With Latest Recording and Tour, Jazz Star Jane Monheit Promises Surprises

"The new album is only half on the eclectic side," notes jazz and cabaret concert and recording artist Jane Monheit of her eponymous recording, "Jane Monheit," released in mid-October. It is her 13th recording, and while half of it is a mix of Brazilian, pop, folk, and R & Bn she also assures "there will be plenty of Great American Songbook, because that's where I live. The way the lyrics sit on the melody, it's magical."

Monheit's album release is the impetus for her Fall 2024 concert tour taking this Grammy-nominated performer around the country finishing with a week at Manhattan's Birdland in December; but not before she stops in eastern Massachusetts for one show only at the Groton Hill Music Center, Groton, MA on Sunday, November 10.

While her upcoming show will feature a selection of songs from the new recording, Monheit promises some surprises. "I constantly do material that I haven't recorded, and I'll do some of those," assures Monheit. Broadway World's Rob Lester said of Monheit's performance at Manhattan's Smoke Jazz Club earlier this year, "When she settles into the sensitive stuff, with caring phrasing of lyrics about love or loss, without overly embroidering them, it's heavenly. That happens with 'Young and Foolish,' the reflective look back at an early romance." About her version of a Joni Mitchell song, he gushed, "I'd be happy to hear this J.M. sing anything by that J.M. ...or almost anything."

Speaking to Edge from her Los Angeles home, where she moved eight years ago from New York, Monheit chatted amiably about her music, her family, and an unexpected fact about her life in Los Angeles.  

EDGE: In San Diego a couple of weeks after the Groton Hill concert, you will be performing a tribute show to Ella, Billie, and Sarah. You've often been compared to Ella, but I hear elements of Sarah in your interpretive style. What would you say you've drawn from these three singers, if anything?

Jane Monheit: It's different qualities from each one. All were influences on me in different musical ways. The person that stands out to me was Ella. Not only was she the biggest musical influence on me in musical ways, but because of the person she was, a lovely human being on all accounts. Humble and grateful, appreciative of her audience, of her listeners, and that has influenced me greatly. We don't often get to say that about her in a tribute show.

EDGE: Are there other singers you've admired and felt moved by or influenced by during your development as a singer?

Jane Monheit: Absolutely! Singers from other genres, not necessarily jazz, have been very important to me. My Dad was a bluegrass musician and it led to him playing the music of singers like Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell being played in the house constantly and they influenced me.

Lyrical interpreters from musical theater are my favorites. A huge influence. right up there with the jazz singers, is Bernadette Peters, for sure. Who is better with a lyric? Betty Buckley is a favorite of mine. I grew up on these divas. Barbara Cook and Rebecca Luker; I learned so much about technique from them. I grew up on Long Island and grew up with musical theater, and it comes out in my shows now that I'm old enough not to care.

EDGE: You don't sound like you're from Long Island; no accent.

Jane Monheit: My husband tells me It comes out when I get angry (laughs).