Stacey Kent
Released in 2018
DownBeat Five-Star Review
YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=REo8XTgW37s&list=OLAK5uy_lJKOQ2WE4anfFoZ1d7dPSIfKK7Xt8-2z0
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/053FwZ4XD8d2xY2GhMB9sH?si=2hsYrKVtTwW_WkXv-MqFow
About:
With over 2 million albums sold, a Grammy nomination and international recognition as one of the most successful and prolific jazz vocalist of her time, Stacey Kent stands strong among the artists that don’t have much left to prove.
She surprises us once more with her brand new album, I Know I Dream. Recorded inside the famous Angel Studios in London with an orchestra of around 60 musicians, this is her first orchestral album in a career that spans two decades and more than 15 albums.
Meticulously produced by Tommy Lawrence and Stacey’s longtime collaborator (and husband!) Jim Tomlinson, the songs are arranged in a way that they are transporting the listeners instead of the size of the orchestra, which brings harmony and depth to the record and to the stories it tells. The most important thing for Stacey Kent was “to keep our sensibility and, at the center of everything, our sense of intimacy”. I Know I Dream revisits in fact the quintessence of her repertoire and soul with three songs in French (Juliette Greco’s Les Amours Perdues, originally written by Serge Gainsbourg, Nino Ferrer’s La Rua Madureira and Léo Ferré’s Avec le temps), four new compositions and five covers of Brazilian timeless classics including, for example, Carlos Jobim’s Photograph. I Know I Dream is a majestic and smooth delight, both panoramic and intimate at the same time: a self-portrait with a big orchestra, like a confidence whispered with 58 accomplices.
Stacey Kent is a jazz singer in the mould of the greatest, with a legion of fans worldwide, a host of honors and awards including a Grammy nomination, album sales approaching 2 million, Gold, Double-Gold and Platinum-selling albums that have reached a series of No. 1 chart positions during the span of her career.
Track Listing:
1. Double Rainbow (Antônio Carlos Jobim / Gene Lees) 4:33
2. Photograph (Ray Gilbert / Antônio Carlos Jobim) 6:09
3. Les Amours Perdues (Serge Gainsbourg) 4:21
4. Bullet Train (Kazuo Ishiguro / Jim Tomlinson) 7:35
5. To Say Goodbye (Lani Hall / Edú Lobo / Torquato Neto) 5:19
6. Make It Up (Cliff Goldmacher / Jim Tomlinson) 4:59
7. Avec Le Temps (Léo Ferré) 4:21
8. I Know I Dream (Cliff Goldmacher / Jim Tomlinson) 5:38
9. La Rua Madureira (Nino Ferrari / Paule Zambernadi) 4:54
10. Mais Uma Vez (Antonio Ladeira / Jim Tomlinson) 6:25
11. That’s All (Alan Brandt / Bob Haymes) 5:39
12. The Changing Lights (Kazuo Ishiguro / Jim Tomlinson) 6:19
Personnel:
Stacey Kent: vocals
Jim Tomlinson: saxophones, alto flute, percussion
Graham Harvey: piano, Fender Rhodes, keyboard
John Paricelli: guitars
Jeremy Brown: double bass
Joshua Morrison: drums
Curtis Schwartz: electric bass (4)
Erika Matsuo: station announcement (4)
Martin Burgess: violin
Amanda Smith: violin
George Salter: violin
Katie Stillman: violin
Lorraine McAslan: violin
John Mills: violin
Andrew Storey: violin
Richard Milone: violin
Paul Wiley: violin
Rob Bishop: violin
Jenny Godson: violin
Catherine Morgan: violin
Matthew Ward: violin
Jeremy Morris: violin
Clare Hayes: violin
Richard Blayden: violin
Richard George: violin
Alison Dods: violin
Susan Briscoe: violin
Takane Funatsu: violin
Fiona Bonds: viola
James Boyd: viola
Ian Rathbone: viola
Nick Barr: viola
Chian Lim: viola
Reiad Chibah: viola
Martin Loveday: cello
Nick Cooper: cello
Will Schofield: cello
Judith Herbert: cello
Juliet Welchman: cello
Julia Graham: cello
Vicky Matthews: cello
Chris Laurence: bass
Richard Pryce: bass
Lucy Shaw: bass
Eliza Marshall: flute
Sarah Newbold: flute
Patricia Moynihan: flute
Siobhan Grealy: flute
Holly Cook: flute
Jamie Talbot: clarinet, alto flute
Time Lines: clarinet
Tom Lessels: bass clarinet
Steve Morris: contrabass clarinet
John Thurgood: French horn
Corinne Bailey: French horn
Joanna Hensel: French horn
Andy Sutton: French horn
Sue Blair: harp
Adrian Bending: vibraphone, percussion
Recorded October 31, 2016 & May 5, 2017, at Angel Studios, London, Curtis Schwartz, Ardingley, and Stirling Studios, Colorado
Produced by Jim Tomlinson
Co-produced by Curtis Schwartz
Mixed and Mastered by Curtis Schwartz
Engineer: Chris Parker
Photos by Benoît Peverelli (outside) and by Chris Christodoulou (inside)
Dress designers: Paul Smith and Martin Grant
Artwork by Jean-Louis Duralek
Review:
Stacey Kent’s mezzo-soprano voice is a beautiful instrument for offsetting orchestral accompaniment, a fact that I Know I Dream illustrates well. The orchestra, a 52-piece London studio assemblage, has a lushness that would smother Nelson Riddle—yet Kent cuts through it effortlessly. In fairness, the arrangements hardly compete with Kent. But the singer has a relatively soft, restrained voice that on a less-skilled performer might easily be overpowered. Kent is incisive even at a near-whisper, as on the tender arrangement of Jobim’s “Photograph.” Her voice becomes a featured instrument against saxophonist Jim Tomlinson’s vivacious samba “Make It Up.” Indeed, the effect in a song with a segmented lyric line, like the Frenchlanguage “Avec Le Temps,” is very like a concerto, with rich strings blooming in the spaces Kent leaves. Along with the Jobim and other standards are several originals, composed by Tomlinson with several lyricists. On the two best songs, the latter role is author Kazuo Ishiguro’s— Kent’s longtime collaborator and a Nobel laureate. “Bullet Train” puts Kent in a dream, with familiar faces around her. The closing “The Changing Lights” is I Know I Dream’s crown jewel, a bittersweet memory that could be a companion piece to Joni Mitchell’s “The Last Time I Saw Richard.” It’s the capstone of a nearly perfect vocal jazz album.
Michael J. West (DownBeat)
