“Everything I’m singing now is a reflection of my truest self,” says Jane Monheit. “After all this time in the industry, after touring for 13 years, it’s time to just be me, with complete and utter freedom.”
From the song choices to the performances, her newest album, The Heart of the Matter, is a work deeply informed by Monheit’s life- as a woman, wife, and mother in the second decade of a remarkable career- and it reaches emotional levels she attributes to an “extreme comfort zone” in the recording studio. “I’m very close with my band, so to hear Gil’s beautiful work with my family beneath it inspired me to be completely unselfconscious… I think I’ve finally reached my level of onstage, live interpretation in the studio, which has always been a challenge for me.” “When you’re playing with people you love,” says Monheit, “it always makes for better music.”
“She can blow like a trumpet or dial things down to a stillness that's seemingly beyond silence, drawing listeners deep into a shared moment of naked vulnerability…the effect wasn't just moving – it astonished.” – Indianapolis NUVO