Description :
A chance meeting in Oxford with saxophonist (and now husband), Jim Tomlinson, was the twist of fate that took Stacey's life into a new direction. The two were embarking upon academic paths, but their meeting sparked the desire ... [Show more]
Description:
A chance meeting in Oxford with saxophonist (and now husband), Jim Tomlinson, was the twist of fate that took Stacey's life into a new direction. The two were embarking upon academic paths, but their meeting sparked the desire to pursue their love of music together. As a result, Stacey Kent has become one of the world's foremost jazz singers.
Since the release of Stacey's first album, Close Your Eyes (1997), she has achieved, without compromise, both critical and popular success, with her fresh and heart-felt interpretations of the finest love songs of the twentieth century.
It's been said that one of the most appealing qualities of Stacey's style is that it is 'conversational'. I'd go one step further. She conveys as well as any other singer I've heard the sense of a person talking to herself; the faltering hesitancies, the exuberant rushes of inner thought. There is invariably a lover being addressed, but in Stacey's readings that lover is never in the room. The lyric is what the singer wishes to say, or wishes she had said. We're witnessing a private moment.
"No surprise then to find on this latest album emotions being portrayed never in primary colours, but always subtly shaded. These thirteen Richard Rodgers songs move between the themes of love found and love lost. But it's never as straightforward as sunshine followed by dark despair. She may convey wonderfully the giddy intoxication of love, and yet she does sound, well, intoxicated - and vulnerable; like a sophisticate who's suddenly left herself open to naiveté. Then every three or four tracks - as though to confirm our fears - we discover her disappointed and let down, singing something like IT NEVER ENTERED MY MIND or EASY TO REMEMBER. But what's curious and unique in these exquisitely rendered ballads (and what makes her distinct from Billie Holiday, say, or that other fine singer of her generation, Diana Krall) is the absence of bitterness. What we get is someone going over the broken pieces of her life, trying to coax from somewhere a little courage and perspective. Here's a great jazz diva of our age". - from liner notes, Kazuo Ishiguro, July 2002
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