Once or twice in a generation a jazz singer such as Jane Monheit comes along with all the beauty, talent and sex appeal to make her mark quickly on discriminating audiences around the world.
For the past four years Monheit has had a busy touring schedule that has taken her to Europe, Asia, South America and all over the United States and Canada. Her debut album for the Sony Classical label, "Taking a Chance on Love," is to be released Sept. 7 and will include songs by "Fats" Waller, Harold Arlen, Cole Porter and Vernon Duke.
She catches the insinuating rhythm of Porter's "In the Still of the Night" perfectly and endows the mock reprimanding tone of his "Why Can't You Behave" with great charm. She makes Duke's "Taking a Chance on Love" sound like fun in an arrangement that includes a solo riff for piano and bass.
Monheit has that rare ability to draw her audience into her own sensuous world full of strange undercurrents and whispered confidences. She is a beguiling artist whose future would seem to be unlimited as the Ella Fitzgerald of a new age.
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