Long Island native Jane Monheit has taken Ella Fitzgerald's Duke Ellington Songbook as her inspiration for Never Never Land. While she does not sound much like Ella, she follows a similarly mainstream format, singing pleasantly along with an all-star line up of Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Lewis Nash, Hank Crawford, David "Fathead" Newman and Bucky Pizzarelli on such fare as "Please Be Kind", "Detour Ahead" and "My Foolish Heart". Her international debut on N-Coded seems an auspicious affair, and a good deal has obviously been invested in her, including a liner note puff which inadvertently points up her ordinariness. Michael Bourne makes a big fuss about the sharp eleventh with which Monheit ends "Detour Ahead", describing it as "a note that only this jazz singer would sing". Unfortunately, not only is such an ending not exclusive to Jane Monheit, it's one of the oldest clichés in post-bop jazz.--Mark Gilbert