Stacey Kent with husband Jim Tomlinson |
Stacey Kent is an award-winning singer with six best-selling albums. She won the 2002 BBC Jazz Award for "Best Vocalist."
A native of New York, some of Kent's albums include: In Love Again, Close Your Eyes, The Tender Trap, and Boy Next Door.
The Lyric is Kent's latest album. On the album she collaborates with her husband Jim Tomlinson --who is a saxophonist. I reached Kent in New York City to speak about her work and new album.
Gerry McCarthy: I understand The Lyric was "Album of The Year" at the 2006 BBC Jazz Awards this past July.
Stacey Kent: Yes --we're so thrilled.
GM: Congratulations.
SK: Thank you.
GM: When is the album available in the United States?
SK: It's released on September 12. It was released in Canada earlier. It makes the rounds according to when we're touring --and we come to America in October.
GM: You once explained in an article that: "The music I'm singing definitely applies to today. The language has changed but the stories themselves are timeless and romantic about falling in love, being rejected. They feel very right to me and they feel contemporary." On your last album Boy Next Door (2003) you sing pieces that were once performed by Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Short, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, and Perry Como. Sometimes people say doing these songs is nostalgic. But you don't feel that way do you?
SK: Anybody who thinks the stories that were written once upon a time don't apply to today isn't thinking things through. If you look at people's lives (and what they had to struggle with and what they aimed for) it's not that different from year-to-year or century-to-century. It's not as if man has evolved in any sort of way emotionally. Surely we evolve on another levels. I don't need to explain. I'm sitting here in front of a computer and obviously Thomas Hardy did not. But what has really changed between what he might have wanted out of his life --and those that came before or after him?
It's narrow to think that any song I sing would not be applicable to people's lives in general. I don't think of myself as being on any nostalgia trip at all. What would be nostalgia for me? If I was in a shop and they were playing the B-52s. Because that reminds me when I got my car and was driving around with my friends --when I first had my license. That's a nostalgia trip for me.
GM: I played some songs from Boy Next Door at a family gathering recently. One person described you as a "romantic" singer. Does that surprise you?
SK: No. I probably think of myself that way. I find romance in everything. That's just who I am. I see romance in things I'm doing every single day. This morning I walked down the street holding the hand of my little five-year-old niece. It was a gorgeous day. Everybody was out on the streets of New York. It's just a romantic view I had of a particular scene.
My husband Jim and I flew to Japan recently. We were very jet lagged. We sat looking outside our room watching the world go by. We watched the sun rise, because we were up all night. It was beautiful. That's how I like to look at the world. That's who I am. I take music that I can interpret --that allows me to paint my interpretation and who I am using that song. Indeed it is very romantic.
GM: Can you talk to me about some of your early musical influences?
SK: I grew up listening to everything and anything. I was a music lover from day one. I was influenced by anything that was around. Obviously I didn't always choose what that was, because we would be in restaurants or shops --and I heard so much. Whether it was classical, country and western, or folk rock.
I loved and listened to people like James Taylor and Carol King a lot. Carol King was the person I listened to most when I was a kid. But I had classical music loving parents. So I listened to a lot of classical music --and I was moved by Debussy, Chopin, and Ravel.
My mother played a lot of piano. So I listened to her play too. My parents took me to the opera. I didn't see Maria Callas, but I loved her voice. It was very moving. I also liked Ray Charles. I'm still influenced by so much different music.
GM: I understand you receive letters and e-mails from people of different generations. That must be gratifying?
SK: Yes. You do what comes naturally. My responsibility as an artist is to perform and sing what it is that moves and speaks to me. I don't necessarily think about all the things that come after that. Whether it be an award or who's even listening to it. You just put your music out there, and people find a way of finding it. I'm not thinking of those people per se. But it's gratifying to come back from a tour, and see the mail you receive from people all over the world. Sometimes it will be a 40-year-old guy in Japan. Or a seven-year-old girl from France whose mother helped type the e-mail. It comes from all ages and walks of life.
GM: On your album The Tender Trap (1999) you do a song "In the Wee Small Hours of The Morning." This was one of Frank Sinatra's signature pieces. It's a melancholy song --but you make it feel fresh and vibrant.
SK: Songs and stories are multi-layered. It's not so straightforward that it's a sad song or a happy song. A song that has a twinge of wistfulness or poignancy to it can still be vibrant. This is the wonderful thing that we all experience as human beings --living our lives and telling our stories. Everybody is a storyteller.
"In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" is a shrug-your-shoulder kind of song. Yet you have to interpret it in the way that comes naturally. I'm a complete optimist. I'll look at a situation and say: This is to be continued. This will work out. Something good will come from this. This was meant to be. I like to think that. "Wee Small Hours" is one of those songs.
GM: I'm always intrigued by what happens in a recording studio. They say Frank Sinatra used to record songs in one take. But that's unusual isn't it?
SK: It depends. Some times things go well, and it is one take. Other times you want to go back and do it a few times. On The Lyric there was a song we recorded. It was the first one we chose to play that day. It was good. Then we put it in the can and left it. When we were finished the session we said: Let's go back to that. And we just played a great version of it. So it's a living, breathing thing --and it will happen differently according to when you record the song.
We often start in the middle of the day --so we can set up and take our time. The afternoon is a roller coaster. Sometimes when we feel it's getting too much (or we just want to relax and take our brains away from the music) we'll go out and play catch. That's a big one with the band. We'll play a lot of catch. Then we go back in the studio --evening rolls around-- and we put down some more tracks.
You couldn't possibly say what would go well at one point in the day and what wouldn't. Nothing can be pre-determined. It's how it is on that particular day. Everyday is a little bit different. But it's fun. You don't know what's about to happen, and that's part of the excitement and challenge.
GM: You've played Carnegie Hall and the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel. How did it feel to play those venues?
SK: It was amazing, because I grew up in New York City. I went to concerts at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera. I would imagine the feeling inside of me the day I walked in the dressing room at Carnegie Hall was not dissimilar to how Steffi Graf must have felt the first time she played Martina Navratilova This was somebody who was her hero. She grew up watching this person, and then suddenly she had arrived and was playing her hero. I don't play anybody --I play rooms. But to arrive at Carnegie would have been the same kind of sentiment.
GM: What's happening next for you?
SK: We're doing the rounds with The Lyric now. Making an album is like having a baby. You don't want to go out there and make the next one right away, because you want to give the new one attention. You love this thing. You want to nurture it --give it attention-- and play the songs and share them.
We go to Israel next week. Then England, the Far East, Europe and then America. Towards the end of the year I'll start to work on my new album. I signed a record with Blue Note. So I'll be making a record for them. That's my plan: To keep on touring and performing.
Gerry McCarthy is Editor of The Social Edge.
for internet marketing, web site design, development, promotion, and maintenance.
