JANE MONHEIT . . . LIVE AT SCULLERS JAZZ CLUB

The first time I saw Jane Monheit perform “live and in person” proved very memorable for me . . . though not exactly because of Monheit’s performance. As I recall, while her singing was crowd-pleasing—and I remember being personally pleased that she sang “Please Be Kind,” the opening song on her debut CD, Never Never Land—she was surprisingly lacking in stage presence and seemed truly to be swallowed up by the venue, the Sanders Theatre at Harvard University. For me the most memorable aspect of that evening was the playing of guitarist Rodney Jones, whose name I knew but whose impressive chops I had not been exposed to previously. The musical director for the Rosie O’Donnell Show and also for vocal legend Ruth Brown, he just happened to be guesting with Monheit that night, but for my money he stole the show and I eventually got my hands on a couple of really fine CDs that feature his expressive playing: his own session titled Dreams and Stories and also The Opening Round, a session led by tenor saxophonist Houston Person.

That was quite a few years ago and I have not seen Monheit in the meantime, though she does visit Boston fairly often. But last night my wife and I treated our middle daughter and one of her friends to the 10:00 show at Scullers Jazz Club . . . and once again Monheit pleased the crowd, though this time with considerably more stage presence. Although confessing to jetlag—she and her trio (piano, bass, drums) had just flown in from Japan—she gave a warm and satisfying performance . . . despite no “Please Be Kind” this time. But her set did include nicely-swung versions of “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” and “Taking a Chance on Love” as well as a fine rendition of the classic Jobim bossa nova “Waters of March.” Monheit seems to incline more toward slower numbers, though, and last night those included three showstoppers: Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust,” the Julie Christie anthem “Something Cool” (as my wife whispered, this could be a theme song for Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire), and “Over the Rainbow,” which has become Monheit’s signature tune. While I would have appreciated another “solo voice” in the mix—a saxophone or a guitar—I was probably in the minority in that regard: this evening was all Monheit’s and she owned the room.