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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

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