In January
of 2015, the GRAMMY®-nominated pianist/composer/arranger David Benoit, a
founding father of contemporary jazz, and Jane Monheit, the First-Runner-Up in
the 1998 Thelonious Monk International Vocalist Competition who soars through
and above the genres of jazz, Broadway, standards and pop, recorded 2 In Love.
Released on June 16th, 2015 on Concord Records, this stunning, critically
acclaimed collaboration paved the way for the duo’s follow-up.
Set for
release on October 16th via Concord Records, Believe—their enduring and epoch
recording of heart-warming holiday-themed favorites—is an equally vivacious,
vivid and varied masterpiece. Featuring Benoit’s trio, with drummer Jamey Tate
and bassist David Hughes, and The All-American Boys Chorus, a California-based
ensemble, Believe is composed of trio, choral and orchestral renditions of the
music of Richard Rodgers, Mel Tormé, Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, and the
legendary Charlie Brown composer, Vince Guaraldi—along with an original
composition from Benoit.
“I’ve done a
couple of Christmas records,” Benoit says. “My first one, Christmas Time, came
out on the AVI label in 1983. And I did another one called Remembering
Christmas on GRP in 1996. The challenge
of this record was to search for songs that weren’t done as Christmas songs.” It’s also a challenge Monheit welcomes as
well. “We just wanted a classic, really warm-hearted sound. Something that felt
sincere,” Monheit says. “Both Dave and I really love the material. And we enjoy
playing together quite a bit.”
Fueled by
Benoit’s fluid and formidable pianism, and Monheit’s finessed and formidable
vocals, the material on the album’s nine tracks sing and swing in a variety of
moods, grooves and meters that elaborate and expand upon the jazz Christmas
canon. “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” is a straight-ahead 4/4 number, graced
with Monheit’s zesty scatting, and it also shows off her skills as an
on-the-spot arranger. “It’s nice to do that in the studio, and figure out a way
to play a tune,” Monheit says, “ and have a little more casual [approach] as a
nice balance to the more heavily arranged pieces.”
Monheit also
shows off her talents on the John Coltrane-associated, Richard Rogers classic
“My Favorite Things,” which at first blush is a song identified more with The
Sound of Music than with the holidays. “It’s not necessarily associated with
Christmas. But it feels very ‘Christmas-y’ to me,” Benoit says. “And, of
course, it has a jazz lineage too. So it’s kind of a cool thing at both ends.
And it was perfect to put this on the album, especially with Jane’s really nice
interpretation.” Monheit elaborates, “I’m a huge fan of the music of Richard
Rogers. I always like to sing a lot of his tunes. And that’s one that I haven’t
had the chance to do before. So it was great. And I really love a jazz waltz.”
To go where
no jazz Christmas album has gone before, and to seek out new songs and include
them in the Christmas canon, is what also drove Benoit to record the elegiac
title track, with The All-American Boys Chorus, an ensemble he first worked
with a decade ago at his Christmas concerts in southern California. “It’s from the movie The Polar Express,”
Benoit says. “I thought it would be a good idea to do something new. So I went
through Concord Record’s Christmas catalog, and I came across “Believe,” and I
said, ‘Wow, it’s beautiful.’ So we went in as a trio and freshened it with an
orchestra, and then added the boys choir. And then I thought it would be a good
title for the album.” The chorus’ angelic strains are also heard on the equally
evocative renditions of two Charlie Brown yuletide songs: “My Little Drum,”
pianist/composer Vince Guaraldi’s bossa nova-like arrangement of “The Little
Drummer Boy;” and his eternal song “Christmas Time Is Here.”
“That song
has now become very closely associated with me, because I recorded it on my
Christmas Time album from 1983,” Benoit fondly recalls. “And that’s how I got the attention of [the
co-composer and lyricist] Lee Mendelson. He liked the way I played it. And
that’s how I got to be connected to Charlie Brown, so that song is very
important to me.”
“Who doesn’t
like ‘Christmas Time Is Here?’,” Monheit asks. “It’s beautiful. It’s charming.
It’s wonderful. And it brings back great seasonal memories to all of us. I was
happy that it was a part of this recording.”
Anyone
familiar with Benoit’s career knows the importance of pianist and Charlie Brown
composer Vince Guaraldi to his musical evolution. And the release of this recording coincides
with the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the 1965 TV special A Charlie
Brown Christmas, as well as the November release of The Peanuts Movie, which
features Benoit’s piano playing. Benoit and his trio pay tribute to the Peanuts
composer with their version of the “Guaraldi Medley,” which Benoit performs as
an opener for his live Christmas shows featuring “Air Music,” “Christmas Is
Coming” “What Child Is This?” (by William Chatterton Dix, arranged by Guaraldi)
and the traditional standard, “O Tannenbaum,” contrasted by Benoit’s original ballad “Just like Me.”
“I was asked
by Lee Mendelson to write a song about Charlie Brown picking the Christmas
tree,” Benoit proudly recalls. “I came up with some ideas, and Lee came up with
a lyric and we put it together. And it’s the only other lyric he’s written
besides ‘Christmas Time Is Here.’”
The album
concludes with an equally powerful rendition of the Mel Tormé/Nat King Cole
ballad “The Christmas Song,” which for Benoit conjures up some powerful and
poignant holiday memories. “I was driving home from a gig during the holidays,
where I got paid next to nothing,” Benoit remembers. “I was depressed, and ‘The
Christmas Song’ came on the radio, and I just started crying like a baby. It
brought back everything about my childhood and my parents. So that song stayed
with me.”
For David
Benoit, the music of Charlie Brown and the holidays is an integral part of his
compelling and wide-ranging musicianship. Born in August 18, 1953 in
Bakersfield, California, he grew up in Los Angeles, and got interested in jazz
after watching a Charlie Brown special in 1965. “I was already a fan of the
comic strip,” he says. But when I heard the music … that jazz piano trio was
the defining moment where I decided that I wanted to play like Vince Guaraldi.”
When he was
thirteen, Benoit studied privately with pianists Marya Cressy Wright and later
with Abraham Fraser, the pianist for conductor Arturo Toscanini. He also
studied music theory, composition and orchestration with Donald Nelligan at El
Camino Junior College, film scoring with Donald Ray at UCLA, and conducting
with Hejichiro Ohyama, assistant conductor of the L.A. Philharmonic, Jan
Robertson at UCLA and Jeffrey Schindler, UC Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra
Music Director.
Benoit was
singer Lainie Kazan’s musical director/conductor in 1976, and later began his
career as a single artist, releasing records on the AVI label from 1977 to
1984. He released several chart-topping
recordings for GRP, including Freedom at Midnight (1987), Waiting for Spring (1989)
and Shadows (1991), which both topped Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Charts at
#5, #1 and #2, respectively. His other noteworthy recordings include Letter to
Evan (1992), his tribute to another piano influence, Bill Evans, and Here’s to
You, Charlie Brown: Fifty Great Years (2000). Benoit also recorded with Russ
Freeman on The Benoit/Freeman Project (1994), and on their follow-up
collaboration The Benoit/Freeman Project 2 (2004), released on the
Concord-distributed Peak label. His other albums for the label include American
Landscape (1997) and Orchestral Stories (2005), which featured his first piano
concerto “The Centaur and the Sphinx,” and a symphonic work, “Kobe.” In 2012,
he released Conversation on the Heads Up International imprint and in 2015 followed
up with 2 in Love featuring Jane Monheit.
Benoit
received three GRAMMY® nominations in the categories of Best Contemporary Jazz
Performance for “Every Step of the Way” (1989), Best Large Ensemble Performance
for GRP All-Star Big Band (1996) and Best Instrumental Composition for “Dad’s
Room,” the latter from the album Professional Dreamer (2000). In 2010, Benoit
received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Smooth Jazz Awards, and
he’s worked with an impressive medley of musicians including the Rippingtons,
Emily Remler, Alphonse Mouzon, Dave Koz, Faith Hill, David Sanborn, CeCe Winans
and Brian McKnight.
Benoit’s
film scores include The Stars Fell on Henrietta (1995), produced by Clint
Eastwood, and The Christmas Tree, produced by Sally Field, which was voted Best
Score of 1996 by Film Score Monthly. He has served as conductor with a wide
range of symphonies including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Asia America
Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. A long-time guest educator
with the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, he received that organization’s
Excellence in Music Award in 2001. His musical selections have been featured on
The Weather Channel, and his version of Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the
Wind” is included on the compilation The Weather Channel Presents: Smooth Jazz
11 (2008). Benoit also currently hosts a morning radio show on KKJZ 88.1 FM in
Long Beach, CA.
Born in Long
Island, NY, Jane Monheit heard a wide range of singers, from Ella Fitzgerald to
Bonnie Raitt, and also listened to Broadway pop and classical vocalists.
Monheit started her professional career while she was a student at Connetquot
High School in Bohemia, NY, where she graduated in 1995. She studied at the
Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts and was awarded their
distinguished Alumna Award. She was also a student at the Manhattan School of
Music and studied under voice instructor Peter Eldridge. She graduated with
honors in 1995 with a BA in Music and received the William H. Bolden Award for
Outstanding Accomplishments in Jazz.
Monheit
burst on to the national scene as the first runner-up in the 1998 Thelonious
Monk Institute’s Vocal Competition behind veteran singer Teri Thornton. In
2000, she released her first recordings as a leader on the N-Coded label,
including Never Never Land, Come Dream with Me (2001), In the Sun (2002) and
Live at the Rainbow Room (2003). She also recorded for Sony, Epic and EmArcy,
and released two recordings on Concord, Surrender (2007) and The Lovers, the
Dreamers, and Me (2009), which featured the ballad “The Rainbow Connection.”
Monheit has worked with Ramsey Lewis, Steve Tyrell, Tom Harrell, Terence
Blanchard, Ivan Lins, Mark O’Connor and Freddy Cole, and appears on Memphis
pianist Harold Mabern’s new album, Afro Blue, and with Brazilian bossa nova
icon Wanda Sá on her latest release, Live in 2014. Monheit also garnered two
GRAMMY® nominations for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)
for her rendition of the Judy Collins ballad “Since You’ve Asked” from the
album Live at the Rainbow Room, and for “Dancing in the Dark” from Taking a
Chance on Love (2005).
With an
upcoming tour, Believe by David Benoit and Jane Monheit, this dynamic duo of
the downbeat will rhythmically roast musical chestnuts on a jazzy, open fire
for years to come. “I’m a Christmas
fanatic, so these songs have always been important to me,” Monheit says. “There
are so many of them that are absolutely gorgeous, and right on par with the
Great American Songbook. But you only get to sing them for a month out of the
year. And, of course, getting to do them outside of that [time of the year] and
record them is always welcome in my world.”
“With this
album, I can get back to my straight-ahead roots, with a real, simple acoustic
trio,” Benoit says. We crossed over a bit with songs like “Believe” that were
pop-oriented. But basically, it’s a jazz album.”
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