Personnel: Stacey Kent (vocals); Jim Tomlinson (saxophone, background vocals); David Newton (piano, keyboards, background vocals); Colin Oxley (guitar); Dave Chamberlain (bass); Matt Mome (drums); Curtis Schwartz (background vocals).
Recorded at Curtis Schwartz Studios, Ardingly, England on Feburary 18-22, 2003.
What strikes the listener about the American expatriate contemporary jazz singer Stacey Kent is, for all her obvious traditionalism, how utterly fresh she sounds. THE BOY NEXT DOOR (released originally in 2003 and reissued in 2008 with two extra tracks) boasts a song list that WW-II-era songbirds such as Jo Stafford or Margaret Whiting would have been comfortable with, including note-perfect versions of Irving Berlin's "Say It Isn't So," "The Trolley Song," and the winsome title track. To be sure, there is an up-to-date bossa nova treatment of "Que rest-t-il de nos amours?" (the original French lyric of "I Wish You Love), which sports a smooth Stan Getz-like solo from Kent's husband, the British tenor saxophonist Jim Tomlinson, as well as some '60s pop gems like "What The World Needs Now" and "You've Got A Friend." Still, Kent's tart, light voice, and her precise diction and pitch, make her the classiest of the New Traditionalists, a true successor to the late Susannah McCorkle.
