When the Catalina Bar & Grill Jazz Club clubs slogan reads “Nothing but the best in Jazz", that is Jane Monheit. Playing to a packed club on Saturday June 9, Monheit sang both arrangements from the beginning of her young career as well recordings from her newest album “Surrender.”
The atmosphere was a like an electric velvet blanket throughout the crowd as the lights dimmed to welcome Monheit’s band on to the smaller stage at the intimate venue. The Catalina, which serves as the perfect date idea for anyone looking to impress their paramour with something that is not seen on billboards, houses a feeling of being a jazz “insider” for even the newest fans.
The first song Monheit sang was the Sergio Mendes’ arrangement “So Many Stars,” something appropriate for the way that she handles the stage with the rest of her band. Adept at not only owning the stage she is on but fading in to the back of the jazz sky and allowing some of the other talented stars to shine, Monheit watches the constellation that forms more than just a string of heavenly bodies of music.
After opening with “So Many Stars,” Monheit continued through her set and included offerings from song writers like Tony Bennett and Burt Bacharach. She made sure to acknowledge both as supreme lyricists and jazz musicians of our time while still “brazilifying” her collection of covers. 
The band, which includes pianist Michael Kanan, guitarist Miles Okazaki, bassist Neal Miner, saxophonist Ari Ambrose and drummer (as well as husband of four years) Nick Montalbano, provided more than adequate support for their songstress who was voted Female Vocalist of the Year at the prestigious Ronnie Scott Awards earlier this year in May.
With a voice that ranged from a misty high set of notes and dropped down sharply to a bass that rivaled Miner’s solo performances, Monheit never hesitated to improvise in her set. She would sometimes step completely off the stage to sit next to her pianist while each of the band played solos, the highlight being Miner’s riff.
The Catalina Bar and Grill curls in on itself from a valet parking structure and features a gorgeous inset bar at the back of the restaurant. The bar glitters under the shine of drooping lights and offers a small vista of light in an otherwise dark environment that invited more conversation than glamour, a welcome change in the age of image over menu.
The menu itself is as diverse as the talent that is showcased from night to night at the bar and grill. It features such highlights as a delicious mushroom ravioli and chicken piccata. 
Emotioned streamed over the vocalists face as she sang the ballad “If You Went Away” and some of the audience members joined in to the vibe, adding their own thoughts to the already streaming consciousness of sadness.
Monheit finished her set with covers of Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed,” that nearly brought the house to its feet and was the first song she selected for her seventh album, and “Surrender,” which was written by her vocal coach Peter Elridge.
"Peter didn’t write "Surrender" for this album, but he did write it recently," said Monheit on her website janemonheitonline.com. "He recorded it once himself, but other than him I’m the first person to record it. I’ve wanted to record one of Peter’s tunes forever, but my previous albums were really standards-based. With the sort of time period I’m working on with this album, which is largely music of the 1960s and onward, it finally seemed the right project to include one of his songs, and ‘Surrender’ is my current favorite."
Both the artist and the venue are looking to the future and the past for inspiration in the new age of Hollywood that is itself searching for an identity under the marquees of the Pantages and the Arclight.
In each other they have found a harmony that could return an entire coast to the sound of jazz.
Catalina Bar & Grill
6725 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood
323-466-2210
Hours: Mon.-Sat., 7 p.m.-2 a.m.; Sun., 6 p.m.-midnight
