Few vocalists are able to create an impressionistic mood like Stacey Kent. Her soft tone, personal inflections and perfectly timed nuances work adroitly on this album of her strengths, meaning romantic ballads, bossas and bohemia.
Hubby Jim Tomlinson plays tenor sax, flutes, clarinet, guitar, percussion and keyboards here and there, while Kent mixes and matches between Art Hirahara-Graham Harvey/p, Tom Hubbard-Jeremy Brown/b, Anthony Pinciotti-Joshua Morrison/dr and a string quartet. The latter frames Kent with delicacy during a sensitive “If You Go Away” featuring an agonizing Harvey, while a gorgeously bowed string adds to the breeze of “Corcovado”. Tomlinson taps into his inner Getz for a breathy and warm support system on the dainty “La Valse Des Lilas” and a cleverly bossa’d read of “ Happy Talk” with Kent in sublime form, bopping with Hubbard and wife on a poppy boppy “Under Paris Skies”. Wind chimes of calm flow with Kent and flute on the title tune and a soft mist hovers on “Thinking About The Rain”. Is LA on the map this time around?