Jane Monheit - Come What May (2021)

Vocalist Jane Monheit is a technically adept performer with a style steeped in the resonant, swinging jazz tradition of idols like Ella Fitzgerald and Judy Garland. It's a sound that helped her finish as runner-up in the 1998 Thelonious Monk Institute vocal competition, and one which she has applied over the years to a mix of Broadway and jazz standards, as well as bossa nova and Latin songs. She brings all of this past experience to bear on her urbane 2021 album Come What May -- her first since 2016's tribute The Songbook Sessions: Ella Fitzgerald. Come What May again finds her working with her longtime band comprising pianist and musical director Michael Kanan, drummer and husband Rick Montalbano, bassist David Robaire, guitarist Miles Okazaki, and percussionist Kevin Winard. Early in the album, there's a brisk rendition of the Frank Loesser standard "I Believe in You," perfectly setting the dinner club atmosphere to follow. There are also equally thrilling takes on Irving Berlin's "Let's Face the Music and Dance," the lesser-performed Harold Arlen & Ira Gershwin number "The Man That Got Away," and a gorgeously rendered version of the Billy Strayhorn ballad "Lush Life." Elsewhere, Monheit draws upon her deep love of Brazilian music with an orchestral-backed reading of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Samba Do Aviao,'' and dives into upbeat medley of "On the Sunny Side of the Street"/"Get Happy." Come What May is a sparkling, intimately rendered album built around the warm cabaret and jazz club vibes Monheit and her band conjure. ~ Matt Collar