Stacey Kent

Taken from an interview conducted by Mike Pinfold
 
Taken from an interview conducted by Mike Pinfold for use in his new book: Singing Jazz: The Singers and Their Styles, by co-authors Bruce Crowther and Mike Pinfold, publishers Blandford-Cassell, published in May, 1997

Wakefield audiences know a thing or two about singers. They can spot a good'n when they hear 'em. One singer who always draws a full house and invariably lifts her audience and sends them home happy is Stacey Kent. An exceptional vocal artist, Stacey has a remarkable repertoire of "Songbook" standards and half-forgotten songs from the past. Collecting songs is one of her favourite occupations, as she explained: "I pride myself on my repertoire. I'm always listening to records and finding new (old) songs that I don't know. Or I'll find a book and look for verses of songs that I already know. I am doing this constantly and the repertoire continues to grow. Sometime I'll find three new songs in a day and then I'll go for weeks without finding one."

Asked how she goes about learning a new song, she continues: "I sit at the piano and sing it through. Or I'll sing along with a CD. Sometimes I jump right in at the deep end and call a new tune on a gig without ever having sung it. I always enjoy doing this; it gives me a little buzz to smile at the audience and make them feel I've sung the song 1,000 times before. Sometimes I'll do a song and leave it for ages and then go back to it. I sometimes change the key and that can change the mood of a song so completely and yet so subtly.

"I'm not sure that I have a tangible answer to what attracts me to a song. If I love the feel or the melody of a song, it might not matter what the lyric is. Of course, the lyric matters! But I almost feel that I can make any lyric work. There is rarely a song that I can't sing because of the lyric, because if its a 'throw away' lyric, like "Fine and Dandy" for example, then I can sing it in a carefree sort of way. I don't always have to take the song so desperately seriously. Sometimes, of course, there are songs with an exquisite lyric that tells such a true story and with such poetry that I am moved every time I hear them. I feel this way about Johnny Mercer, he's got magic in his lyrics."

"The thing that I love about singing jazz and singing this repertoire is that I can be myself and not have to put on an act at all. And yet for the amount of time that a song lasts, I can take on a persona or situation of any particular song and mean the lyric, even if it isn't true to me personally. In other words, I can sing "Polka Dots and Moonbeams", earnestly and honestly, without even bothering to think that I myself might not ask a pug-nosed dream, dressed in polka dots, to dance. For those four or five minutes during the song, I am that person, regardless of gender... because the lyric doesn't have to be taken literally in order to have meaning. The situation becomes a metaphor for so many other situations which would apply to me and my own story. For me, this is an extremely important point and one of the main reasons why I love this music... to be able to express myself honestly, but without disguise, through and with a perfect music.

" In choosing a song, does she consider her own vocal range? "I do consider where a song will sit in my range and then think about what key might fit best. This can be so subtle. A semi-tone can change everything...how I sing it and how the key portrays the song. I also consider the tempos that might suit the song best. This is a very subjective matter. I don't like to sing songs oh-so-very fast, if the lyric will be lost. My uptempos are never that uptempo, unless I put the song into a double time feel, where it feels like its being played twice as fast (8 beats per bar instead of 4) but where I can sing the song at a singable, medium tempo (ie at half the time). This is a very handy tool. But again, it's very subjective."

Accompanying musicians are an important factor with any singer and Stacey's quartet always includes the very best (Dave Newton, Steve Brown, Dave Green and husband, Jim Tomlinson, etc). "I like to play with people whose musical wavelength is similar to mine. Then the relationships are very good. I'm not the kind of singer who is backed by her musicians. When we play, its a collective endeavour."