Stacey Kent
Birdland, NYC, December 11, 2018
Reviewed by Chris Struck for Cabaret Scenes
Stacey Kent played a solid jazz set at Birdland during the holiday season. Her performance was a true gift, her ability and presence should put her at the top of anyone’s jazz list. Her silky voice and her attention to lyrics allowed her to drift along with the melodious movements of her band.
When she sang “Every wishful dream I ever knew will come true/If I’m lucky I will go through the years with you,” from “If I’m Lucky” (Josef Myrow/Eddie DeLange) she had fully captured the romantic imagination of the night. Her show epitomized what a starlit evening of jazz should be, accompanied by Jim Tomlinson on sax and flute, Art Hirahara on piano, Tom Hubbard on bass, and Anthony Pinciotti on drums.
Every song after that early number added to a wonderful torrent of music that broke like waves on a shore in the distance. When she added Cliff Goldmacher/Tomlinson collaborations, such as “The Bullet Train” to the set list, her work shifted up another notch.
Some of the lyrics were a little more obscure, but the line “why am I still thinking about the rain?” still sticks in my head. Although it seems the song title, like a few in her show, isn’t easy to track down, she captured the magical essence of getting caught in the rain.
One of the other magical moments was her performance of “Les amours perdues” (Serge Gainsbourg), which she fittingly introduced as a song about lost loves. “Toujours, toujours,” she crooned, and she might as well have asked for the rain to return.
