Tenderly marks, for Stacey Kent, a return to the Great American Songbook for which she first became known. The performances on Tenderly are clearly on another level to those of her earlier standards albums. There is a natural ease and confidence in the minimalist approach that she has honed over the years. Not a single extraneous note or gesture disturbs her daringly exposed performances. The pure and quiet intensity of these interpretations reveals both the song and the artist with astonishing vividness. Along with the title song, the album features such classics as Tangerine, That s All and Gershwin s Embraceable You.
American singer, Stacey Kent, is an artist who is so hard to categorize, she almost deserves a category to herself. A sublime interpreter of the Great American Songbook, Chanson and Bossa Nova, whose repertoire extends well beyond her jazz roots, fluent in French and Portuguese, she doesn t so much transcend genre as much as render the idea redundant. Each element of her personal sound is so perfectly integrated that one never feels as if she is crossing any boundaries of genre. Her 2007 album, Breakfast on the Morning Tram, achieved platinum status and was nominated for a Grammy Award®. She s won countless other awards including Jazz Vocalist of the Year at the 2001 BBC Jazz Awards and French Chevalier Dans L Ordre Des Arts et Des Lettres in 2010.