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Lauren James

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.
After a smooth, slinking take on Doris Day’s “Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps” came “On the Sunny Side of the Street”, with Kanan’s keys as soft and sweet as birdsong. From Cole’s latest EP, My Funny Valentine, came the woozy “You Go to My Head”, delivered with an aching lustfulness. Then followed a brace of Garland numbers, with Cole notably capturing her inflections and mischief on “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart”, her band rousing like birds behind her as she shook her own tail feathers.
Allen-Barfield was an understated yet charismatic presence, rattling and rolling through the party tunes but adding soft, brushy shimmer to the lovelorn ballads. Migliore was a sturdier force whose solos added a challenging counterpoint.
Between songs, Cole shared observations about Hong Kong – the usual dim sum and bustle – and marvelled at the range of ages before her, noting that she was used to older crowds.

Her chemistry with the band, particularly Kanan, was palpable. She teased the audience’s restraint – “You wait until the song’s finished to applaud!” – noting how Americans, by contrast, “bulldoze right on through”.
A playfully drawn-out fade-out with Kanan had the two descending to near silence until the room was still enough to hear a pin drop. She reminisced about growing up with films like Singin’ in the Rain and Mary Poppins, enamoured of the wistful glamour of old Hollywood and the Jazz Age.
Before launching into “The Man That Got Away” from the 1954 film A Star is Born (“the old one!”), Cole self-deprecatingly confided that she had known little of the heartbreak Garland channelled so vividly. Yet her delivery convinced, with a faraway look and slow build leading to a belting crescendo that stirred goosebumps, dramatic piano punctuating the smoky rhythm.
She captured the fragile beauty of “Moon River”, the otherwise-overplayed Breakfast at Tiffany’s theme that first propelled her to fame, before closing with the rarely heard “lost verse” version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, which she declared was “the best song in the world”. The final note drifted into view like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.


Against a fraught backdrop of current global events, there were moments when this invocation of a golden past felt so pristine that it was almost ominous in its contrast – like a smiling mid-century propaganda poster taped to a crumbling wall.
But here, in the wood-panelled intimacy of the Tea House, beneath butterscotch-and-sapphire lights, the Stella Cole Quartet came gift-wrapped with a silky bow – a soft-focus diorama in which, for an hour, we gladly drifted away.
“Premiere Performances Jazz: Stella Cole Quartet”, Tea House Theatre, Xiqu Centre. Reviewed: March 3.


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Stella Cole performs with the Stella Cole Quartet at the Tea House Theatre at Hong Kong’s Xiqu Centre, in the West Kowloon Cultural District, on March 3, 2026. Photo: Kenny Cheung / Premiere Performances of Hong Kong

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(From left) Michael Kanan, Stella Cole and Mikey Migliore perform with the Stella Cole Quartet at the Xiqu Centre’s Tea House Theatre on March 3, 2026. Photo: Kenny Cheung / Premiere Performances of Hong Kong

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Smooth, playful, dramatic and teasing, the Stella Cole Quartet gave its Xiqu Centre audience a night of all-American nostalgic glamour


Smooth, playful, dramatic and teasing, the Stella Cole Quartet gave its Xiqu Centre audience a night of all-American nostalgic glamour.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Smooth, playful, dramatic and teasing, the Stella Cole Quartet gave its Xiqu Centre audience a night of all-American nostalgic glamour

Smooth, playful, dramatic and teasing, the Stella Cole Quartet gave its Xiqu Centre audience a night of all-American nostalgic glamour