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THE LOOK OF LOVE
DIANA KRALL
 VERVE 549 846-2(04)
- S'Wonderful
- Love Letters
- I Remember You
- Cry Me a River
- Besame Mucho
- The Night We called it a Day
- Dancing in the Dark
- I Get Along Without You very Well
- The Look of Love
- Maybe You'll Be There
Crotchet
Full Price
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Diana Krall - Piano
Dori Caymmi - Guitar 1
Russell Malone - Guitar 1,4,6,8,10
John Pisano - Guitar 3,5
Romero Lubambo - Guitar 7,9
Christian McBride - Bass
Jeff Hamilton - Drums 1,3,5
Pete Erskine - Drums 2,4,6.7,8,9,10
London Symphony Orchestra.
The very uninformative sleeve note for this album is long on its portrayal
of Miss Krall's fantastic appearance, but short on information about
the artiste.
In 1981 Diana Krall won a Vancouver scholarship to
study at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. She was there for year
and a half during which time jazz legend bassist Ray Brown, who was
married to the late Ella Fitzgerald, heard her play and sing and persuaded
her to study with pianist Jimmy Rowles in Los Angeles. She made her
first album Stepping Out in 1993 and since then she has had a
meteoric rise to fame. She claims that Sinatra and Tony Bennett have
been the greatest influence on her singing and her obvious ability to
select the right songs, respect the idea their composer had in mind
and deliver them with a clarity of voice, perfect diction and accuracy
of intonation, has made her into one of today's top jazz artists. As
well as being a fine interpreter of a song she is also an excellent
jazz piano player with a sparse style that makes every note meaningful.
Jazz has several other singer pianists, Nat King Cole, Shirley Horn
spring to mind and Diana Krall is up there with them.
As you would expect the record is very well produced
and the orchestra conducted by Claus Ogerman, who did the arrangements,
is perfectly complimentary. Perhaps a little more use of the whole orchestra
would be nice, but the strings that are mainly in evidence in the backings
are excellent.
I recommend this album whole-heartedly, the singing
is of the best as is the piano playing, and it is like getting two albums
for the price of one. From S'Wonderful to Maybe You'll Be
There, I enjoyed every track, I Get Along Without You Very Well
is a wonderful song that is not heard often enough, the melody and the
lyric represent a state of mind everyone has been in at some time in
life.
Don Mather
Don Mather is a saxophone player and Bandleader
in Coventry
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