Vocalist
JANE SCHECKTER is a mainstay on the New York City music scene.
A Bistro Award winner and a five-time MAC award nominee, she has been
wowing audiences with her velvet voice at major New York venues,
including Birdland, Birdland Theater, the Metropolitan Room, the
Iridium and Lincoln Center Jazz at Rose Hall. Stephen Holden of The
New York Times wrote of her “bright, clear voice with a brassy
edge and a luscious, rounded vibrato, meticulous phrasing, a sultry
lower register...and she swings!” Scheckter is now releasing her
fifth album, I’LL TAKE ROMANCE, a collection of 17
tunes from the Great American Songbook and beyond.
Scheckter
always attracts some of the top musicians from both coasts to join
her on stage and on her recordings. On her previous album, Easy to
Remember, she is accompanied by Tedd Firth, Jay Leonhart, Peter
Grant, Bucky Pizzarelli, Warren Vaché, Harry Allen, Aaron Weinstein
and guest artists Tony DeSare and Gil Chimes. For VI’LL TAKE
ROMANCE, she once again brought on board her old friend, TEDD
FIRTH, as the musical director, pianist and arranger, bass player
JAY LEONHART, and drummer PETER GRANT, as well as
renowned cornetist and flugelhorn player WARREN VACHÉ. She
also sings a duet with the young vocalist and rising star, NICOLAS
KING.
A
native of Springfield, MA, Scheckter showed her musical talent early
in life, singing and playing the piano from age five, and adding the
violin at nine. She began performing on stage at various venues in
New England with her father, a harmonica player who headlined
theaters across the country. She has been singing ever since. Her
first two albums, featuring Mike Renzi, Jay Leonhart and Grady Tate, I've
Got My Standards (DRG) and Double Standards (Doxie),
elicited raves from the critics. Downbeat Magazine praised her
"Ella-styled artistry," and the New York Daily News
cheered "a brilliant star." Her third album, In Times
Like These, drew praise from Rex Reed, who wrote, "Great CD,
beautifully performed. Jane Scheckter has done a marvelous job of
demonstrating, once again, that all is not lost if we can still find
love and hope...in times like these."
Scheckter
is a multi-talented artist. She is not only a talented singer, but
she is also an accomplished fashion designer and theater performer.
Although her heart was in music, her parents persuaded her to have a
career to fall back on, so she attended Pratt Institute, where she
majored in design and starred in most of the campus’ theatrical
shows.
After
graduating, she immediately found work as a fashion designer on
Seventh Avenue and in Milan, Hong Kong, and New Delhi. Her designs
were featured in the leading fashion magazines and modeled by the
likes of Lauren Hutton. She started singing in New York clubs at
night while holding down her design job by day.
She
would take long lunch hours to rehearse with her accompanist, an
up-and-coming pianist named Barry Manilow, who played and sang backup
on her early demo records. Scheckter sang backup on Could It Be
Magic, Manilow’s debut album.
Scheckter
also appeared in "Taking Off," Milos Forman’s first U.S.
film, along with other unknowns, Carly Simon and Kathy Bates. But
singing remained her first love, and despite her burgeoning career as
a fashion designer, she said goodbye to the fashion world and
concentrated solely on music.
It
did not take long for her to find her footing in the music world with
appearances in New York and Los Angeles. She also toured the world as
one-third of Tuxedo Junction, the vocal trio that had the number one
disco album in 1978. She made guest appearances on American
Bandstand, Dinah Shore, Midnight Special, Disco Fever, and the Jerry
Lewis telethon from Las Vegas.
These
days, Scheckter sings regularly in New England, Paris (Le Bilboquet,
La Villa, Café Laurent) and on the Cote d’Azur, where she launched
and performed for two years at the Majestic Hotel’s Cannes Jazz in
July series, is a frequent performer at the Royal Jazz Lounge in
Antibes, and Vegaluna, Cannes, and was featured for two years at the
National Fête de la Musique celebrations in Valbonne and Biot.
I’LL
TAKE ROMANCE
comprises smart, cosmopolitan love songs that have been covered by
many artists over the years. But Scheckter breathes new life into
these chestnuts with her warm voice and conversational style,
creating the perfect confluence of sophistication and emotional
depth.
Scheckter
infuses every song with swing, whether it is a ballad like “Isn’t It
a Pity” or the lovely vocal/piano duets “If Love Were All” and “What
Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life,” or gentle mid-tempo swingers
like “A Beautiful Friendship,” featuring Vache’s distinctive cornet,
or “Love I Hear,” from Stephen Sondheim’s score from A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum, featuring a scat solo by
bassist Leonhart. She also includes one song with all original
lyrics. Her old friend, Mickey Leonard, who passed away in 2015,
wrote an instrumental tune called “A Song for Bill Evans.” During the
pandemic, Scheckter asked Roger Shore, a New York-based lyricist, to
write words to the song about people who pass through our life and
change it forever. Scheckter also contributed lyrics to the song,
which she renamed “Looking Back.”
Rather
than choose songs that are world-weary or filled with unrealized
longing, Scheckter, who has been married for over 40 years, chose
songs that reflect the maturity and insight garnered from a long,
happy marriage. With Scheckter’s subtly sultry voice backed by superb
musicians, I’LL TAKE ROMANCE shows that some love
songs, like love itself, have a timeless quality.
# # #
I’LL
TAKE ROMANCE will
be released on March 15, 2024 on Doxie Records and will be available
on all streaming platforms.
Online:
Singjanesing.com
Facebook.com/jane.scheckter |