Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote about Jane Scheckter: “She has invaluable musical skills, a bright, clear voice with a brassy edge and a luscious rounded vibrato. Meticulous phrasing, a sultry lower register…and she swings!”. In 2009, he added, “A no-frills pop-jazz swinger with her eyes wide open.”
Her newest and fifth CD, “I’ll Take Romance,” with Tedd Firth, Jay Leonhart, Peter Grant and Warren Vaché, is set for release in March, 2024.
Daughter of a harmonica player who headlined theaters across the country in the ’30s, Jane began performing while in grade school, when she joined her dad on stage at various venues in New England. She has been singing ever since. Her first two albums, “I’ve Got My Standards” (DRG) and “Double Standards” (Doxie) elicited raves from the critics, Downbeat praising her “Ellastyled artistry”, and the New York Daily News cheering “a brilliant star”. Her third CD, “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.”
A native of Springfield, MA, Jane showed her musical talent early in life, singing and playing the piano from age five, and adding the violin at nine. Persuaded by her parents to “have a civilian career to fall back on”, she attended Pratt Institute, where she majored in design and starred in most of the campus theatricals.
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, but singing remained her first love. 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. Barry played and sang backup on her demo records and when he recorded his first album, Jane sang backup for him on”Could It Be Magic”. She auditioned for Milos Forman and appeared in his first U.S. film, “Taking Off”, appearing with other unknowns Carly Simon and Kathy Bates. After a time, she said goodbye to the fashion world and concentrated on the show world instead.
Her early New York club appearances included engagements at Reno Sweeney, Brothers and Sisters, Grand Finale, the FireBird, the Ballroom, Danny’s, Judy’s and Eighty Eight’s. More recently, she has performed at the Iridium and the Metropolitan Room. Reviewing her cabaret act in the early ”90s, John Wilson in the New York Times wrote of her “precise, positive, pure-toned voice” and “her off-hand delivery that gives sparkle to the standards”. In Los Angeles she sang at the Academy, Le Cafe and The Gardenia, and performed in the improvisation group, “Off the Wall” with Robin Williams. She toured the world as one-third of Tuxedo Junction, the vocal trio that had the number one disco album in the U.S.A. in 1978. She also made guest shots on American Bandstand, Dinah Shore, Midnight Special, Disco Fever and the Jerry Lewis telethon from Las Vegas.
She has appeared twice in the 92nd Street Y’s Lyrics & Lyricists and on the syndicated radio show “New York Cabaret Nights”. Off Broadway she appeared in “Our Sinatra” during the 2001 season, with Peter Cincotti. In 1996 she received the Back Stage magazine Bistro Award for outstanding jazz vocalist.
Early in her career she was seen in Barry Manilow’s long-running hit “The Drunkard” and “The Proposition”, with Jane Curtin and Fred Grandy. She appeared in “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Framingham Music Theater in Boston, She also has been seen on the soap operas, “Capitol” and “All My Children”. Jane was a guest soloist with the Springfield (Mass.) Symphony, playing to an audience of 5,000 in a pops concert. She gave a solo concert at Le Theatre de Dix Heures in Paris. Other French appearances include Le Bilboquet and La Villa in Paris; Le Chateau, La Napoule; and Chateau de Berne on the Riviera and concerts at the national music festivals in Valbonne and Biot, also on the Riviera. For two years Jane gave concerts as part of the “Jazz in July” series at the Hotel Majestic, in Cannes.
She continues to perform on both sides of the Atlantic every year.