by Brian Stephenson

Created on: March 25, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

Many readers will be familiar with the lists of recommended products generated by computer on Internet sites that sell books, CDs and DVDs. Of course, the lists are based on your earlier purchases, but do they work? Well, I took a chance on Amazon once and bought a CD by an artist I had never heard of.

The album is called 'Come Dream with Me' and is the second album by a young American singer called Jane Monheit. The day it arrived I was working at my desk listening to music, a common situation for me. I opened the package, placed the CD in the player, pushed the play key and started walking back to my desk. Before I arrived there the first track had started. As a remarkable voice, unaccompanied at first, began with the first line of 'Over the Rainbow' I stopped off at the sofa. It was immediately obvious that the music deserved my full attention: it got it, and for the whole of the album. The voice is clear and pure, with a unique tone to it that leaves you wanting more. The nearest comparison I can think of is the great Ella Fitzgerald and that's not a comparison to be made lightly!

'Over the Rainbow' (Arlen and Harburg) is a classic song almost owned by the late Judy Garland, but this new version was a revelation and it went on for over six minutes. Of course, there has been another recent, outstanding version of this song by a young woman with a remarkable voice; it was by the late Eva Cassidy, who died so tragically young, but that is another story.

The second track is another standard, 'Hit the Road to Dreamland', by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. Then come two songs that were new to me 'Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most' (Landesmann and Wolf Jr) and 'Waters of March' (Antonio Carlos Jobim). The first of these is slow and particularly suitable for Monheit's voice, which soars effortlessly and beautifully into its upper registers. The second is more up-tempo, but no worse for that.

Following three more standards, "I'm Through With Love" (Cochan and Cook), "I'll Be Seeing You" (Fain and Kahal) and 'Something to Live For' (Kennedy and Strayhorn), comes another that was new to me, 'So Many Stars' (Mendez, Bergman and Bergman) and that I was glad to get to know.

The familiar David Gates song 'If' comes next, followed by 'Blame It On My Youth' by Heyman and Levant, with the album being finished (though not quite see next paragraph) with a committed version of 'A Case of You' by Joni Mitchell.

Although the album sleeve only lists 11 tracks, there is actually

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>