Diana Krall's New CD "Live in Paris"????

I bought the recording yesterday, and have been listening to it steady since then. The album is well recorded, and is done with small forces, instead of the full orchestra that some of the later albums had. She also puts a new spin on some of the more familiar pieces. If you're a fan, you'll love it. Now to address the critism. The topic here was was her new album, not whether you think that she's any good in the first place. I know that this is subjective, one mans punch is another's poison. I also realize that quantity of sales is no guarantee of quality. But it does come in to the picture. The all-music guide to jazz praised her overall, especially All of You, the Nat King Cole tribute, and gave it 5 stars. The Penguin Guide to Jazz gave her 4 stars for Love Scenes, and three for the rest. They also stated that: Krall sounds a generation older than her chronological age. She has a rich, resonant contralto and a preference for standard repertiore. This is all meaningless, or course, unless listening to her takes you to another world. I can shut my eyes and travel to another world when I hear her. Enough

Elmuncy, that's a beautiful way to put it; what music appreciation is all about.

I think the album is quite nice. Her playing is adequate to good and her voice is warm, full, appealing. She sticks to what she can do well, both in terms of repertoire and technique. The recording quality is pretty good considering that it was a live venue. Apart from a couple of times when she gets high up on the piano, hits it hard, and overloads the mic preamps, there's nothing offensive about the sound and much to like. Not a classic, perhaps, but pleasant entertainment.

will

Gosh--And she's my favorite singer of the '90s and '00s!! I am bowled over by her performances and will buy everything she records. I do have the DVD video performance of her Paris concert and on my mid-priced Toshiba DVD player it doesn't sound as good as her other performances on CD. You might be interested that the Paris concert sold out and if you pan the audience you'll see mostly young/middle age folks, not the semi-retired generation I would have assumed. Someone mentioned Casandra Wilson. I bought one highly recommended CD of hers and listened to it once and cannot seem to be drawn to it again. Strange how individualized musical tastes are, eh?

A couple of my other recent favorites are Stacy Kent and Nora Jones. The audio quality on Stacy's CDs is super.

Cheers...

I agree with Bmatth about Stacey Kent and Nora Jones (particularly the latter's first recording). Although some people erroneously think that Kent is English (she is married to an Englishman who acccompanies her on her recordings and lives there), her enunciation is clearly American; sometimes so much so as to be a little annoying.

I really think, as I mentioned above, that Tierney Sutton and Christine Tobin are head and shoulders above Diana Krall. It is something of a shame that they are not better known, but on the other hand it's great not having to "share" them with the masses!