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Friday, October 04, 2002

By Nate Guidry, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Jane Monheit is the most talked-about jazz vocalist to come along since Diana Krall. She's just as glamorous, too.

	Jane Monheit WHERE: Rosebud, Strip District. WHEN: 8 tonight. TICKETS: $16 advance, $18 at the door; 412-323-1919. ARTIST'S SITE: redmusic.com/jane_card/

Fans can hear her huge pipes tonight when she performs with her group at Rosebud.

Much of the concert will spotlight music from "In the Sun," a new release that deals with music ranging from "Tea for Two," to Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek."

Four years ago, the 24-year-old vocalist was runner-up in the prestigious Thelonius Monk competition, signed a contract with N-Coded Music and began appearing on late-night television with David Letterman and others.

Carpers came out of the woodwork, claiming she was an imitator who sings too close to the melody. But Monheit has taken her detractors in stride even as she continues to mature and carve out her own musical territory.

"I've been singing as long as I have been talking," said the soft-spoken vocalist from her home in New York. "It was intense growing up in my house. Jazz was the first music I heard. It was the first music I sang."

Monheit grew up on Long Island, the child of musical parents who encouraged her to pursue music. In high school, she played E-flat clarinet and piano and sang. She was involved in theater, and starred in many of the school's plays.

"I really love musical theater," she said. "Jazz and theater were always the two choices for me."

After high school, she enrolled in the prestigious Manhattan School of Music, where she studied voice. When she wasn't studying, she sang for weddings and parties and worked the cabaret scene.

While at Manhattan School of Music, she studied with Peter Eldridge, an original founding member of the New York Voices.

"Before I studied with Peter, I sang with an attitude of constantly providing everything I knew, so I was being overly technical and ignoring the lyric in favor of the harmonies," she said. "Peter stressed paring it down and making musical choices in light of what the lyric was saying. I'm a much better singer because of him -- in terms of making a song mean something."

While in college, Monheit met her husband, Rick Montalbano, who is the drummer in her band. By the late '90s she was signed by the record label N-Coded and released the critically acclaimed "Never Never Land," which was followed by "Come Dream With Me."

Monheit embraces her songs with a sultry, youthful enthusiasm -- not unlike her idol, Ella Fitzgerald -- and over time has gained assertiveness.

"I have a better idea of what I want in my music and I am less afraid to speak up about it," she said.