Stacey lays it on thick - Music - Arts - Evening Standard
       

Stacey lays it on thick

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Back in town with a new album and an updated group, Stacey Kent sprang some surprises last night, including two original songs, something she'd never ventured before. Breakfast on the Morning Tram, about a mobile eatery, possibly in Holland, and The Ice Hotel, that Swedish holiday palace beloved of Sunday travel supplements, both featured interesting lyrics by novelist Kazuo Ishiguro and tuneful lines by Stacey's saxophonist and adored husband, Jim Tomlinson.

After a decade together there's still a strange starchiness about their on-stage persona. But as ever the standards were well chosen, including Jobim's best-ever bossa, The Waters of March, and a slow Sergio Mendes arrangement of So Many Stars. New pianist Graham Harvey and drummer Matt Skelton gave the band more poke than before but short solos were the norm as Stacey tiptoed from If I Were a Bell to The Trolley Song - "about two people who got married on account of meeting on public transportation".

"The world is full of love tonight," she trilled over a request from a couple celebrating their first anniversary. A touch of romance doesn't go amiss in this wicked world but by jings, Stacey does lay it on thick.

Ends tomorrow (020 7439 0747).

Stacey Kent & Her Musicians
Ronnie Scott's
Frith Street, W1D 4HT

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