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+--- Forum: Jazz/Big Band/Easy Listening/Soft Rock (https://www.music-discussion.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=13)
+--- Thread: Diana Krall - Wallflower (/showthread.php?tid=12687)
Diana Krall - Wallflower - Music Head - 14-02-2015
enters the Billboard chart this week at #10
Spotify online listen
3.5 of 5.0 from allmusic
12th studio album
never heard much of this girl
pretty voice
another covers album
love most of the song choices
in their original form
artist website - http://www.dianakrall.com/
Bio - from allmusic
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With her pre-bop piano style, cool but sensual singing, and fortuitously photogenic looks, Diana Krall took the jazz world by storm in the late '90s. By the turn of the
century she was firmly established as one of the biggest sellers in jazz. Her 1996 album, All for You, was a Nat King Cole tribute that showed the singer/pianist's roots,
and since then she has stayed fairly close to that tradition-minded mode, with wildly successful results.
Krall got her musical education when she was growing up in Nanaimo, British Columbia, from the classical piano lessons she began at age four and in her high school
jazz band, but mostly from her father, a stride piano player with an extensive record collection. "I think Dad has every recording Fats Waller ever made," she said, "and I
tried to learn them all."
Krall attended the Berklee College of Music on a music scholarship in the early '80s and then moved to Los Angeles, where she lived for three years before moving to
Toronto. By 1990, she was based in New York, performing with a trio and singing. After releasing her first album on Justin Time Records, Krall was signed to GRP for her
second, Only Trust Your Heart, and transferred to its Impulse! division for her third, the Nat King Cole Trio tribute album called All for You. Love Scenes followed in 1997,
and in late 1998, she issued the seasonal Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
When I Look in Your Eyes followed in 1999. Whatever renown Krall had earned over the years for her work exploded with this album, which became an international
best-seller and earned her a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance. It was also the first jazz album to be nominated for Album of the Year in 25 years. Krall's
crossover success followed her as she performed in Lilith Fair the following year, and her songs cropped up everywhere from episodes of Sex in the City to films like
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In 2001 she released The Look of Love, featuring charts by legendary arranger Claus Ogerman, best known for working with
bossa nova innovator Antonio Carlos Jobim in the '60s. The album topped the Billboard charts and went quintuple platinum in Canada, the first by a Canadian jazz artist
to do so. The Look of Love also helped Krall win three Junos in 2002, taking home awards for Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best Vocal Jazz Album of the
Year.
In 2003, Krall married iconic British rock musician Elvis Costello. A year later, she issued The Girl in the Other Room. Covering a few standards, this album also included
original material -- some co-written by Costello -- for the first time in her career. Returning to the large ensemble standards approach of her previous album, Krall
released From This Moment On in 2006. She gave birth to twin sons in December of that year. In 2009, she teamed once again with The Look of Love arranger
Ogerman for the bossa nova-themed Quiet Nights; the album performed well, debuting at number three on the Billboard Top 200. Krall returned three years later with
Glad Rag Doll, a collection of early jazz and ragtime tunes from the '20s and '30s produced by T-Bone Burnett. 2014 saw her once again attempting something new with
the album Wallflower, as she covered a selection of pop songs from the '60s onward by the likes of Bob Dylan, Elton John, Gilbert O'Sullivan, and the Eagles, all of whom
had inspired her in her childhood. Wallflower saw release in February 2015.
Album Review - from allmusic
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Diana Krall paid tribute to her father on Glad Rag Doll, the 2012 album sourced from his collection of 78-rpm records, and, in a sense, its 2015 successor Wallflower is
a companion record of sorts, finding the singer revisiting songs from her childhood. Like many kids of the 20th century, she grew up listening to the radio, which meant
she was weaned on the soft rock superhits of the '70s -- songs that earned sniffy condescension at the time but nevertheless have turned into modern standards due to
their continual presence in pop culture (and arguably were treated that way at the time, seeing cover after cover by middlebrow pop singers). Krall does not limit herself
to the songbook of Gilbert O'Sullivan, Jim Croce, the Carpenters, Elton John, and the Eagles, choosing to expand her definition of soft rock to include a previously
unrecorded Paul McCartney song called "If I Take You Home Tonight" (a leftover from his standards album Kisses on the Bottom), Bob Dylan's "Wallflower," Chantal
Kreviazuk's "Feels Like Home," and Neil Finn's "Don't Dream It's Over," a song from 1986 that has been covered frequently in the three decades since. "Don't Dream
It's Over" slides into this collection easily, as it's as malleable and timeless as "California Dreamin'," "Superstar," "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word," or "Operator
(That's Not the Way It Feels)," songs that are identified with specific artists but are often covered successfully. Krall's renditions rank among those successes because
she's understated, never fussing with the melodies but allowing her arrangements to slink by in a deliberate blend of sparseness and sophistication. It's an aesthetic that
helps transform the Eagles' "I Can't Tell You Why" and 10cc's "I'm Not in Love," singles that are as successful as much for their production as their song, into elegant
torch songs, yet it doesn't do much for Kreviazuk's pedestrian "Feels Like Home," nor does it lend itself to the loping country of "Wallflower," which may provide the name
for this album but feels like an uninvited guest among these majestically melodic middle-of-the-road standards. These stumbles are slight and, tellingly, they put into
context Krall's achievement with Wallflower: by singing these songs as sweet and straight as the dusty old standards on Glad Rag Doll or the bossa nova on 2009's
Quiet Nights, she demonstrates how enduring these once-dismissed soft rock tunes really are.
the single I guess
Dylan tune:
[video=youtube;yy79rhPrGcU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy79rhPrGcU[/video]
Track Listing
1. California Dreamin'
2. Désperado
3. Superstar
4. Alone Again (Naturally) ft: Michael Bublé
5. Wallflower ft: Blake Mills
6. If I Take You Home Tonight
7. I Can't Tell You Why
8. Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word
9. Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)
10. I'm Not In Love
11. Feels Like Home ft. Bryan Adams
12. Don't Dream It's Over
Diana Krall - Wallflower - CRAZY-HORSE - 14-02-2015
i should have mentioned this one when i posted my Aussie charts yeaterday, but i was in a bit of a rush and forgot...
however, if anyone clicked on the chart link they would have seen that this one debuted at #7 here this week...
i didnt post the jazz chart list, but it also debuted at #1 on that chart here also.
Diana Krall - Wallflower - CRAZY-HORSE - 14-02-2015
i actually recently purchased her "quiet nights" album with xmas giftcards...
ive only heard a few tracks or hers over the years, like when she appreas on "later...with jools"...
Diana Krall - Wallflower - jazzboCR - 14-02-2015
Uh, MH, if you call Ms. Krall, "girl" to her face she's liable to bitch-slap you...Just sayin'. Otherwise thanks for the share; here's some promo clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNyeanBGYxw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5cskyYElIw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJYAaclsMcw << brings meaning to some pretty nonsense lyrics
My fave song by her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM7yF1tbE9s << I aim to be an agreeable chap.
Diana Krall - Wallflower - CRAZY-HORSE - 14-02-2015
#10 on debut in New Zealand this week.
Diana Krall - Wallflower - CRAZY-HORSE - 14-02-2015
jazzboCR Wrote:Uh, MH, if you call Ms. Krall, "girl" to her face she's liable to bitch-slap you...Just sayin'. Otherwise thanks for the share; here's some promo clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNyeanBGYxw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5cskyYElIw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJYAaclsMcw << brings meaning to some pretty nonsense lyrics
My fave song by her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM7yF1tbE9s << I aim to be an agreeable chap.
listened to your favourite track jazzy...
i like it,thanks!
Diana Krall - Wallflower - SteveO - 15-02-2015
Also 10 here in Canada!
CRAZY-HORSE Wrote:#10 on debut in New Zealand this week.
Diana Krall - Wallflower - Ruby - 16-02-2015
I listened to this album - love her song choices. She didn't mess up "Operator" or "I'm Not in Love" which is a good enough measure for me! Nice voice - I've heard some of her stuff but never bought any. That might change.
Diana Krall - Wallflower - CRAZY-HORSE - 17-02-2015
i recently purchased her "quiet nights" cd...
i'll let you know what i think of it after a couple of spins
i would like to see her duet with her husband Elivs Costello at some point, have him write the lyrics and she can put some jazzy/bluesy music to them....