Stacey Kent, 1 Billion Streams, and a Long Musical Friendship
Stacey Kent’s catalogue has now passed 1 billion streams worldwide - a remarkable milestone for one of the most distinctive jazz voices of her generation.
For me, it is also a moment to look back on a very long musical friendship.
I first met Stacey Kent and Jim Tomlinson one dark winter’s night in 1997, when they came to visit the studio to talk about making a record together. Jim - Stacey’s husband, arranger, producer and one of the great minds behind so much of her work - had a very clear sense of what they wanted to create. Stacey had that unmistakable voice, even then: intimate, precise, conversational, and full of feeling.
None of us could have imagined that first meeting would lead to nearly three decades of recording together, many albums, a Grammy nomination, Gold records, international touring, and now more than a billion streams.
But more than that, it led to a friendship that has become like family.
Stacey Kent recording at Curtis Schwartz Studio — one of many sessions across nearly three decades of working together.
Over the years, I have had the pleasure of recording, mixing, mastering and, on several albums, co-producing much of Stacey’s work here at Curtis Schwartz Studio. Some sessions were intense and highly focused. Others were full of laughter, long meals, late-night listening, and the quiet rhythm that develops when people trust each other completely.
That trust is everything in the studio. Recording a voice like Stacey’s is not about imposing a sound. It is about protecting the honesty of the performance — letting the music feel close, natural and emotionally direct.
Jim has always been central to that process. His arrangements, his saxophone playing, his production instincts and his understanding of Stacey’s voice have shaped so much of the music. Working with them has never felt like a normal studio booking. It has always felt like being invited into an ongoing musical conversation.
Stacey and Jim Tomlinson listening back in the control room during a session at Curtis Schwartz Studio.
One of the beautiful things about recording over such a long period is that you begin to hear the story behind the records. You hear how artists grow, how ideas return in new forms, and how a creative partnership deepens over time.
With Stacey and Jim, there has always been a rare combination of discipline and ease. The music is carefully considered, but never stiff. The performances are refined, but never cold. There is a great deal of craft behind the apparent simplicity.
That is one of the reasons the recordings have travelled so far. They have an intimacy that works whether you are listening alone late at night, at dinner with friends, or hearing one of Stacey’s songs for the first time on the other side of the world.
Curtis Schwartz with Stacey Kent and Jim Tomlinson during one of their long-running recording sessions together.
Looking back now, the numbers are extraordinary. A billion streams represents an almost unimaginable amount of listening: quiet mornings, late nights, journeys, dinners, memories, and moments in people’s lives we will never know about.
But what moves me most is not the number itself. It is the thought that music made carefully in a quiet room in Sussex has gone on to live in so many places.
That has always been the magic of recorded music. You make it once, as honestly and beautifully as you can, and then it leaves the room.
Stacey Kent in the studio with guitar — a quiet moment showing the musicianship behind the recordings.
One album that has a special place in the story is The Boy Next Door, released in 2003. It became Stacey’s first album to achieve Gold status, and many of its songs have continued to find large audiences on streaming platforms.
There is also a small personal footnote on that album which still makes me smile.
On “Ooh-Shoo-Be-Doo-Bee”, I ended up supplying the backing vocals — a rare moment when the engineer stepped briefly out from behind the desk. Jazzwise later picked up on it in their review of the album, noting “recording engineer Curtis Schwartz” supplying the backing vocals.
It was a tiny cameo, but a very happy one.
The Boy Next Door — one of the many Stacey Kent albums recorded at Curtis Schwartz Studio.
There have been many proud moments along the way, including Stacey’s Grammy nomination for The Changing Lights in 2015. But the real privilege has been the continuity: the feeling of returning again and again to the same creative friendship, always finding something new.
Recording sessions are remembered not only by the takes that make the album, but by everything around them: the conversations, the meals, the weather outside, the musicians arriving with instrument cases, the moments of silence after a playback, the joke that breaks the tension, the feeling when everyone in the room knows a take has landed.
That is what these photographs mean to me. They are not just pictures of sessions. They are glimpses of a life in music.
Stacey with Roberto Menescal — one of the founding figures of bossa nova — during a working session at the studio.
Because the studio is residential, the days have always had their own shape. Music would move from the live room to the control room, then to the kitchen table, then back again. Some of the best decisions happen away from the speakers — over lunch, over dinner, or during the kind of conversation that only happens when no one is rushing to leave. In a residential studio, the kettle can be as important as the console.
That atmosphere has always mattered to me. A studio should not feel like a factory. It should be a place where musicians can settle, listen properly, and do their best work.
With Stacey and Jim, that has been true from the very beginning.
Outside the studio during one of many sessions over the years.
Now, all these years after that first winter evening in 1997, Stacey’s music has now passed 1 billion streams worldwide. It is a huge achievement, and a deeply deserved one.
For me, it is also a reminder of something quieter and more personal: that lasting work is often built slowly, through trust, friendship, patience and care.
I am immensely proud to have been part of Stacey and Jim’s musical journey. But more than that, I am grateful for the friendship.
After nearly three decades of making records together, Stacey and Jim are not just people I have worked with. They are among my closest friends.
More like family.
Curtis Schwartz, Stacey Kent and Jim Tomlinson — a friendship built through nearly three decades of music.
