With her latest album [written in 2004], The Girl in the Other Room (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de), jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall covers new ground: it is not a jazz album. She works for the first time together with her husband Elvis Costello with whom, also for the first time, she has written six of the twelve songs. The result is Diana Krall’s most personal album so far.
The Girl in the Other Room begins with the dramatic blues of Stop This World by Mose Allison. Diana Krall sings the ironic lyrics in her distinctive cool style. The following title song, The Girl in the Other Room, stands for her collaboration with Elvis Costello. The two musicians married in December 2003. Their collaboration is a success, as is the entire album.
The couple wrote half of the songs on the album. Does Costello’s personality overshadow Krall’s in these originals? No, not at all. The Canadian jazz pianist and singer covers new ground, becomes a composer and songwriter, and enlarges her repertoire to blues and other types of popular music, while preserving her unique style. Working with Elvis Costello has broadened her horizon and made her more daring musically.
This marriage is by no means an artistic one-way street. Elvis Costello does not only enter into and adapt to his wife’s musical world in his lyrics and contributions to lyrics on The Girl in the Other Room, he also seems to be influenced by Diana Krall’s jazz on his September 2003 album North (Amazon.com, Amazon.de).
The Girl in the Other Room is Diana Krall’s most intimate album so far. In the songs, she digests the sorrow and pain of her mother’s death, expressing deeper emotions than in her previous albums, which were characterized by cool and lazy interpretations. With the exception of the songs Stop This World and Love Me Like A Man, the new album is largely an introspective one.
I’m Pulling Through, by Arthur Herzog and Irene Kitchings, becomes Krall’s declaration of love for Elvis Costello, who gave her the strength to get over her mother’s death. The Canadian has not only found comfort and inspiration in songs written by others, she also grieves in her first compositions such as Abandoned Maquerade and Departure Bay, both co-written with her husband. In these compositions, Diana Krall shows herself vulnerable, hurt, touched and touching as never before.
The Girl in the Other Room is no album for jazz purists. However, it should allow her definitively break into the fan base of popular music to which she gives new impulses and a rarely-heard quality. Diana Krall is currently the world’s most successful jazz musician. Her last album, The Look of Love (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de), released in 2001, sold some four million copies [written in 2004]. Since then, only a live album and her very first recording (without her prior consent) have been released. Heartdrops (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk) was recorded in 1990 and released in 2003. It shows Krall’s beginnings. On Heartdrops, she plays as a side musician to the American trombonist Vince Benedetti (trombone, Yamaha DX-7).
Back to her latest release: The Girl in the Other Room is the first album Diana Krall has co-produced, together with the producer of her previous Verve albums, Tommy LiPuma. Last but not least, let’s not forget the excellent musicians playing with her: John Clayton and Christian McBride on bass, Jeff Hamilton, Peter Erskine and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, Neil Larsen on Hammond B-3 and Anthony Wilson on guitar.
Diana Krall: The Girl in the Other Room. Verve, April 2004. Order this excellent CD from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de.
Check also the album by Elvis Costello: North. Universal, September 2003. Get the CD by Diana Krall’s husband from Amazon.com, Amazon.de. Find Diana Krall sheet music.
All photographs of Diana Krall: Diana Krall photographed by Robert Maxwell for the album Quiet Nights. Photos copyright © Robert Maxwell / Universal Music.
Album review added on April 13, 2004. Added to our WordPress pages on April 26, 2022 at 22:40 Paris time.
