by David R. AdlerVocalist Stacey Kent may or may not be the greatest ballad singer in half a century, as her PR claims, but her straightforward renditions of these by-request ballads are not at all generic. What makes them consistently delightful is her unique sound and delivery. There's a certain brassiness, a trumpet-like pointedness, in her voice, as well as a host of endearing idiosyncrasies. Listen to her pronounce the word idea in George and Ira Gershwin's Isn't It a Pity? Or deliver these remarkable lyrics from the same song: What joys untasted!\u002FYou, reading Heine\u002FMe, somewhere in China. And later, My nights were sour, spent with Schopenhauer. Kent knows how to make every tune fit her own musical persona. Dreamsville includes a number of seldom-heard gems, particularly You Are There by Johnny Mandel and Dave Frishberg, You're Looking at Me by Bobby Troup, and the ever-stunning title track by Henry Mancini. She also presents perennial favorites like Polka Dots and Moonbeams and Thanks for the Memory (the latter not exactly a ballad). And although this is Kent's hour all the way, her band provides expert backing and more than a few surprises. The singer's husband, Jim Tomlinson, takes a break from tenor sax to play a sumptuous clarinet solo on Polka Dots. And in the midst of Rodgers & Hart's Little Girl Blue, pianist David Newton, bassist Simon Thorpe, and drummer Jasper Kviberg fall away, entering again only after Tomlinson and Colin Oxley perform a hushed tenor\u002Fguitar duet chorus.