TURN UP THE QUIET
(Verve)
8/10
Diana Krall is growing up. If that sounds an odd statement about a woman who somehow is already 52, I not talking about her age. I’m talking about her artistry. The way she sings these love songs from the Great American Songbook was inconceivable even a few years ago. She digs deeper into the lyrics, not in an exaggerated musical-theatre way, but with flawless instincts for which word to weight in a line, and how to phrase that line to make it live anew, however many thousand times it has been sung before.
Although routinely good across her career, Krall has never been this consistently honest and even moving. Her attractive voice is deepening, and her delivery – always at its best when softest – is here especially breathy and intimate. What really makes her renditions of songs like Isn’t It Romantic, Night and Day and especially a stunning Sway so emotionally telling, however, is her command of understatement and her preparedness to reveal vulnerability. The support cast includes such notables as Christian McBride and Marc Ribot.