Stacey Kent and her heroes

Stacey Kent is a girl after my own heart. She sings the old songs I like to sing and she does it in lots of beautiful, surprising ways. Of course, lots and lots better too. Sometimes I think she even sounds better than the original. If she doesn’t, you just have to realize that not even the gifted Stacey can always put one over the likes of Ella or Sarah and their ilk. At the very least, she still makes the songs sound new and different. Plus, there is no way you can ever question the effortless ease with which she sings everything and anything. That means the whole caboodle from sophisticated Cole Porter to the dramatic Michel Legrand and all that you have in between.

This all in between factor comes into sharp focus with Stacey’s new album The Boy Next Door. The song is classic Judy from the movie Meet Me in St. Louis and is the sort of stuff Stacey is best known for. Not in this case though. Judy was farthest from her mind when she was recording the song. She was thinking instead of Frank Sinatra, who sang his own version of The Girl Next Door and is of course, one of Stacey’s music heroes. Take note, I think that Stacey’s impeccable phrasing and shading plus that ever present swing in her voice could have only come from listening a lot to Frank.

The men is what The Boy Next Door is all about. Frank and Perry and Dean and Louie and Nat and several others. We listened to Stacey and think of how well she channels the girl singers of long ago. With this new album though, she is telling us that her singing also derives much from the men and they are also very special to her. So she dedicates this album to those heroes who helped enrich her style and continue to exert their influence in every note she sings. The Boy Next Door is made up of the songs she has always associated with them.

Tony Bennett for The Best is Yet to Come; Sinatra for The Boy Next Door; Dave Brubeck for The Trolley Song; Sammy Davis Jr. and Too Darn Hot; Ray Charles and Makin’ Whoopee; Burt Bacharach and What the World Needs Now; Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington for I Got It Bad; Dizzy Gillespie and Joe Carroll for Ooh Shoobee Doobee; Gordon MacRae and People Will Say We’re in Love; Nat King Cole for ’Tis Autumn; Dean Martin and All I Do is Dream of You; and Bobby Short for You’re the Top.

Then here are my favorites out of this classy package: the Hoagy Carmichael standard I Get Along Without You Very Well, which Stacey sings for Chet Baker. This one is the best of the lot. What an incredible arrangement. You’d be amazed over how she colors every word; Say It Isn’t So which goes out to Perry Como. Because this is where her laidback matter-of-fact delivery surprisingly builds up to intense emotions; You’ve Got a Friend for James Taylor because it is such an unlikely choice for the album but Stacey still runs away with it. And because it very effectively closes the collection, Paul Simon’s so short, so terse but also oh-so-gets-you-in-the-gut composition, Bookends. It says:

"Time it was/ and what a time it was it was/ a time of innocence/ a time of confidences long ago/ it must be/ I have a photograph preserve your memories/ they’re all that’s left you"

Stacey Kent’s memories of the music from these heroes left her treasures to last several lifetimes and how nice of her to take them, preserve them and share them with her listeners in this wonderful album.

Shows at EDSA Shangri-La

The week-round entertainment at the EDSA Shangri-La’s Lobby Lounge this month features the Velvet Mood on Mondays; Carmela Cuneta, the newcomer who scored big with the song Di Ko Kaya, which I believe is based on the theme from a popular Korean soap opera, on Tuesdays; Arthur Manuntag on Wednesdays; Dual Sound on Thursdays; dance and party music from the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s by the Brass Munkeys on Fridays; Michelle de Guzman on Saturdays; and for a truly relaxing close to the weekend, the songs of the great Frank Sinatra performed by Willie Bayona on Sundays. The shows start at 9 every evening.