With a warmly lyrical voice and a poetic touch when rendering classic material, singer Stacey Kent embodies refined jazz artistry. Originally from New York, the London resident cultivated a devoted audience and critical esteem through her 1997 debut Close Your Eyes. Subsequent honors included a pair of BBC Jazz Awards victories along with a Grammy nomination for the 2007 release Breakfast on the Morning Tram. International recognition arrived when the French Minister of Culture bestowed the Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres upon her in 2009, while a 2014 collaboration with Brazil’s Marcos Valle produced Ao Vivo. Her inaugural orchestral project, I Know I Dream: The Orchestral Sessions, appeared in 2017, and she continued balancing fresh compositions with standards on 2021’s Songs from Other Places.
Born in South Orange, New Jersey, in 1965, Kent studied piano during childhood. Possessing a bright mezzo-soprano and an instinctive melodic facility, she performed in school productions throughout her teenage years. Although music remained a passion, she initially pursued academic study, completing a comparative literature degree at Sarah Lawrence College before electing to devote herself to singing. During an early-’90s visit to England she enrolled for postgraduate work at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she formed lasting friendships with jazz musicians, among them tenor saxophonist Jim Tomlinson, who would become both her husband and longtime creative partner. Her singing career advanced swiftly, yielding regular engagements at London clubs and a stint with the Vile Bodies Swing Orchestra at the Ritz Hotel that led to a cameo as a big-band vocalist in Ian McKellen’s 1995 film Richard III.
She signed with Candid Records in 1996 and introduced herself to listeners the following year with the well-received Close Your Eyes, a joint effort with Tomlinson that showcased her affectionate, expressive approach to jazz standards. The duo followed with the romantic standards collection Love Is...The Tender Trap in 1999, which drew stateside coverage on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR while broadening her worldwide reach. In 2000 she issued the Fred Astaire tribute Let Yourself Go: Celebrating Fred Astaire.
Further recognition came with her fourth album, 2001’s Dreamsville, for which she received her first BBC Jazz Award as Jazz Vocalist of the Year. The Richard Rodgers-focused In Love Again arrived the next year, and 2003’s The Boy Next Door attained gold certification. That same year she contributed to Tomlinson’s Brazilian Sketches. After releasing Shall We Dance she appeared on Tomlinson’s The Lyric, which earned Album of the Year honors at the BBC Jazz Awards. The momentum led to a Blue Note contract and the 2007 release Breakfast on the Morning Tram, which secured a Grammy nomination.
Around this period Kent received a breast-cancer diagnosis and devoted much of the ensuing year to successful treatment. She resurfaced in 2010 with the all-French Raconte-Moi, which went gold in both France and Germany. The live recording Dreamer in Concert, captured at Paris’s La Cigale, followed in 2011. Two years later came The Changing Lights, shaped by her affinity for Brazilian music and featuring lyrics by Portuguese poet Antonio Ladeira and French writer Bernie Beaupère. In 2014 she reunited with legendary Brazilian musician Marcos Valle for the duet album Ao Vivo. Tenderly, issued in early 2016, signaled a return to American standards. The following year she presented her first fully orchestral outing, I Know I Dream: The Orchestral Sessions, with arrangements by Tommy Laurence. Songs from Other Places appeared in 2021, containing new pieces written for her by Tomlinson and Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro alongside carefully chosen interpretations of works by Paul Simon, Kurt Weill, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and additional composers.
