Caught in the Carousel

Diana Krall

Quiet Nights
Verve

Diana Krall

Back in the late 20th Century when compact discs still mattered, Verve Records issued a collection of CDs called Ultimates. Under this banner, a handful of signature tracks by legendary performers would be selected by a younger, more au courant performer. This performer would also write the liner notes (ah, liner notes, that endangered species). In 1999 The Ultimate Shirley Horn featured 16 songs chosen by Diana Krall. No surprise there, because Horn was the woman Krall had been trying to be for too, too long.

In October of 2005, the great Shirley Horn died, taking with her the most intimate vocal styling of any singer in jazz or pop or rock. When she luxuriated in the silence between the words, you instinctively moved closer to the speakers. An entire life was lived in the pause. Would she re-enter with a single key of her virtuoso piano-skills, or would she whisper her way in? Krall, on the other hand, has never seemed to realize that the danger to be so stripped down is that you run the risk of boring the listener if there seems to be nothing real there; nothing at stake.

For many of Krall's fans (and perhaps some of Horn's) Krall has been doing a nice job, thank you, of filling Horn's void. And on her latest album Quiet Nights she tries the shoes on again. However, nowhere on any of Krall's previous efforts has it been more obvious that the shoe will never fit. Her whispery "singing" is trying so hard to sound sexy that it's actually painful to listen to and it sounds as if she were recording the whole album on the latest iPhone App. (In fact, the entire album sounds like every musician was in a different studio in a different city or country. This is the first conference-call album I have ever heard.) It is almost impossible to listen to a single track all the way through. And this is not thrash metal here. These are classic songs: "Where Or When," "I've Grown Accustomed To His Face," and "Everytime We Say Goodbye," are just a few of the ballads that ache in the ear, test the patience, and summon the Simon Cowell in each of us: "Sorry, but if I am being honest, it was dreadful. I couldn't wait for it to end."

And if that weren't enough, the whole concept of the album is baffling. Is it meant to be retro Bossa Nova? The arrangements seemed to want that. The font on the album cover seems to insist it. And then there are those Brazilian classics: "The Boy From Ipanema," "So Nice," "Este Seu Olhar," and the title track. The problem is that when trying too hard to sit in Shirley Horn's empty throne, one should not also try and sit where Sinatra sat. His landmark album with Tom Jobim is really the standard in terms of a jazz vocalist doing Bossa Nova. Unfair that over forty years ago he opened and shut the door on one album, but legends often do things like that. And even if there were a modicum of success in Krall's effort, why the inclusion of songs like "Walk On By" or "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?"? Granted, Krall paints them with the same Sominex beige she has used throughout the album, but there is no sense of reason for the selections. The one concoction on the album that does work is the plan to make truckloads of money for what is one of the laziest recordings in memory. Early indicators are that this album is selling very, very well.

But sales cannot mask the fact that this is safe jazz music for those who think Kenny G is avant-garde. It's as if she wants off her label. Well, she's off my iPod and this album should never get on yours.

—Thomas Cooney