ReviewStella Cole Quartet delivers delightful set of jazz and film classics in Hong Kong
Smooth, playful, dramatic and teasing, the Stella Cole Quartet gave its Xiqu Centre audience a night of all-American nostalgic glamour
Wit and warmth abounded in the Stella Cole Quartet’s run of four performances at Hong Kong’s Xiqu Centre.
A baker’s dozen of jazz standards and classic film favourites delivered over an hour proved an ideal format – well paced and polished, without a moment of slack. Meanwhile, the retro stylings of the bijoux Tea House Theatre mirrored Cole’s profile as a performer: an old soul in youthful form.
She sashayed into view in a midnight-blue satin gown, with cherry-red lips and white stiletto heels – a megawatt, doe-eyed, all-American vision of nostalgic glamour, backed by Michael Kanan on piano, Hank Allen-Barfield on drums and Mikey Migliore on bass.
Among the opening numbers, “Pure Imagination” was fitting for a set list that took the audience by the hand and led them to a rosier past, lit by Broadway marquees and post-war optimism. Cole’s languid rendition teased out the tune’s hazy melancholy beneath its dreamlike veneer.
It would take a particularly astute ear to guess that the 27-year-old native of the US state of Illinois is not classically trained. She studied theatre, but it was her TikTok takes on the Great American Songbook – influential American jazz standards and pop songs – during the pandemic that catapulted her to viral fame, and from there, onto New York’s jazz circuit.
With its controlled, velvety timbre, delicate vibrato and resonant legato, Cole’s voice is likened to Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand and Patsy Cline, while more recently recalling Zooey Deschanel’s charming retro foray. It is a fine line between twee affectation and genuine homage, yet Cole walks it deftly.