stacey kent at st george’s…

I went to see/hear a concert by Stacey Kent at St George’s last night. As you probably already know, she’s a Grammy-nominated, American jazz singer. She travelled to England after graduating to study music at Guildhall School of Music, sang regularly at Café Boheme in London’s Soho in the early 1990s and, within, three years began opening for established acts at Ronnie Scott’s.
Somewhat embarrassingly, I wasn’t really aware of her myself until my great friends Gail and Ian Adams recommended her music to me a couple of months ago. Since then, I’ve been listening to her (a lot!) via Spotify… and it was Gail+Ian who also flagged up that she was booked to play at St George’s as part of a brief UK tour.
So, I duly bought my ticket and chose, as I often do, to sit in the side gallery - with an excellent bird’s eye view - as part of a large audience of devoted and appreciative Kent fans.
Well, it proved to be a wonderful evening.

She performed alongside her 4-piece band of truly excellent musicians (her husband Jim Tomlinson on saxes and flute; Graham Harvey on piano; Jeremy Brown double bass; and Josh Morrison drums). When I grow up, I’d like to play the piano like Graham Harvey please.

The entire evening was superb. Relaxed, utterly professional and very, very enjoyable… you know that feeling when, within the first few bars of the first song, you just KNOW ‘everything’s going to be alright’! Well, that would be a massive understatement.
The five of them were simply sublime.
If you get a chance to see her perform, please take it – I can guarantee you won’t regret it.
PS: In fact, Kent opened the performance with an apology… she’d been struggling with her voice by the end of her Swedish tour, but was determined not to cancel. She explained that she’d therefore selected songs for the evening that she hoped would minimise the strain on her voice… and assured the audience that she would definitely return to St George’s. Well, if this was Kent on a ‘bad night’, I can’t imagine how she could be even better!
Photo: this was the view from my seat.