ENGLISH VERSION OF THE LINER NOTES ON STACEY KENT'S RACONTE-MOI
LINER NOTES ON STACEY KENT'S RACONTE-MOI
by Jake Lamar* (from the 'Raconte-moi' CD booklet)
"Making this record reminded me all over again why I became a musician," Stacey Kent tells me.
I have just fallen in love with the record, Raconte-moi, Stacey's eighth album in a luminous career. This time Stacey, an American, has produced a collection of twelve songs sung entirely in French. Ten of the songs are by French composers. As an American who has lived in France for 17 years and who knows the reverence for la chanson française, my first reaction to Raconte-moi was: Quelle audace!
For Stacey, who grew up in New Jersey and Colorado, the dominant feeling while making this record was not boldness but an "automatic innocence," a cultural naiveté that came from singing in her second language. Not that she was a complete stranger to la chanson française. Her previous record, the superb Breakfast on the Morning Tram, featured two works by one of the masters of the tradition: Serge Gainsbourg.
But a key inspiration for Raconte-moi came from the inimitable Henri Salvador. After meeting on the set of a French television show, the two exchanged albums. Stacey, enchanted by "Jardin d'hiver," Salvador's latter-day signature song, began including it in her concert répertoire. In her interpretation, "Jardin d'hiver" (composed by Benjamin Biolay and Keren Ann) is a song of seduction, an invitation to eternal pleasures. Stacey started searching for more French songs to sing.
The selection on Raconte-moi mixes beloved standards with songs composed especially for Stacey by younger talents. A dreamy sensuality flows through many of the songs, particularly "Au coin du monde" (another Biolay-Keren Ann work), "Mi Amor" by Claire Denamur and "Sait-on jamais?" composed by Camille d'Avril and Stacey's saxophonist, producer and husband, Jim Tomlinson. Stacey's sublime band and Tomlinson's arrangements create a soundscape that is luscious and haunting.
Two songs by the team of Emilie Satt, Jean-Karl Lucas and Bernie Beaupere, the album's title track and its first single "La Vénus du Mélo," highlight one of Stacey's most striking vocal qualities: a playful intimacy, a wit that is both mischievous and endearing.
There is something subtly different about Stacey Kent in French. Her insouciance is spicier. Along the whole range of emotions that Stacey's crystalline voice expresses, there seems to be a certain intensity that the French language brings out. The tender vulnerability of her voice in English (listen to her cover of Stevie Nicks's "Landslide" on Breakfast on the Morning Tram) becomes a transcendent cri de coeur in Stacey's rendering of Barbara's "Mal de Vivre" on Raconte-moi.
Yet Stacey never sounds overwrought. She manages the feat of being both understated and emotionally direct. Listen to her version of Michel Jonasz's (written with Pierre Grosz) "Les vacances au bord de la mer" and try not to get misty-eyed at her evocation of melancholy family life.
Stacey was introduced to the French language by her Russian-born paternal grandfather. As a young man, fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution, he spent several years in Paris, before joining the rest of his exiled family in the U.S.A. Nostalgic for his Parisian youth, Stacey's grandfather taught her French. He had her reciting poems by Baudelaire before she even understood all that she was saying. As Stacey grew older, she and her grandfather spoke entirely in French together. It was a linguistic bond that he shared exclusively with her, a tender complicity. It was her grandfather who first played Serge Gainsbourg for her.
Stacey went on to become a student of languages (Italian, German and Portuguese, in addition to French) and comparative literature before the passion for making music became a way of life. Academia's loss has become music's magnificent gain. Among Stacey's many honors is a décoration des Arts et Lettres, awarded in 2009. So one could say that Raconte-moi represents a new stage in the mutual affection between Stacey Kent and France.
Stacey’s love for both Brazilian music and the classics of the American songbook is present on Raconte-moi. But the album's effervescent opening track is the French version of Antonio Carlos Jobim's bossa nova gem, "Les eaux de mars," with lyrics by Georges Moustaki. And the French adaptation of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's "C'est le printemps" features lyrics (by Jean Sablon and Jean Geiringer) that are even more bittersweet than the American original's.
Rounding out the selection on Raconte-moi are two songs that seem to speak to each other across generations. Paul Misraki's "L'Étang," famously sung by Danielle Darrieux in the 1950s, is so unabashed in its celebration of nature and romance it can seem a bit, well, old-fashioned. But anyone tempted to find fault with that must give a good listening to the album's exquisite final track, "Désuets," by Pierre-Dominique Burgaud and André Manoukian. The song reminds us that beauty, especially in a voice like Stacey's, never goes out of style.
I've listened to Raconte-moi countless times now and each time I have the same sensation Stacey Kent tells me she had while making the record. The whole experience is "fresher than fresh."
*Jake Lamar, author of Rendezvous Eighteenth, is a novelist and journalist. Born in the Bronx, New York, he has lived in Paris since 1993.
EMI MUSIC/BLUE NOTE ARTIST STACEY KENT RECEIVES NATIONAL ORDER OF ARTS AND LETTERS FROM FRENCH GOVERNEMENT
PARIS- MARCH 31 2009.
EMI Music France/Blue Note artist and Grammy® nominee Stacey Kent received the prestigious National Order of Arts and Letters, a government decoration, in recognition of her contribution to the arts, today from French Culture Minister Christine Albanel. Culture Minister Albanel cited Kent “ as a painter of sentiment, spellbinding, mixing sophistication and sentiment, a luminous and unique talent ”. Previous recipients include Rudolf Nureyev, Philip Glass, and Yohji Yamamoto.
Stacey Kent will be performing this evening to a sold-out house at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris as part of the Blue Note Record Festival marking the legendary jazz labels 70th anniversary.
Stacey Kent, a recent addition to the Blue Note roster of recording artists, now boasts seven best-selling albums including her platinum-selling “Breakfast on the Morning Tram” (2007) and “The Boy Next Door” (2003) both of which achieved Gold status.
Her most recent album, the Grammy-nominated Blue Note release, 'Breakfast on the Morning Tram' (Blue Note/EMI Music) was released in 2007, and has remained at the top of the French jazz chart as well as holding its own in the top 20 of the general album charts. Its release around the world is sure to mirror this success.
Nicolas Pflug, head of the Blue Note label in France said: "Stacey is in love with France- its language and its culture. She has sung some of the most beautiful songs in our national repertoire and her next album will be entirely in French. Receiving this National Order of Merit is a true honour for her and a great source of pride for Blue Note”.
PHOTOS:Stacey Kent, Roy Haynes, Christine Albanel (Ministre de la Culture), Médéric Collignon.
December 1, 2008
STACEY KENT NOMINATED FOR THE 51st U.S. GRAMMY AWARDS
(February 8th 2009 in Los Angeles)
Stacey Kent earns her first-ever Grammy nomination in the "Best Jazz Vocal" category for her critically acclaimed album, "Breakfast On The Morning Tram".
"Breakfast On The Morning Tram" marked Stacey Kent's return to the studio after a four-year recording hiatus, with a new album on a new label, Blue Note in Paris.
The album was produced and written by Stacey's husband, tenor saxophonist, Jim Tomlinson, whose latest album, "The Lyric", featuring Stacey, won "Best Album" at the '2006 BBC Jazz Awards'.
Booker and Whitbread Prize-winning author, Kazuo Ishiguro, has written the lyrics to four original songs on the album, including the title track.
As well as being her most critically acclaimed album to date, "Breakfast On The Morning Tram" is also her most commercially successful. Certified Gold in France and Germany, Kent's debut album for Blue Note was released in 36 countries and has sold over 250,000 copies to date. It is supported by a 2-year international tour on 5 continents.
Kent was understandably delighted by the nomination. "I feel hugely honored to have been recognized in this way. The music on this album is the most personal that I have ever recorded and so I am particularly proud to have received a nomination for "Breakfast On The Morning Tram" Many people have contributed to this project and this nomination is as much theirs as mine."
SPEECH MADE BY THE MINISTER OF CULTURE, CHRISTINE ALABANEL on MARCH 31, 2009 TO STACEY KENT IN HER PRESENTATION OF THE "CHEVALIER DANS L'ORDRE DES ARTS ET DES LETTRES", PARIS
Discours de Christine Albanel, ministre de la Culture et de la
Communication, prononcé à l’occasion de la cérémonie de remise
des insignes de Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres à
Stacey Kent
Paris, mardi 31 mars 2009
Chère Stacey Kent
Votre route a déjà croisé celle de Médéric Collignon, dans les studios
d’Arte notamment, en 2006, lorsque vous avez revisité ensemble la célèbre
chanson de Ben E. King, Stand by me. Une rencontre au sommet entre
son énergie bouillonnante et votre timbre clair et délicat, votre douceur
évanescente, tendrement mélancolique, dont vous avez fait votre
signature.
Vous êtes, chère Stacey Kent, une chanteuse de l’âme, un peintre des
sentiments. Raconter une histoire, saisir une émotion, une humeur,
l’exprimer au plus juste et la partager avec votre public, comme une
confidence, voilà ce qui vous fait vibrer. Vous explorez tous les genres
avec le même bonheur, en vous nourrissant d’inspirations multiples.
Des inspirations qui remontent à votre enfance, dans le Colorado, où vous
étiez déjà fascinée aussi bien par les comédies musicales que par les
grands maîtres du jazz. Sans oublier l’American folk – dont c’était la grande
époque –, avec Neil Young ou Cat Stevens. Vous avez d’ailleurs fait un clin
d’œil à ces racines dans votre dernier album avec la très jolie reprise de la
chanson Landslide, du groupe Fleetwood Mac.
En voyant la carrière extraordinaire que vous avez accomplie depuis, dans
la droite lignée de vos premières amours, il est difficile de croire qu’elle ait
démarrée par hasard. Heureux hasard, donc, que cette rencontre, à
Londres – alors que vous terminiez vos études de littérature comparée –,
avec cette bande de musiciens qui vous ont convaincu de passer les
auditions de la prestigieuse Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
« Hasard provoqué », confessez-vous, tant votre envie de musique était
forte, et ancienne !
Vous êtes reçue et – deuxième signe du destin – vous y rencontrez le
producteur et saxophoniste Jim Tomlinson qui deviendra votre époux et
votre plus grand complice en musique.
Dès votre premier album en solo, Close your eyes, en 1997, la critique
salue la naissance d’une nouvelle étoile du jazz, au phrasé impeccable, à
la voix limpide et envoûtante. On vous inscrit dans la lignée de Billie
Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald ou encore Anita O'Day. Mais votre style, mélange
de sensibilité et de sophistication, est unique ; et vos relectures des
standards du Great American Songbook, des grands classiques signés
Duke Ellington, Carl Sigman ou Cole Porter, sont toujours très personnelles
et modernes.
Vous vous imposez rapidement comme l’une des plus belles révélations du
jazz de ce nouveau siècle, couronnée meilleure vocaliste aux British Jazz
Award en 2001 et aux BBC Jazz Award en 2002.
L’une des plus touchantes aussi, par vos interprétations à fleur de peau. Vous
dites que le chant vous « permet tout simplement de vivre intensément [vos]
sentiments ». C’est ce que l’on ressent en écoutant votre musique et en vous
voyant sur scène, où vous nouez immédiatement une forte complicité avec
votre public. Une intimité. Cette intimité que vous avez voulu partager dans
votre dernier album, Breakfast On the Morning Tram, votre œuvre sans aucun
doute la plus personnelle.
Cela faisait longtemps qu’avec votre époux, vous vouliez travailler sur vos
propres chansons, vos propres compositions. Votre rencontre avec le grand
écrivain Kazuo Ishiguro a été décisive. L’une des plus importantes de votre
vie, dites-vous. Avec Jim Tomlinson et lui, vous avez eu la sensation d’être
entourée par deux artistes qui savaient saisir, l’un par la musique, l’autre par
l’écriture, qui vous étiez vraiment.
Nous connaissons le résultat : un album signé sous le prestigieux label Blue
Note, bientôt double disque d’or en France, où vous explorez une nouvelle
fois vos thèmes de prédilection, l’amour, la mélancolie, le voyage, mais en
jouant vos propres gammes sur plusieurs morceaux. Les reprises y ont aussi
leur place et notamment – pour notre plus grand bonheur – celles de deux
très belles chansons de Serge Gainsbourg : Ces petits riens et Saison des
pluies.
Vous aviez déjà revisité plusieurs classiques du répertoire français dans votre
album The Boy Next Door, en 2003, et notamment l’intemporel Que reste-t-il
de nos amours ? Nous savons combien vous aimez notre pays, où votre
grand-père a vécu pendant des années, où vous avez-vous-même fait une
partie de vos études et où vous revenez aujourd’hui avec beaucoup de plaisir.
Je crois d’ailleurs savoir qu’au moment de préparer votre dernière tournée,
lorsque votre producteur vous a demandé dans quelle capitale vous
souhaitiez fêter votre anniversaire, vous avez choisi Paris ! Et la France vous
le rend bien : vous avez fait salle comble à la Cigale, au Trianon, et dans la
mythique salle de l'Olympia.
Chère Stacey Kent, en plus de votre immense talent, je veux saluer votre
courage et votre engagement. Vous avez en effet choisi de mettre votre
notoriété au service de plusieurs associations chargées de récolter des fonds
pour la recherche contre le cancer. Vous avez ainsi chanté en octobre
dernier, à Londres, pour Barnet Breast Unit Fund, Breast Cancer Care, et
Breakthrough Breast Cancer.
Je rends hommage aujourd’hui à une artiste lumineuse, généreuse et sincère.
Stacey Kent, au nom de la République française, nous vous remettons les
insignes de Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
www.culture.gouv.fr
