She may be not as popular as in U.K (where they consider her a British possession ), but the American-born singer always delivers with style. A recent addition to the Blue Note roster of recording artists, now Stacey Kent boasts in U.K. six best-selling albums, a string of awards, including the 2001 British Jazz Award and 2002 BBC Jazz Award "Best Vocalist", the 2004 Backstage Bistro Award and the 2006 Album of the Year for The Lyric featuring Stacey Kent as well as a fan base that enables her to sell out concert halls around the world. Her latest album "Breakfast On a Morning Tram" includes a mixture of classic standards as well as new songs written and produced by her husband and saxophonist, Jim Tomlinson, and has on her team a surprise star writer (award-winning novelist) Kazuo Ishiguro, who supplies four angular lyrics on her Blue Note debut. "She conveys the sense of a person talking to herself". Ishiguro wrote, "the faltering hesitancies, the exuberant rushes of inner thought". It probably would have been easy for the expat American to continue ploughing a comfortable swing-revivalist furrow. For the past 10 years, she has been mainly singing numbers form the great American Songbooks. However, on this CD, she sings lesser known beautiful songs (a folksily soulful "Landslide" - from Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks), a couple of Serge Gainsbourg romances delivered in French ( "Ces petits riens" and "La saison des Pluies"') , another pearl of a song, the elegant bossa nova "Samba Savarah", also delicately sung in French and three numbers from the Songbook, a bluesily swinging "Hard Hearted Hannah", "Never let me go" and and an account of "What a Wonderful World" as a wondering whisper. She did sing Bacharach, Paul Simon and Carole Kind in her previous exquisite album The Boy Next Door , but this CD has a fresher approach. Full marks to her, then, for having the courage to take this new departure, a collection of songs that occasionally tilts in the direction of Norah Jones, another artist who has made the most of a narrow vocal range. Kent's light, girlish voice and avoidance of dynamic or emotional extremes is applied here to a wider range of material than the Broadway standards that made her name. Kent can get a hard time from the cognoscenti for her dinner-jazzy Latin shuffles and faintly coy delivery, and there are certainly times on her albums where you wish John Zorn might crash in. But the shift from dark, low sounds to edgier ascending pleas is genuinely affecting on "Never Let Me Go". John Parricelli's guitar is a delight, and Jim Tomlinson's soft sax is as supportive as ever; and Kent's timing and care with lyrics shows how much she cares about this fragile world of almost-jazz. Stacey sounds understandably self-conscious on some of the modern material, but the lissom guitar-based arrangements leave you eager to hear where the next step will take her. "Her voice is sometimes a whisper, sometimes a confiding murmur, sometimes an exhilarated exclamation; but whatever the idiom or the mood, individual listeners frequently feel that Stacey's music was intended for their ears only". - John Fordham Stacey Kent's "Breakfast on the Morning Tram" sounds like an audio journal from a global traveler: slightly world-weary but still enthusiastic, still hoping for ... ? Her trademark lyrical clarity combined with confident, understated yet adventuresome musical phrasing makes her singing a delight. For this CD she has moved beyond the American songbook and standards that make up many of her prior recordings. The songs and sound are fresh. Several songs, with lyrics by Japanese novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, ignore "songbook-style" rhymes for a more modern storytelling mode -- still catchy -- beautifully delivered by Stacey Kent's incomparable voice. This a a GREAT CD -- perhaps her best so far. My wish? Combine Ishiguro lyrics with more Brazilian-influenced melodies (Jobim? Gilberto? Tomlinson?) for a whole "Stacey Goes South" CD of updated samba and bossanova tunes. My other wish? Just where is that morning tram that serves breakfast? If you like Karyn Allison and Blossom Deary, don't miss this album! Stacey Kent's small but intimate voice seems to whisper in your ear. She really is unique. But its not just Ms. Kent which makes this CD a winner; the arrangements are perfect and the musicians (including her husband, Jim Tomlinson) back her with an unselfish sensitivity. Yet, when they come forward to solo, you are aware that each is a polished and creative performer! More! Please! I save the best for last. The new songs written by Kazuo Ishiguro and Jim Tomlinson are very special. They are not just the same old love songs. Yes, each one includes love as a component, but, with a humorous "twist". Artists create many mediocre pieces on the way to that ONE masterpiece, but to write FOUR superb songs for this album, is a creative blessing.Turn down the lights; sit back; enjoy!Lovely, subtle and quiet CD. Stacy does not have a huge voice, but she does have quality, not quantity. Many of the tracks on this CD are sambas/bossa nova which play into Stacy's strengths as a singer.A huge surprise on this CD is the new songs by her better half with lyricist Ishiguro. Lovely catchy songs with lyrics that resemble Lorenz Hart at his best.Relatively little tenor sax from Tomlinson, though he plays flute and alto as well.I heard the song "I Wish I Could Go Traveling Again" while driving on the Freeway in San Jose, CA and suddenly I was taken to a different place. I was just grateful there was a decent jazz station in the area. While that song convinced me to buy the album (which I did on Amazon that evening), I heard another song ("Landslide") from the same album back in NY on WBGO. When the DJ said it was Stacey Kent from her new album "Breakfast on the Morning Tram", I KNEW I had picked a winner. A few days later when I received the CD, the song mix confirmed my expectations - a GREAT mix of songs by a vocalist who doesn't blast the notes, but still gives me the shivers. Stacey - way to go !
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