COMPOSERS: Jim Tomlinson
LABELS: Token
ALBUM TITLE: The Lyric
WORKS: The Lyric
PERFORMER: Jim Tomlinson
CATALOGUE NO: 501
Here’s a likeable and well-recorded item from Mr Kent, with the lady guesting on all but two of the 13 (mainly) standards which Tomlinson’s Quartet, fronted by his Getzian tenor, handles with understated finesse. Anyone so wishing to could count this as another Stacey Kent album, but it’s facile to question whose name should be above the title simply because Kent has a higher profile than Tomlinson and also, perhaps, because we’re inclined to forget the singer-as-sometime-sideperson role that has permeated jazz for decades. In the booklet notes, Tomlinson explains this album as an opportunity for an instrumentalist to give the song form the attention it deserves (hence the title), which seems fair enough. While Kent’s schoolmarmish voice has never been to my taste, her obvious delight in delivering ‘Jardin d’hiver’ in its original tongue tempts me to ask for a whole disc of French standards. Roger Thoma.s
Jim Tomlinson
Here’s a likeable and well-recorded item from Mr Kent, with the lady guesting on all but two of the 13 (mainly) standards which Tomlinson’s Quartet, fronted by his Getzian tenor, handles with understated finesse. Anyone so wishing to could count this as another Stacey Kent album, but it’s facile to question whose name should be above the title simply because Kent has a higher profile than Tomlinson and also, perhaps, because we’re inclined to forget the singer-as-sometime-sideperson role that has permeated jazz for decades.
Our rating
3
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:59 pm