The Very Best Of Diana Krall

[johnfoyle]

Maybe Elvis has been spending time in the Windy City with the Missus -

http://www.nwi.com/articles/2008/06/15/ ... 7b4153.txt

The Times, Munster, IN

Depp/Dillinger flick finishes up June 30



BY PHILIP POTEMPA

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Lights, camera, finished

It's been a fun Hollywood ride for Chicago and our region.

But director Michael Mann's film "Public Enemies" starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger is near completion.

And true to the usual scenario, the $80-million film about the Feds trying to take down notorious American gangsters Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during a booming crime wave in the 1930s, has gone both over-budget and is soon to go over the amount of designated script shooting days.

The film officially began shooting March 17 up in Madison, Wis., before the cast and crew made their way to Crown Point to shoot for the full week following Easter Sunday.

And so, even though the project was only scheduled for 69 shooting days, according to Depp's contract, the film will end up wrapping all of its Midwest on-location shooting at the end of this month, according to David Kelly, one of the assistant directors for the Universal Pictures movie, which is set to open in theaters in July 2009.

How pinched are they to complete this process before June 30?

They've already started to schedule scenes to be filmed on Saturdays.

Last week, Mann captured some great "late night" scenes at our own Indiana Dunes, featuring Depp and recent Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard, who plays girlfriend Billie Frechette, with their scene unfolding with the two parked in a vintage car and discussing the gangster's future plans.

And even more spectacular were scenes shot with Depp and Cotillard at Chicago's famed Aragon Ballroom, 1106 W. Lawrence Ave., the historic structure built in 1926 and still used as a concert venue.

Requiring hundreds of extras, all required to be fitted in vintage formal attire, casting call times were at 6 p.m. each night and the shooting didn't begin until 10 p.m. and lasted all through the night until 7 a.m..

But, as a bonus, not only did the extras get to watch Depp do his thing in front of the cameras, but they also got to watch some free entertainment, well, at least in part.

Singer Elvis Costello's wife, torch singer Diane Krall, was featured on stage performing with a full orchestra.

Unfortunately, according to the extras I talked to, Krall was made to keep repeating the same short song verse over and over as the scene was re-lit, re-shot and re-created for multiple takes.

At least Krall is used to this drill when it comes to filming a movie.

She gave a similar stellar performance before the cameras in retro style in the same capacity for the 2004 big screen MGM feature film "De-Lovely," about the life of Indiana's own Cole Porter, starring Kevin Kline as Hoosier music man.

For that go-round, she sang "It Was Just One of Those Things" and "I Get a Kick Out of You."

[scielle]

She also 'played' herself in the 2003 Woody Allen pic Anything Else.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0313792/

[scielle]

Diana's sister, Michelle, has posted the following to the DK forum:

Hello Everyone!

It has been a very long time since I visited with you all. I can confirm that Diana has just completed her recording. I was with her in the studio at Capitol and it was an amazing experience. The album will likely be released in February. Diana enjoyed recording with Jeff and John and I am not allowed to give away all of the details...but the consensus is that this is some of Diana's best work ever.

Diana left on Saturday for Singapore where she is now.
She will be touring Asia for the next 3 weeks or so.

That's all for now. I will try to check in with you more often. Remember, you can always email me at dkrallfanlcub@shaw.ca and let me know if there are more questions here...

All the best,
Michelle

[sweetest punch]

Diana's sister, Michelle, has posted the following to the DK forum:

Hello Everyone!

It has been a very long time since I visited with you all. I can confirm that Diana has just completed her recording. I was with her in the studio at Capitol and it was an amazing experience. The album will likely be released in February. Diana enjoyed recording with Jeff and John and I am not allowed to give away all of the details...but the consensus is that this is some of Diana's best work ever.

Diana left on Saturday for Singapore where she is now.
She will be touring Asia for the next 3 weeks or so.

That's all for now. I will try to check in with you more often. Remember, you can always email me at dkrallfanlcub@shaw.ca and let me know if there are more questions here...

All the best,
Michelle

Hopefully some of the rumoured new Costello/Bacharach songs (see http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB3 ... +bacharach ) will end up on the album. And the release date of february 2009 coincides with the release date of Elvis' new album (early 2009).

[johnfoyle]

http://musichaven.blogspot.com/2008/09/ ... apore.html

A Krall fan in Singapore blogs -

Diana seemed to be in a good mood, chatting a fair bit and joking with the audience, which was great. It was also evident that she's happily married and enjoying family life. She opened up her locket around her neck and showed us pictures of her 21-month old twin boys Dexter and Frank. She said that they were with daddy Elvis Costello right now and they were busy recording their debut album.

[sweetest punch]

http://old.thejakartapost.com/detailfea ... C01&irec=1


Diana Krall returns to Jakarta a happier person

When the award winning jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall came to Jakarta six years ago, it was under gloomy circumstances.

Just before she started her tour of Asia in 2002 her mother had died of multiple myeloma. Weeks after her mother's death, two close friends and musical mentors, Rosemary Clooney and bass player Ray Brown, also died.

She was so sad that she did not even perform an encore during her concert in Jakarta at the time.

Now, the 44-year-old mother of two-year-old twins is back in Jakarta for her Asia tour promoting her 2007 album The Very Best of Diana Krall, and she is happy.

"I like encores. If you want me to play more, I'll play more," she said merrily on Saturday.

Krall was sitting in the VIP lounge at the Ritz Carlton Jakarta, which is the venue for her concert tonight. Her flowing honey-colored hair was draped gracefully on her shoulders.

She wore a pendant on her neck that enclosed pictures of her sons. She looked beautiful in an old Diane Von Furstenberg dress, which Krall said reminded her of her mother. "My mom wore them (Diane Von Furstenberg dresses) too in the seventies."

She said revisiting Jakarta had brought back memories of her first trip, "The last time I came here, I lost my mother, my boyfriend broke up with me and all was not so great," she said jokingly.

"But I'm happy that I'm able to come back here now and share my happiness," she said.

A lot has happened since her last visit to Indonesia. In 2002, she was promoting her album The Look of Love, which mesmerized the world and in retrospect, is a deeply personal album, which reflected her anticipation of her mother's death.

Since then, the Grammy Award-winning artist for Best Jazz Performance (1999) and Best Jazz Vocal Album (2002) has released five albums.

In that time, she has experimented by performing covers of Tom Waits and Joni Mitchel singles, by writing her own lyrics, including a swinging-big-band record, and, in the case of her latest album, by compiling her best singles on one album.

She married singer-cum-songwriter Elvis Costello in 2003 and gave birth to twin sons in 2006, which she said had greatly inspired her musical career.

After experimenting by writing her own lyrics in the album The girl in the other room and by playing with a big band in From this moment on, she found that she was most true when she performed standard jazz, swing and bossa nova, which would be expressed in her next album.

She said that her next album had been influenced by Brazilian music and was very sensuous and romantic, "It's a love letter for my husband."

In her next album she will sing one song in Portuguese and another Brazilian song that has been translated into English. She did not write any of the lyrics on the album.

"I think writing is really hard, unless you're a writer. I feel more like an actor. I take songs creatively and turn them into something else," she said.

She said she had learned much from Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Louis Armstrong.

"They always keep their musical integrity even though they're entertainers. They're great entertainers and they play for people but their artistry was never compromised," she said.

During her concert tonight, Krall will perform with extraordinary musicians -- bassist Robert Leslie Hurst III, a lecturer at the University of Michigan; drummer Emmanuel Karriem Riggins, who is also a producer who worked with The Roots and Erykah Badu; and long time guitarist Anthony Wilson.

She will perform singles from her best of album, including "S'Wonderful", "The Look of Love", "Let's Face The Music and Dance", and "I've Got You Under My Skin".

Tonight at the Ritz Carlton, the audience will meet a happier more mature Krall, one who loves to entertain.

[johnfoyle]

This turntable ain't big enough for the the both of us...


http://www.star-ecentral.com/news/story ... &sec=music

Tuesday October 7, 2008

From a Diana Krall feature -

Between their jazz-singing mom and rock-loving dad, one wonders who is winning the battle to influence the kids with their own musical styles.

“They’re not really into our music right now. Sure, they know mama and dada’s music when we pump it up, but they’re really into Itsy Bitsy Spider and Five Little Ducks right now, which I think is important for two-year-olds to learn before they start singing showtunes!”

Who gets command of the home music player then?

“There’s no competition “ it’s just an affection for music that we both have,” she said.

“What Elvis and I share in common is a love for music and not just a specific kind “ he likes a lot of music I don’t listen to, and vice versa. We both listen to music from the 1930s and 20s - but mine is more Bing Crosby while he listens to Howlin’ Wolf and a lot of other blues artistes.”

[johnfoyle]

From a Krall forum ; I can' t see Elvis missing this!


http://www.dianakrallfans.com/phpBB3/vi ... f=3&t=1631

Hi guys,

I just saw that Diana is on the news. I've tried translate an article I found:

The sale of tickets for the tour of the pianist and singer Diana Krall in Brazil get started this Monday (6), after pre-sale
made for customers of a credit card operator, which began last Thursday in (2).

We going to have five performs:

* Rio de Janeiro: 10/30 , 10/31 and 11/01 (Vivo Rio)
* Curitiba: 11/03 (Teatro Positivo)
* São Paulo: 11/05 (HSBC Brasil)

This will be the fifth time Diana comes to Brazil.

During the Brazilian tour, which honors the 50th anniversary (birth) of Bossa Nova, Diana Krall going to take the moment to records her second live DVD, so-called "Live in Rio."

Tickets for the shows:

* For Rio and Sao Paulo perform: http://www.ingressorapido.com.br.
* For Curitiba perform: http://www.diskingressos.com.br

Any doubts with the translation, just let me know.
Sam.

[sweetest punch]

The new album of Diana is coming out on March 31, 2009 and is called: "Quiet Nights".
See: http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Nights-Dian ... 507&sr=1-1

[johnfoyle]

Nice.





‘QUIET NIGHTS’ TRACK LIST:
1. Where Or When (Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers)
2. Too Marvelous For Words (Johnny Mercer, Richard Whiting)
3. I’ve Grown Accustomed To Your Face (Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe)
4. The Boy From Ipanema (Norman Gimbel, Vinicius DeMoraes, Antonio Carlos Jobim)
5. Walk On By (Hal David, Burt Bacharach)
6. Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out To Dry (Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne)
7. Este Seu Olhar (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
8. So Nice (Marcos Kostenbader, Valle and Paulo Sergio Valle, Norman Gimbel)
9. Quiet Nights (Gene Lees, Buddy Kay, Antonio Carlos Jobim)
10. You’re My Thrill (Sidney Clare, Jay Gorney)

All the details -

http://www.shorefire.com/clients/dkrall/#null

[scielle]

Canadian leg of Diana's upcoming world tour has been announced:

** Denotes shows with orchestra
April 15, 2009 CALGARY, AB Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium **
April 17, 2009 EDMONTON, AB Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium **
April 18, 2009 REGINA, SK Conexus Arts Centre
April 19, 2009 SASKATOON, SK TCU Place
April 22, 2009 WINNIPEG, MB MTS Centre **
April 25, 2009 LONDON, ON RBC Theatre at the John Labatt Centre **
April 26, 2009 KITCHENER, ON Centre in the Square **
April 28, 2009 HAMILTON, ON Hamilton Place Theatre **
April 30 & May 1, 2009 TORONTO, ON Massey Hall **
May 2 & 3, 2009 OTTAWA, ON National Arts Center ‐ Southam Hall
May 5, 2009 KINGSTON, ON K‐Rock Centre **
May 6 & 7, 2009 MONTREAL, QC Place des Arts **
May 9, 2009 MONCTON, NB Moncton Coliseum
May 10, 2009 HALIFAX, NS Halifax Metro Centre **
May 13, 2009 VANCOUVER, BC Orpheum Theatre **

[johnfoyle]

http://blogs.usaweekend.com/whos_news/2 ... l-mus.html

March 27, 2009

Lorrie Lynch talks to Diana Krall



I heard that last February you were prepping to record Quiet Nights, but then you took a break before going into the studio.
My children were a year old, I’d been touring with them since they were six months old and I just wasn’t ready. I needed to think about it for a while. So I took a couple months off and skied every day, because we live 20 minutes from a mountain [in Vancouver]. So I would get up early and get my kids ready, and while they’re napping, I’d go up to the hill and ski and clear my head. Then we went on tour, I thought about things on tour, and then we went into the studio right after that and haven’t stopped since then.

Are you a good skier?
Yeah. I don’t do Black Diamond or anything, and if I was skiing Europe, I’d be considered a very poor skier. But on my local mountains, I rock! I had a meeting with somebody from France, and he said, “Oh, you have to ski Europe,” and I’m like, “I know…” I like to ski as fast as humanly possible.

Is this your most romantic album?
I don’t think it’s romantic so much as it’s sensual and erotic. I feel great in my being 44 and who I am, and it reflects the culture right now of strong women who are balancing career and motherhood. It’s not romantic in the way that it’s girly — it’s very womanly. I feel like I have it all in a way that’s very challenging. Because of my schedule, I can be a stay-at-home mom. Like right now, I’m cooking chicken and getting the boys ready and talking to you, all at the same time, and it’s just fine.

On Quiet Nights, you recorded a version of The Boy From Ipanema, which is in itself a version of The Girl From Ipanema. What is it about that tune that makes it so classic?
A couple people said, “That’s pretty obvious.” Well, I’m going to do it anyway because it’s fun. It was important to do it because I wanted to bring it back to its original intention, and also as a woman singing it, it’s a bit different. If you’ve been to Ipanema Beach, it’s pretty stunning. I felt like I could relate to it in some way. I always get into a character or think about a film or a movie, so whatever I’m thinking in my head — like putting yourself in as the girl from Ipanema who’s older, walking down the beach looking at the beautiful families — I get all these ideas and I just interpret it

What are you and your husband, Elvis Costello, working on now?
I just produced Barbra Streisand’s record and we’re in the process of sequencing right now. He’s got an album coming up, working with T-Bone Burnett. I’m so excited about my life, Elvis’ life, our children — I just feel I have so much. I’ve had such a hard time in the past, my mother affected me greatly artistically, and now that I’m able to be a mum and a wife and I see my mother in myself, I see these things in different ways. I’m really into cooking dinners and doing the house for the holidays and I’m spraying the windows with antique. All that stuff. Having children, it’s really fulfilling for me at first to be a mom and a wife, and that’s affected who I am as an artist for the better.

[scielle]

Apparently she and Elvis are now writing kids' songs. She's mentioned it in this radio interview, and the article below.

http://cbc.ca/calgary/media/audio/homes ... 38_CGY.ram




Song sung … and Diana Krall is anything but blue
March 27, 2009


'It's one big happy gang in this house. Between Elvis and I and our kids, it's just tremendous. I'm loving life right now."

For a woman not known for being comfortable when a journalist sticks a microphone near her (her nickname on one Australian promotional visit, Diana Growl, was not entirely unfair), Diana Krall is doing a good impression of relaxed, comfortable and happy.

The Elvis is Elvis Costello, though at home she calls him by his real name, Declan. He is her first husband, she is his third long-time partner, and between them now in their relatively new home in Vancouver are twin two-year-old boys, Dexter and Frank.

Where once this 44-year-old was wary, if not downright hostile to intrusions of a personal nature, these days all three of the men in her life regularly come up in her conversation. As, for example, when she explains why she was late coming to the phone for this interview.

"So I was discussing [dinner] with Elvis. I'm still a mum and that's what I want to do, figure out what I'm making for dinner, whether we're going to the park - 'Dexter, don't eat the playdough'," she laughs. "Last night we had this salmon that Elvis made and I made mashed potatoes and snap peas and I was watching this beautiful film with my children and Elvis and it was just cosy and lovely in our family room and I was like, 'I can't imagine what I would be doing right now without this'."

Even if you didn't know of her domestic arrangements (or of Costello's hitherto unknown culinary prowess) there is a palpable sense of contentment flowing through Krall's new album, Quiet Nights. With both Brazilian and American standards it is steeped in bossa nova - Krall names the similarly themed 1967 album Frank Sinatra made with Antonio Carlos Jobim as one of the most influential records in her life - and suffused with an adult sensuality.

"This record is very much about a woman who has two children and has settled into a very committed deep love in her marriage and family," Krall says. "When my mum died [in 2002] it was very, very difficult, for years. I felt so devastated, beyond belief. Now I see my mother in myself and I do things that I loved to do with my mum and dad and it's more balanced, I think.

"I'm also busy as an artist and I don't have too much time on my hands, which is a wonderful thing." She chuckles. "I don't feel lonely anymore. I can go there, I can definitely get into that character, but definitely the lights got turned back on when I had my children. It's deepened everything for me, like my marriage."

Her mother's death inspired the songs she wrote with Costello for the 2004 album The Girl In The Other Room. To date, it is the only example of her songwriting, with Krall insisting: "I don't think I'm a writer, it doesn't come to me naturally. I'm a jazz musician, an improvising musician." However, playing happy families may be turning her in a Wiggles direction.

"I would really now like to do a children's album," she says enthusiastically. "Elvis and I have been throwing that around for the last little while. We've got something cooking up that would be really fun but it is trying to find the time. Now that I see what my kids like, everything from [Costello's] Pump It Up to [her recording of Nat King Cole's] Hit That Jive Jack to Harry Belafonte, maybe Elvis and I can come up with something that's really fun."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainmen ... 64553.html

[johnfoyle]

Steamy stuff from Ms Krall's site -

http://dianakrall.com/bio.aspx

(extract)

Some music is intended to paint a romantic scene – a candlelit dinner, a walk along a moonlit beach. Quiet Nights – Diana Krall’s twelfth album – ain’t about that. Using Brazil as a musical point of reference, the award–winning pianist and singer is not suggesting a night out; she means to stay in.

“It’s not coy. It’s not ‘peel me a grape,’ little girl stuff. I feel this album’s very womanly – like you’re lying next to your lover in bed whispering this in their ear.”

She’s not kidding. From Krall’s refreshing version of “Where or When,” to an utterly soul–stilling rendition of “You’re My Thrill,“ the ten songs on Quiet Nights are disarming in their intimacy. Even those already familiar with the breathy vocals and rhythmic lilt in Krall’s music – and now there are millions – will be taken aback by just how far the music pushes, unabashedly, into the realm of sweet surrender. “It’s a sensual, downright erotic record and it’s intended to be that way.”

As moving as Quiet Nights is –– deriving from Krall’s feelings for Brazil and bossa novas – the singer is not shy in admitting that its sensuality is as much about her home life. “It’s my love letter to my husband – just an intimate, romantic album.” As they say in Rio – obrigado!

[johnfoyle]

http://top40-charts.com/news/Charts-Awa ... 47561.html

New York, NY. (Top40 Charts/ Shore Fire Media)

- Diana Krall has earned her highest ever chart debut this week, landing at No 3 atop the Billboard 200 with her new album 'Quiet Nights' (Verve).

With 104,000 scans, this is the musician's second biggest sales week of her career and her fourth consecutive studio album to place in the top 10

[johnfoyle]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Entertai ... story.html

Krall connects with PdA audience


By BERNARD PERUSSE,
The The Montreal Gazette


May 7, 2009

(extract)

Yet it was the anecdotes and memories that brought much of the warmth: From the unsent letter Krall wrote to Oscar Peterson at 16 to the bus trip with her 2-year old twins, Dexter and Frank, last night, Krall seemed to let her guard down.


Introducing a song that reminded her of her husband, Krall said " ... and it's not Pump It Up," before demonstrating a brief bossa nova version of the Elvis Costello classic.

The song was I've Grown Accustomed to His Face, and Krall proved her ever-growing gift as a stylist by making the My Fair Lady classic her own.

The spouse card was amusingly played several times. Recounting a performance for President Barack Obama and a hurried attempt to connect with first lady Michelle over children, she recalled the commander-in-chief's only question: "Your husband is Elvis Costello?"

"That put it all in perspective for me," Krall quipped.

[johnfoyle]

Diana sings PS I Love You, just like Elvis recently did with The Brodsky Quartet. I don't , however, remember noticing 'an undercurrent of erotic tension fraught with foreboding' in his version.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/arts/ ... krall.html

New York Times


Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times


The Voice Is Dark and the Emphasis Mysterious

By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: June 24, 2009

A subdued Diana Krall held forth on Tuesday at Carnegie Hall, where she gave the first of two concerts on consecutive nights with a 41-piece orchestra, augmented by a jazz trio (Jeff Hamilton on drums, Robert Hurst on bass, and Anthony Wilson on guitar). The music, much of it from her recent bossa-nova flavored album, “Quiet Nights” (Verve), maintained an aura of hushed introspection with occasional blips of swing, when her sturdy jazz pianism came to the fore.

When Ms. Krall paused to talk, her remarks — about traveling on a tour bus with her 2 ½-year-old twin sons; about meeting President Obama, who she said was unaware that her husband is Elvis Costello (he was impressed); about the similarity of New York’s recent rainy weather to the climate in her native Vancouver, British Columbia — were dry observations, offered in a low voice with barely a trace of a smile.

“Quiet Nights,” which closely follows the format of her enormously successful 2001 album, “The Look of Love,” has reversed the downward trajectory of Ms. Krall’s record sales. Both albums, arranged and orchestrated by Claus Ogerman, feature music that works equally well as ambient sound for the bedroom and restaurant and as foreground music of considerable psychological complexity.

Together Ms. Krall and Mr. Ogerman (who was absent; Alan Broadbent conducted the orchestra) treat songs as film-noir fragments in which everything remains ambiguous and unresolved. Ms. Krall doesn’t interpret lyrics in a literary manner. With her dark whispery alto, she slithers through songs in short stop-start phrases that sometimes reduce a melody to a single repeated note. One string of words may be elongated with an emphasis on a vowel or a scooped-up syllable; the next grouping may be nearly swallowed as she hurries to catch up.

The effect is to turn songs into mysterious stream-of-consciousness ruminations. Adopting a jazz singer’s prerogative, she turns standards (“Where or When,” “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye,” “Love Letters”) expressing familiar romantic sentiments into semi-abstract, personal reflections whose meanings may not necessarily coincide with — and may even contradict — the words as written.

At the same time Mr. Ogerman’s lush arrangements, with their cool, sighing choruses of woodwinds and strings, carry advanced chromaticism to the edge of dissonance. Instead of a harmonic happy ending, the typical arrangement fades out like a ghost in the fog. The combination of voice and orchestration sustains an undercurrent of erotic tension fraught with foreboding. The truth remains hidden. That aura of ambiguity applied even to those numbers, like “P.S. I Love You” and “A Case of You,” that Ms. Krall sang while accompanying herself on piano, without the orchestra.

The concert’s somber mood was interrupted by some moments of hard swing (“ ’Deed I Do” and “I Love Being Here With You,” the latter prefaced by an extended stride piano solo) in which Ms. Krall’s emphasis on vocal sound over verbal elucidation was even more pronounced. Yes, on one level, Ms. Krall is a middle-of-the-road pop-jazz diva. But just below the surface lies an interpreter who is talking to herself in a private language that is all about rhythm.



http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117940 ... id=34&cs=1

Variety

Wed., Jun. 24, 2009

Diana Krall
(Carnegie Hall; 2,804 seats; $150 top)

By ROBERT L. DANIELS

Produced by George Wein. Conductor, Alan Broadbent. Musicians: Jeff Hamilton, Robert Hurst, Anthony Wilson. Opened, reviewed June 23, 2009.

More than a decade ago, Diana Krall made her Gotham cabaret debut fronting a trio in the intimate Oak Room. This week the Grammy-winning jazz baby returned to Carnegie Hall for a two-show turn backed by the luxury of a 40-plus piece orchestra to celebrate the release of her Verve CD "Quiet Nights." Just when the fine art of jazz singing seems doomed, Krall's cool, understated presence and poise mark her as the keeper of the flame.

Krall's own feathery piano accompaniment reflects the inspiration of Nat "King" Cole, who in his trio days could make "Exactly Like You" a swinging testament to cocktail jazz. She also has a fondness for the old movie tunes, prompting a rare recall of Victor Young's "Love Letters," which pays homage to the lost art of ardent correspondence.

Krall's voice boasts decided allure, occasionally accented by a raspy little infectious purr in her throat.

At her most seductive, Krall turns the Rodgers and Hart query "Where or When" into a sultry search party, and with a poetically pure sense of discovery, she makes "I've Grown Accustomed to His Face" a personal romantic revelation. In the spacious concert hall, Krall still manages to summon an intimacy that leaves listeners breathlessly involved in the romantic narrative.

Krall's piano accompaniment boasts an effortless sense of swing and swagger. From her rhythmic new bossa-flavored CD she offered a lithe reading of Antonio Carlos Jobim's title track "Quiet Nights."

As the orchestra sat one out, the stately blond diva revealed the smoky grandeur that defines the classic cabaret singer with "P. S. I Love You," the haunting Gordon Jenkins-Johnny Mercer love letter that conveys loneliness and longing with measured heartbreak. Krall's storytelling gifts were never more poignantly evident.

For an encore Krall bid adieu with the torch singer's most telling farewell, Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye." The singer's comments between songs were brief, with only a casual mention of a White House performance, her 2-year-old twin boys and husband Elvis Costello.

Conducted with nuance and grace by Alan Broadbent, the orchestra lays a lush, cradling carpet of warmth, never intruding on the mood Krall so deftly and effortlessly creates.

[sweetest punch]

Hear her version of PS I Love You here: http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/cod/concerts/20090514krall