Diana Krall

The Look of Love is the sixth studio album by Canadian singer Diana Krall, released on September 18, 2001 by Verve Records. It became Krall's first album to top the Canadian Albums Chart. In 2002, the album earned Al Schmitt the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Jim Santella of All About Jazz commented "Lush strings and gliding flutes surround Diana Krall's tender vocals. Even her substantial piano interludes take on the appearance of drifting mists, through the mix of orchestral timbres. With an emphasis on her sultry vocal interpretations, the latest album reaches out to a broad, popular music audience. Nothing wrong with that. It's just that jazz fans usually want the improvised licks along with their melodies…

The Very Best of Diana Krall collects a nice cross-section of tracks the pianist/vocalist recorded beginning with her 1996 breakthrough album, All for You, and moving through to her 2006 effort From This Moment On. These are largely urbane and stylish recordings that range from her intimate and swinging trio work with guitarist Russell Malone and bassist Christian McBride to her lush orchestral and big-band numbers. While this is primarily a compilation for fans of the sophisticated, jazz standards-oriented Krall, Verve does earn some kudos for including at least one cut from her deeply personal and subsequently not as popular effort The Girl in the Other Room. Also featured are cuts from her stellar 2002 concert album Live in Paris. If you're a fan of straight-ahead jazz with a heavy dash of romance and haven't checked out Krall's work, The Very Best is superb place to start.

The Very Best of Diana Krall collects a nice cross-section of tracks the pianist/vocalist recorded beginning with her 1996 breakthrough album, All for You, and moving through to her 2006 effort From This Moment On. These are largely urbane and stylish recordings that range from her intimate and swinging trio work with guitarist Russell Malone and bassist Christian McBride to her lush orchestral and big-band numbers. While this is primarily a compilation for fans of the sophisticated, jazz standards-oriented Krall, Verve does earn some kudos for including at least one cut from her deeply personal and subsequently not as popular effort The Girl in the Other Room. Also featured are cuts from her stellar 2002 concert album Live in Paris. If you're a fan of straight-ahead jazz with a heavy dash of romance and haven't checked out Krall's work, The Very Best is superb place to start.

While the jazz fascists (read: purists) may be screaming "sellout" because Diana Krall decided to record something other than standards this time out, the rest of us can enjoy the considerable fruit of her labors. The Girl in the Other Room is, without question, a jazz record in the same manner her other outings are. The fact that it isn't made up of musty and dusty "classics" may irk the narrow-minded and reactionary, but it doesn't change the fact that this bold recording is a jazz record made with care, creativity, and a wonderfully intimate aesthetic fueling its 12 songs. Produced by Tommy LiPuma and Krall, the non-original material ranges from the Mississippi-fueled jazzed-up blues of Mose Allison's "Stop This World" to contemporary songs that are reinvented in Krall's image by Tom Waits ("Temptation"), Joni Mitchell ("Black Crow"), Chris Smither ("Love Me Like a Man"), and her husband, Elvis Costello ("Almost Blue").

For only the second time in her career, jazz pianist and vocalist Diana Krall deviates from her tried, true m.o. of covering easily identifiable jazz standards. On Glad Rag Doll she teams with producer T-Bone Burnett and his stable of studio aces. Here the two-time Grammy winner covers mostly vaudeville and jazz tunes written in the 1920s and '30s, some relatively obscure. Most of the music here is from her father's collection of 78-rpm records. Krall picked 35 tunes from that music library and gave sheet music to Burnett.

Great concert of exuberant live jazz recorded in Spain on July 24, 2008.
At the outset of her career in the 1990s, Diana Krall appeared to be a throwback to a different, classier era - specifically, the mid-20th century, when the Great American Songbook experienced a revival in the hands of singers such as Nat King Cole. Krall's 1996 breakthrough, All for You: A Dedication to the Nat King Cole Trio, deliberately paid tribute to this period, but Krall didn't focus merely on singing the song in an old-fashioned way: as the subtitle of All for You suggested, Krall placed equal emphasis on the piano playing. It was a conscious decision that leant her music an elegance and elasticity that has served her well throughout her career…

Diana Krall spent the better part of the 2010s exploring byways of American song – her 2012 set Glad Rag Doll drew heavily on obscure jazz from the 1920s and '30s, its 2015 sequel Wallflower concentrated on pop and rock tunes – but 2017's Turn Up the Quiet finds the pianist/singer returning to well-known standards from the Great American Songboo…