Startling maturity (From Bromsgrove Advertiser)

Startling maturity

11:46am Wednesday 25th March 2009

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Review – Stacey Kent at the Huntingdon Hall, Worcester THE history of jazz is punctuated with partnerships. In fact, it's almost impossible to think of a great performer without calling to mind the equally famous sidekick who made it all possible.

Husband and wife team Stacey Kent and Jim Tomlinson may not yet be riding the neon with the likes of Django and Stephane, Getz and Gilberto, but it's early days yet.

For their marriage of voice and saxophone has attained such startling maturity that it must be only a matter of time before they make a mainstream breakthrough.

Much has happened since Kent and her band last appeared at the Huntingdon. Although her allegiance to Tin Pan Alley and Broadway is undiminished, the songs these days are dominated by South America, rather than the American South.

She's also fallen head-over-heels in love with France, as witnessed by her delicate rendition of Jardin D'Hiver, delicately executed with both precision and passion.

Kent paints sound pictures, exploring worldscapes that need only be poetic in order to qualify. Yet she's still capable of breathing new life into the positively geriatric Zing Went the Strings of My Heart, also repeating the act of resuscitation with Louis Armstrong and Mildred Bailey's Sleepy Time Down South.

Nevertheless, it's words as well as music that are increasingly floating that Mississippi boat, and that's probably why her current fixation with all things Gallic may yet prove to be more than a holiday romance.

This was perfectly underlined with the tune about a pond, a series of images alluding to water and sunlight, almost reminiscent of a young Edith Piaf before the cigarettes and Pernod had done their worst.

Yes, we may yet see the names Kent and Tomlinson up there in that jazz hall of fame. John Phillpott

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