Jane Monheit - Live at the Rainbow Room

Rating:
Summary: Dignified Listener
Review: The audience in the Rainbow Room are those people who wear jacket and ties to a concert. They are not the blue jean,tee shirted audience that the Las Vegas reviewer is more accustomed to. Las Vegas, stay with Wayne Newton!Let the polite people appreciate the DVD made in the Rainbow Room. A very nice addition to your music library.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating Lady
Review: This DVD is a feast for the eyes as well as the ears. Jane is in great voice in this memorable night at the Rainbow room. The rythym section and 37 piece orchestra conducted by the brillant Alan Broadbent is topnotch. Jane is absolutely mesmerizing--her savoir fare on stage combined with her coquettish charm make this a worthy addition to any collection. I've played it more than I care to admit

Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: This is a GREAT DVD, very very very well recorded and very naturally mixed - at least that was my judgment when played back on high resolution high-end equipment. I saw Jane Monheit in Atlanta in a small 400 seat theater with a trio and between the sets I guess I would agree she isn't a great conversationalist but who cares? Apart from that, I thought her composure on stage was fine. She is also one beautiful lady. In that live Atlanta performance, some of the guys in the audience found her so strikingly beautiful that it was downright distracting. The dark auburn hair and creamy skin had them practically sitting in a puddle! Occasionally I feel some of her improvisations are a bit awkward, most are fine, and some are brilliant. And what a voice. I'm telling you - this woman has a classic silky voice like no other singer recording these songs (mostly standards) today. An absolutely incredible talent. My only criticism is that occasionally I wish her interpretations were a little bit more straightforward. That minor criticism aside, if you like this music genre, you MUST give this a listen. If you're torn between the CDs or the current DVD - buy the DVD. A GREAT dvd, an absolutely AMAZING singer: you MUST give her a try!

Rating:
Summary: Familiar evergreens heard for the first time
Review: This performance contains the fine wine of vintage standards, icons of an earlier age. You think you know them, you've heard them a million times. Yet a figure appears in the spotlight before an audience and suddenly the room is immersed in a splendid tapestry of sound, so fresh, so effervescent that you hear a familiar standard as if you are hearing it for the first time.

The entrance for Miss Monheit's first number has to be one-of-a-kind in the entertainment world. The stage lights dim, an unseen stentorian voice from the depths of the darkness . . . "LIVE, FROM THE RAINBOW ROOM, MISS--JANE--MONHEIT--" and a slip of a figure appears stage left. House lights off, stage lights dimmed, the slight figure can hardly be made out amongst the shadows. Arriving at the center of the stage in front of the orchestra, it comes to rest: motionless, in profile, a luminous silhouette dissolving into warm rosewood shadows, like a solitary woman in a seventeenth-century Dutch genre-painting. Lights still down. Complete silence. From the void . . . . . . a solo voice . . . . . . no orchestra, no piano accompaniment, not even the key-note of a pitch-pipe----from out of nowhere silky-silvery cadences spill forth to send a shower of scintillating shivers down the spine and into one's heart and soul. Notes, sotto voce, almost so inaudible as to be indecipherable at first, rise, then take flight to romp and revel upon exhilarating, thrilling riffs, an exotic bird deliciously dancing upon updrafts--still no orchestra, still a darkened stage. Then, when one least expects it, the orchestra inobtrusively joins in to create a lush, seamless musical tapestry, as if voice and orchestra are one; the stage lights come to life; the figure turns toward the audience and, without dropping a grace note, fills The Rainbow Room with a dazzling, iridescent blaze of notes. Who would have thought that anyone could ever take "Over the Rainbow" from Judy Garland. Now I was hearing that song for the first time, not just another arrangement or interpretation, mind you, but an elemental transformation and rebirth, as if it had been written expressively for Miss Monheit, as if the sublime sentiments of that song are an epiphany, revealed at last in its full intensity with a clarity and purity and passion congealed into mortal flesh and blood and now immortalized in note and lyric by this remarkable, this truly remarkable young woman.

Rating:
Summary: Still growing up
Review: Too bubbly and bouncy. One can easily see how important the producer was on her CDs. SHe has a wonderful voice, but her live appearance is lacking in maturity. She dips her heads back as it appears on the cover as if she is trying to seduce the audience every five minutes of the show. Enough sweetheart, we know you have a beautiful voice, but your stage presence needs work. I own her two albums, both of which are very good however. The musicians she employs are excellent. The sound of the DVD needs work as well, imaging is poor.

Rating:
Summary: And Julie London sold a lot of albums with her looks, too
Review: Undeniably looks good in makeup, but not a jazz singer. The jazz vocal of Tea For Two belongs to Anita O'Day, and Monheit will never take that away from her. Monheit sings through the nose, and definitely does not have the musicality to use scat in Hit the Road to Dreamland. She ended up off-key. Maybe in 10 years she'll have the maturity.....If she wants to continue cabaret, she should listen to Nancy LaMott, a true musician.

Rating:
Summary: And Julie London sold a lot of albums with her looks, too
Review: Undeniably looks good in makeup, but not a jazz singer. The jazz vocal of Tea For Two belongs to Anita O'Day, and Monheit will never take that away from her. Monheit sings through the nose, and definitely does not have the musicality to use scat in Hit the Road to Dreamland. She ended up off-key. Maybe in 10 years she'll have the maturity.....If she wants to continue cabaret, she should listen to Nancy LaMott, a true musician.

Rating:
Summary: JANE MONHEIT AT THE RAINBOW ROOM-DVD
Review: WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT INDEED! I JUST WATCHED THIS FIRST DVD FROM THE RAINBOW ROOM, AND FELT UNCOMFORTABLE THROUGHOUT. MS. MONHEIT NEEDS COACHING ON STAGE PRESENCE,PACING,TEMPOS & REPERTOIRE. WE ALL HAVE TO HAVE A FIRST TIME, BUT WHERE WAS HER MANAGER,AGENT OR MUSICAL ADVISOR WHEN SHE NEEDED THEM. ON THE POSITIVE SIDE,
FOR A VERY YOUNG SINGER,..SHE HAS GREAT MUSICAL PITCH, AND NICE PRASHING ON LYRICS.ALOT OF POTENTIAL.A VERY PRETTY GIRL,BUT, WITH TOO MUCH MAKEUP, AND DREADFUL HAIR (TOO LONG) WHICH SHE CONSTANTLY FLIPPED ABOUT. YES, THE CONSTANT BOBBING, BAD PATTER AND HER SOMEWHAT AFFECTED STAGE PRESENCE..VERY ANNOYING. THE SELECTION OF SOME SONGS WERE WRONG FOR HER,INFACT TOO FAR OUT.(EXAMPLE..BILL EVANS SONG.)THE AUDIENCE LIKES FAMILIARITY. SONGS THEY HAVE HEARD HER DO BEFORE. THE VOCAL ANTICS,& HER VOCAL ENDINGS BOTHERED ME THE MOST,CHANGING THE MELODY LINE WAY TOO MUCH.GENERALLY, TEMPOS WERE TOO SLOW ON MOST BALLADS,& SONGS THAT SHE KICKED OFF THE TEMPOS,...TOO FAST. THE MUSICIANS ALL LOOKED UNCOMFORTABLE & BORED. THE WONDERFUL RON CARTER, & ALLAN BROADBENT SEEMED OUT OF THEIR ELEMENT.FOR A FIRST TIME DVD, I DON'T THINK SHE SHOULD HAVE STARTED & ENDED HER SHOW WITH BALLADS.THE AUDIENCE WAS POLITE,& SEEMINGLY UNENTHUSIASTIC. THERE IS NO WAY THAT THIS PERFORMER WILL EVER TOP THE PROFESSIONALISM OF DIANA KRALL. ANYONE WHO WANTS TO SEE A GREAT PERFORMER, GET DIANA KRALLS "LIVE IN PARIS"DVD TO SEE PURE MUSICIANSHIP,VOCAL TALENT & CLASS.
I CAN NOT WATCH THIS DVD OF MS. MONHEIT'S AGAIN.

Rating:
Summary: I recomend it highly! WOW!
Review: WOW! That's all I can say is WOW. I love this dvd, I keep one at my beach condo and one at home, I recomend it highly, give this dvd and a bottle of wine to a jazz lover, or any lover(ha, ha), and they'll love it. I'm filthy rich so I bought ten of them and gave them out to everyone in my family. Buy it today.

Rating:
Summary: She'll become the best Jazz singer if she already isn't
Review: You already love Jane Monheit if you prefer her silky, smooth vocal tones to the harsh and "forced" vocals of singers like Diane Reeves. Almost everyone reviewing this DVD says she's beautiful and sexy, and that's perfectly true. Guys, if you watch this DVD you'll fall in love. And you'll notice how even the (great) musicians on stage are all in love with her. Watch how they look at her, particularly the pianist in "Tea for two". This famous song is amazingly rendered, just voice and piano, nothing bad, nothing wrong, everything so sweet and inspiring. Probably the best version ever made. The audience also appears deeply struck. When the song ends, it's like waking up after a dream. No kidding.
Of all the other 19 songs, I can't find one that isn't simply beautiful. Jane has a preference for sad, romantic ballads, and her performances in pieces like Ivan Lin's "Começar De Novo", Bill Evan's "Turn Out The Stars" or Arthur Schwartz's "Haunted Heart" are sooo moving. Jane's duet with Peter Eldridge is also a gem. I must have watched this DVD a hundred times, and still, sometimes I put on the DVD while I'm doing something, and I find myself watching a whole song in uncomfortable positions, like standing with a pile of something in my hands, after passing by the screen and being captured by this amazing artist. Then at the end of the song I wake up and say "What am I doing here?" and go ahead finishing what I was doing.
I'm a musician myself, and I tell you, all the people playing here are absolutely great and couldn't play better than this. Joel Frahm's three main saxophone solos are simply stellar. Michael Kanan on the piano is a measured accompanist who never exaggerates and whose solos are very enjoyable, technical but not difficult to listen to. And then there are Renee Toledo on the guitar, Ron Carter, Kenny Washington and an orchestra conducted by Allan Broadbent, who also plays the piano in "Turn Out The Stars": what an amazing group of musicians!
Buy this DVD and discover this incredible singer, and if you already know her, discover the pleasure of seeing her performing on stage.