American jazz and pop singer
Musical artist
Jane Monheit (born November 3, [1]) is an American jazz and traditional pop singer.
Monheit was born and raised in Oakdale, New York, on Long Island.[1] Her father played banjo and guitar.[2] Her mother sang and played music for her by singers who could also be her teachers, beginning with Ella Fitzgerald.[2] At an early age, Monheit was drawn to jazz and Broadway musicals.[2]
She began singing professionally while attending Connetquot High School in Bohemia, New York.[1] She attended the Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts.[3] At the Manhattan School of Music she studied voice under Peter Eldridge; she graduated in [1]
She was runner-up to Teri Thornton in the vocal competition at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, in Washington, DC.[1]
When she was 22, she released her first album, Never Never Land (N-Coded, ).[2] Like Fitzgerald, she recorded many songs from the Great American Songbook.[2] After recording for five labels, she started her own, Emerald City Records.[2] Its first release was The Songbook Sessions (), an homage to Fitzgerald.[2][4]
Monheit's vocals were featured in the film Never Let Me Go for the titular song, written by Luther Dixon, and credited to the fictional Judy Bridgewater.[5] (On her debut album, she had performed a different song by the same name, written by Livingston and Evans.)