Close Your Eyes (Stacey Kent album)

Last updated

Close Your Eyes
Close Your Eyes (Stacey Kent album).jpg
Studio album by
ReleasedSeptember 16, 1997
RecordedNovember 18–19, 1996
Genre Vocal jazz
Length53:21
Label Candid (UK)/Koch International (USA)
Producer Alan Bates
Stacey Kent chronology
Close Your Eyes
(1997)
Love Is...The Tender Trap
(1999)

Close Your Eyes is jazz singer Stacey Kent's debut album, released in 1997 by Candid Records.

Contents

It was produced by Alan Bates and features her husband, tenor saxophonist Jim Tomlinson. [1] Kent celebrated the release of Close your Eyes with a performance at the Birdland jazz club in New York City in September 1997. [2] Close Your Eyes was the best-selling British jazz album of 1997. [3]

In an interview with Billboard to promote the album Kent said: "With this album, I was trying to give a mixture of things that people know and gems that got lost, songs that might get missed out of the great standard repertoire." [4]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [1]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [5]

Scott Yanow, writing on AllMusic, said: "Stacey Kent has a very appealing voice, and her delivery is full of joy, enthusiasm, and subtle creativity....Jim Tomlinson contributes some tenor solos reminiscent in tone of Stan Getz, and pianist David Newton and guitarist Colin Oxley also get some solo space." [1] Yanow concluded by calling Kent "a voice to look for in the future". [1]

Track listing

  1. "More Than You Know" (Edward Eliscu, Billy Rose, Vincent Youmans) - 5:30
  2. "Dream Dancing" (Cole Porter) - 4:21
  3. "Close Your Eyes" (Bernice Petkere) - 5:19
  4. "There's a Lull in My Life" (Mack Gordon, Harry Revel) - 4:22
  5. "Its Delovely" (Porter) - 3:21
  6. "There's No You" (Tom Adair, Hal Hopper) - 6:09
  7. "I'm Old Fashioned" (Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer) - 2:53
  8. "You Go to My Head" (J. Fred Coots, Haven Gillespie) - 7:01
  9. "Little White Lies" (Walter Donaldson) - 4:10
  10. "Sleep Warm" (Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, Lew Spence) - 4:30
  11. "Day In - Day Out" (Rube Bloom, Mercer) - 5:45

Personnel

Performance
Production

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Close Your Eyes at AllMusic
  2. New York Media, LLC (22 September 1997). New York Magazine. New York Media, LLC. pp. 121–. ISSN   0028-7369.
  3. Graybow, Steve (30 January 1999). "Vocalist Stacey Kent Hopes to Make Grade in U.S." Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. p. 38. ISSN   0006-2510.
  4. Sexton, Paul (1 November 1997). "Global Music Pulse: UK". Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. p. 61. ISSN   0006-2510.
  5. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 814. ISBN   978-0-141-03401-0.