10 The Girl In The Other Room
Catalog #B000182602
Compact Disc, SACD, Digital Download
release date 4/27/2004
Verve Records
The Girl In The Other Room
The depth of feeling which lies behind the beautiful façade of DianaKrall's highly successful Verve releases has always been known to hermost appreciative listeners. However, with her latest album, The GirlIn The Other Room, Krall not only illustrates her understanding of thebreadth of possibilities in the jazz idiom but also reveals her talentas a songwriter.
Indeed, the title song of the record is a Krall original. While somemay be attracted to the lyrical portrait of a mysterious womandistracted by love (and note in passing that the words were co-writtenwith Elvis Costello), the ear is drawn to the elegant and effortlesslyswinging accompaniment of Krall's piano and that of her long-timepartners in rhythm: Jeff Hamilton on drums and bassist, John Clayton.
For much of the album, the musical support comes from drummer PeterErskine and bassist Christian McBride. The inventive and sympatheticguitar playing of Anthony Wilson is heard throughout a record thatwhich also features drummer Terri Lynne Carrington and Neil Larsonsitting in on Hammond B-3 for one cut.
The album is the first co-produced by Krall and her long-time producerTommy LiPuma. Recorded at Capitol Studios, Hollywood and AvatarRecording, New York City, the sessions were engineered throughout 2003by another long-term cohort, Al Schmitt.
Listeners used to Krall's intimate and seductive interpretations ofstandard ballads may be surprised at first by her present choice ofcomposers. Take a listen to her take on Mose Allison's timely blues,"Stop This World" or the driving and joyfully carnal "Love Me Like aMan" (with its final chorus salute to Count Basie) and you will hear asinger, bandleader and piano player in her top form.
Krall's sensual approach to Tom Waits' "Temptation," with itsextraordinary introduction by Christian McBride, is balanced by Krall'sown exquisite preface to a most tender rendition of Elvis Costello's"Almost Blue." A beautifully reflective version of a relatively obscurestandard, "I'm Pulling Through," recalls the style of her teacher,Jimmy Rowles.
The spirit of Rowles and an apprenticeship of the jazz club experiencesis inspiration for one of Krall’s new compositions, "I've Changed MyAddress," only as Krall reflects, revisiting some of these venues canbe a shock: "Everything looks pretty much the same but the place is nowa sports bar and there is pool table where there used to be a piano."
While so much of the music is new, the album itself recalls a vinyldisc of two sides. The bold and flowing solos from Krall and guitaristAnthony Wilson on Joni Mitchell's song of travel, "Black Crow,"announce a series of original songs that speak of family and of love,but also of enduring the grievous loss of a parent. As Krall explainedrecently: "I went through a series of deep personal losses and changes.So...this is what I did instead of shutting the door and saying ‘Ican't deal with it’".
So it is that the gospel changes of the hopeful "Narrow Daylight" giveaway to the sophisticated blues of "Abandoned Masquerade." It is thissong that most clearly expresses the need (for now at least) for thesinger to step out from behind the beautiful romantic illusions foundin so many songs of the past. Once again, the music leaves the listenerin no doubt that they are hearing the work of a jazz composer.
The gently defiant tone of "I'm Coming Through" marks another subtleshift of musical scene with wonderful playing from Anthony Wilson. Thecontent of these last songs is undoubtedly the most specificallypersonal material yet recorded by Diana Krall.
The album closes with perhaps the most deeply felt of the self-composedtitles. "Departure Bay" contains vivid and touching images of herhometown of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island but also a wrenchingdescription of her family's first Christmas without her mother and afinal verse that welcomes new love and hope for the future.
Musically composed by Krall alone, these songs mark a lyricalcollaboration with her new husband, Elvis Costello. Explaining how theyworked, Krall said: "I wrote the music and then Elvis and I talkedabout what we wanted to say. I told him stories and wrote pages andpages of reminiscences, descriptions and images, and he put them intotighter lyrical form. For "Departure Bay," I wrote down a list ofthings that I love about home, things I realized were different, evenexotic, now that I've been away".
Songs often suggest and recall moments in our own lives and listenersmust surely be aware that Diana Krall's previous recordings containedmany personal but private meanings for the artist. On The Girl In TheOther Room, what was once partly hidden has been brought beautifullyinto view.
"The thing about Diana is her musicianship," Al Schmitt said in aninterview with the Los Angeles Times. "More than most singers, sheknows what's right for her, and she knows how to make it happenmusically."
1 Stop This World
2 The Girl In The Other Room
3 Temptation
4 Almost Blue
5 I've Changed My Address
6 Love Me Like A Man
7 I'm Pulling Through
8 Black Crow
9 Narrow Daylight
10 Abandoned Masquerade
11 I'm Coming Through
12 Departure Bay |
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发表于 2008-6-26 15:34
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