.
The Litchfield Jazz Festival has a reputation for presenting the “next big thing,” and Jane Monheit was just that in 2001 when she appeared on the festival very early in her career. In fact, she opened for Dave Brubeck on the opening night of the festival, the same night she now appears as the headliner!
Photo by Randee St. Nicholas
Jane Monheit is joined by Michael Kanan on piano, Neal Miner on bass and her husband, Rick Montalbano on drums, and Joe Magnarelli will be joining Jane on trumpet!
