STACEY KENT'S STORY gives hope to bathroom balladeers the world over. Before she went to Europe in the early 1990s, Kent had never really sung for anyone outside her close-knit group of family and friends back in her native New York. To celebrate her graduation from Sarah Lawrence College, where she'd been studying comparative literature, she treated herself to a European holiday. In 1991, she met up with a bunch of musicians in Oxford, England - and they discovered her voice. Gigs at small London cafes soon led to a spot with the Vile Bodies Swing Orchestra at the Ritz Hotel. Word spread: she played a lounge singer in Ian McKellen's film version of Richard III, international solo bookings followed, and Kent fast became one of the top-selling jazz artists of her generation - a soulful, smoky talent paired with the man who would become her husband, British tenor saxophonist Jim Tomlinson. The records began to flow, and so did the recognition. It began with Close Your Eyes in 1997, and her five releases since have resulted in a 2001 British jazz award, a 2002 BBC jazz award for best vocalist, the 2004 backstage bistro award, and a gig on BBC Radio 3 as presenter of Jazz Legends. Sometimes, she says by phone from her base in London, she still has to pinch herself. 'After finishing my degree I wasn't expecting to do this,' she says. 'So that first period was very magical. I wasn't thinking about the audience - all that mattered to me was that I had this hunger to sing. 'I had never recognised that before, or thought that I would have the opportunity to sing professionally. I mean, I was always a singer. I sang for everyone - for friends, for my little sister when she was sick, for myself when I was doing chores. I just wanted to sing. But I had never realised I could make a career of it.' Kent - who will play City Hall on September 10 - was helped by having grown up in a house filled with music. Her parents made sure she had a taste for every form. It's something she says enabled her to add depth to the songs she sings - plucked from what she calls the American jazz songbook (everyone from Cole Porter to Frank Sinatra and James Taylor). 'I grew up listening to so many kinds of music,' she says. 'It wasn't as if I was just going to jazz clubs. I lived across the street for a while from the Metropolitan Opera House, so my parents took me to see a lot of opera, a lot of musicals. That exposure has influenced me ever since I first got up on stage.' It has also meant that Kent has been able to go back over a bit of familiar ground, playing in concert halls where she already felt a bit of personal history. 'When I first played Carnegie Hall about two years ago, I walked in and I felt a little bit like how Steffi Graf must have felt when she first played Martina Navratilova - she had seen her for her whole life and finally she got to play her. It was that kind of feeling. I had come full circle from being part of the audience to being on stage.' And although her rise has been swift, she says she's managed to keep her feet firmly on the ground - due in no small part to the fact that Tomlinson has been with her all the way. 'There are days when I turn to Jim and say, 'How are we doing this?',' she says. 'But at the same time the pace at which all this has happened has been very organic. It's not as if I walked into this career at 20 years old and suddenly, boom, I'm playing in front of thousands of people. 'I started playing in tiny places, to 20 or 30 people in a cafe in London. It grew outwards from that, in concentric circles. And I did it with my partner, so it felt very ordered, very normal. I think I have the best of both worlds. I also have someone to share it all with.' The strength of their partnership is reflected in their latest studio collaboration - Tomlinson's The Lyric featuring Stacey Kent, winner of best album of the year at the 2006 BBC Jazz Awards. It's full of chemistry, the sax and singer playing across each other like lovers. Kent says that's the feeling she most wants to share on stage: an intimacy 'It's different, say, to a performer in Vegas who's there with a lot of noise, with a lot of action - dancers, ice and wind. That's spectacular but not intimate. I take these stories personally, tales of people's daily struggles and the bigger pictures as well - of loss and pain. I listen to music in a cathartic way. It makes me feel warm, it makes me feel comforted, it makes me feel better. And I hope that's what people also feel when they listen to me.' After a few years of almost constant touring - through the US, Europe and two stops in Asia earlier this year (Taipei and Singapore) - Kent says she's built up an appreciation of how music works in the greater scheme of things. And it's something she feels honoured to be a part of. 'I think music is a force for good. That's how I see it, that's how I play it and I hope that's how people react to it. 'The most amazing thing for me is when I got a website and all these people started e-mailing me to share with me the moments in their lives when they listen to my music. That's when it struck me that you make this music, put it out there, and then it starts a life of its own.' Stacey Kent, with Jim Tomlinson (saxophone), Dave Chamberlain (bass), Graham Harvey (piano) and Matt Skelton (drums), Sept 10, 8pm, City Hall, Edinburgh Place, Central, HK$150-HK$300 Urbtix. Inquiries: 2268 732
