JAM: October/November 2001 Issue: Folly Jazz News

Doug Tatum

A New Feature for a New Season
To kick-off the 2001-2002 Folly Jazz Series, we are beginning a new feature: The Folly Jazz Spotlight, which will highlight the Kansas City premiere of a rising new jazz star each season. For the very first Folly Jazz Spotlight, we are very happy to present the exciting young singer, Jane Monheit, on Saturday, October 13.

Jane Monheit

Monheit, 23, began exhibiting her musical talent at a very early age. She states, "I can't remember not knowing that I wanted to be a singer. One of the first songs I ever learned was 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' when I was two years old. This was the music I grew up listening to, so it always came naturally to me. My family was into jazz; it was always being played and I've loved it always. There are a lot of singers in my family. Everyone is a musician and can do something. I'm the first one to be doing something with jazz... which is cool! I feel like I'm the culmination of these generations. I've been waiting for this my whole life... Singing just felt right; it was the right thing to do."

Jane was fortunate to have been raised in a school district with an outstanding music department at both the elementary and high school levels. She listened to classical, jazz, bluegrass and folk music, but it was jazz that captured her interest. While in high school she played all the club dates she could on the South Shore of Long Island. She began formal vocal training at age of 17, when she moved to New York to attend the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Peter Eldridge, who was a founding member of the critically acclaimed vocal group, New York Voices. In 1998, during her junior year, Eldridge suggested that she enter the
Thelonious Monk Vocal Competition, in which she ultimately placed second.

Following the competition, Jane toured with T.S. Monk and signed with the N-code Music label to record her first CD, Never Never Land. The sales of this recording, at over 100,000 copies, were a surprise to everyone. And now, her second album, Come Dream With Me, has already shipped over 100,000 copies.

When asked what she most enjoys singing, Jane responds, "Ballads, no question. I love singing pretty much any kind of music, but jazz ballads really feel like me. I don't know why. Maybe because I'm 'dramatic.' But if I could sing only ballads the rest of my life, it wouldn't be so hard... My main influence was Ella. No one else even comes close. Ella was so pure and natural. That's the greatest thing any singer can aspire to. I believe everyone has a natural voice, like when you speak. That's how she sang. Ella was so real. Ella was more real than anyone else. When I started singing, I always thought that to be a jazz singer, I'd have to sound sophisticated. I think now I'm just starting to really sing from where I am and not from the idea of who a jazz singer should be. Ella exemplified that."

When asked how she is able to perform with such a mature sound that belies her youth, Jane answers, "I don't know. People ask me that a lot and sometimes I attribute it to the fact that I have had a lot of training in theater, and sometimes I think, 'Well, I have lived an awful lot for being 23'... I try to pick music that I really understand, tunes that really mean something to me."

About her success, Jane says, "Sometimes it's hard for me to realize what's actually happening. We were in Germany recently, and when we drove to the club where I was working, there was a line of people around the block waiting to get in. A line of people in Germany, waiting to see Jane Monheit from Oakdale, Long Island? That's amazing."

Over the past year, Jane has been the subject of a great deal of media attention. In the June 18th issue of Time, Daniel Okrent wrote, "Most of all, her voice is a silken, controlled wonder that is both a genetic gift and the product of superb training. When she wraps it around one of the classic American songs she loves to sing, you know Jane Monheit can't miss. She has, in a word, everything."

It's no secret that there has been much debate about Monheit's place in jazz and her incredibly rapid rise to fame. To all of those concerned about such matters, I have only one comment: quite simply, we'll let the music speak for itself. As a jazz presenter, I can sincerely state that I'm honored to bring Jane Monheit to Kansas City for the very first time.

Jane comments, "As long as I'm singing, as long as I'm singing with a good band and I'm singing good songs, I'm happy. For me, it's the music that matters."

The second concert of the season will feature Don Byron's "Music for Six Musicians," Friday, November 9. This will be Byron's second visit to the Folly following his very successful "Bug Music" concert in 1998.

The most innovative clarinetist to emerge on the jazz scene in our generation, Byron continues to be voted best jazz clarinetist by critics and readers alike. He continues to redefine every genre of music he performs, be it classical music, salsa, hip-hop or klezmer, or every conceivable area of jazz from swing and bop to cutting-edge downtown improvisation.

"Byron's playing makes it irresistible on a visceral level. This is the kind of music that validates the past while establishing new frontiers, and should place Byron among jazz's most significant innovators." -- City Pages (MN)

For more information about the Folly Jazz Series or to request a brochure, please call the Folly Theater at 816-474-4444.

Doug Tatum is the Executive Director of the Folly Theater.

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