Customer Reviews

In Love Again - The Music of Richard Rodgers

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Stacey Kent's fifth CD is her best. Backed once more by husband Jim Tomlinson on tenor sax and flute, she has found yet another way to pay tribute to Richard Rodgers and his music. Her new arrangements of Rodgers'tunes are worth adding to your collection.While some compare her voice to that of Joanie Sommers, I think it's more reminiscent of the crisp and kittenish lyrics sung by young Susannah McCorkle.Don't miss Kent and Tomlinson if you have a chance to see them. They make far too few appearances in the U.S., but I was fortunate enough to see them wow a Tucson Jazz Society audience in 2002. My mistake was not buying the British version of this CD from her then. The year-long wait for it to hit regular U.S. marketing channels was agonizing, and I'm already yearning for Stacey's sixth album.

American-born but British-based Stacey does it again with this mellow but classy collection of songs composed by Richard Rodgers in collaboration with either with Lorenz Hart or Oscar Hammerstein. The songs are a mix of the famous and the obscure.

Stacey selected two songs each from South Pacific (I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair, Bali Ha'i) and A Connecticut Yankee (Thou swell, My heart stood still). Other shows represented here, but just by one song each, are The king and I (Shall we dance), Pal Joey (Bewitched bothered and bewildered), Higher and higher (It never entered my mind), State fair (It might as well be Spring), Jupiter (Nobody's heart belongs to me), The boys from Syracuse (This can't be love), Mississippi (It's easy to remember) and The Garrick Gaities (Manhattan).

As a fan of the Great American Songbook, I have heard some of these songs in many different versions, but Stacey always does justice to the songs while interpreting them in her own way.

Stacey is one of the biggest names in British jazz and this album clearly shows why. If you enjoy modern recordings of the Great American Songbook, you'll love Stacey's music.

Stacey Kent is the best. There are no better singers of the great American popular songs, and her CDs consistently include exceptionally fine supporting musicians. (Note: this is the US release. The British release of the same CD last year has a different, and surprisingly unflattering, picture of her on the cover.)

I think the title of this CD refers to one falling in love with the songs your grandparents used to listen to long time ago, but Stacey gives it a more contemporary feel without losing the timelessness of these beloved songs. What makes Stacey Kent so likeable and so easy to listen to is her dedication to the lyrics and the delivery of the songs. Some singers, specially some jazz vocalists are so into their own voice that they forget what they are singing about. Not Stacey, she commits herself of the lyrics and that really shines through. Listen to her interpretation of "Fools Rush In," ahh, makes you melt like an ice cube on a balmy summer's day. And not to be sacreligous, but I like Stacey's version of "It Might as Well Be Spring," than Astrud Gilberto's, bossa nova beat and all. Really. And an added bonus to these songs is when the band takes over and adds an ambient , romantic sentiment to Stacey interpretations, without overwhelming or eclipsing the vocals. I'm not saying that anyone can like this CD, but I think if you have a little romance in you, a little ability to fall in love, then you can really get into Stacey Kent and "In Love Again, The Music of Richard Rodgers."

...by chance I heard this fabulous gal and I had to hear more. Stacey can sing with a voice you've never heard before handling both music and lyrics to perfection. I might add that her muscial group and arrangements were right on the money. Make no mistake this talented group were 5 stars.

This has got to be one of my personal favorites among CDs I purchased this year.

Ms. Kent's remarkable voice (at times reminiscent of Joanie Sommers) suits these great songs of Richard Rodgers brilliantly. Hats off to the great musicians who support her (including her talented husband, Jim Tomlinson).

This was the first Stacey Kent I listened to and I was instantly mesmerised by her smooth and silky vocals backed by subtle and intriguing arrangements.

Picture this:
you're having a small get-together with a few close friends at home. A soft breeze floating through your balcony. The candle light from your living room wavers and casts a warm glow. And Stacey Kent's beautiful rendition of Bali Hai' wafts lightly from your hi-fi as you and your friends sip your Blue Curacao cocktails and chat softly.
You'll be thinking you're on the Pacific Ocean in no time!

For a more balanced compilation though, SK Collection and Collection II are both excellent to listen to.

Ms. Kent has an nice voice: in-tune, throaty (reminding me of Joanie Summers, the Coke girl, remember?), the little girl lack of projection/resonance (think Astrud Gilberto), limited range and dynamics, and a thankful lack of theatrics. She is no Dinah Washington or Anita O'Day, but who is?

To my mind, however, we should all get down on our hands and knees and thank Ms. Kent for simply singing the songs, keeping them alive. The age of the great songwriters--Rogers and Hart, the Gershwins, Kern, Berlin, Mercer, Arlen, Porter, Loesser, and Lerner and Lowe, etc.--is over and has been replaced by the noise and obscenities of modern rock and rap. Adult sophistication and intelligence has given way to the juvenile rantings of singers who can't sing and musicians who can hardly play their instruments. Will these songs be played 50 years hence, like the songs of the masters? Who's kidding who?

That said, this is a very enjoyable album. Rodgers and Hart were perfect for each other: the music and lyrics were such that they seemed inseparable, and indeed, Rodgers' always interesting melodies seemed tailormade for Larry Hart's cynical, anti-romantic lyrics. They were the best of the best, and Ms. Kent does a really nice job of proving that. Listen to the title tune, my personal favorite, wherein after belitting and deprecating love, the singer has to admit that even so, she wishes she were in love again ("when love congeals, it soon reveals, the faint aroma of performing seals..."). This is music that deserves to be around forever, and I personally thank Ms. Kent for keeping it alive and singing it so well.

A recent Washington Post article before Stacey Kent's appearance at Blues Alley said she had an "adult sexuality". I had to find out. Having listened, she has a coy, kittenish sexuality that come through most all her songs. A kittenish, cat-and-mouse quality.

She has a small voice - she rarely, if ever, sings loud or with much dynamics. She tends to clip the end of her phrases where others might sustain the tone. But the mix is always consistent and pleasant.

The fav song here is "Bali Hai", where the sound at the end just sort of floats off into ethereal space, but I really like her Bossa Nova arrangement of "It Might as Well be Spring" where husband Jim Tomlinson on Sax sounds like Stan Getz back from the grave and the guitarist comes off a whole lot like the late Charlie Byrd.

Stacey & Jim have made a number of albums, this is the one I listen to most. The differences between each are the songs, whether the selection is to your taste, the arrangements are pretty similar from album to album.

This is a nice, swing oriented album;
Stacey Kent is a vocalist of pleasant voice and great precision, although not all the supporting musicians drive her the way many older giants could
(Sir Charles Thompson, Jess Stacy, Milt Hinton, George Duvivier... and I'm not even mentioning the best...).
Could you even imagine what would Roy Eldridge or Buck Clayton do to uplift the session?

Kent's husband Jim Tomlinson is definitely the best of the supporting crew, at times really passionate in his elegance so, with first-rate material, this is still a very pleasant album.