Glad Rag Doll

For someone who has carved her niche in the elite group of jazz artists after selling more than 15 million albums worldwide, did Canadian singer-pianist Diana Krall really need to show some flesh on the cover of her latest album “Glad Rag Doll”?

Discussing her spicy cover shot, she told James McNair of The Independent that she didn’t feel like she needed anybody’s permission or a time-frame: “I mean, look at those Vogue shots of Yoko Ono in hot pants recently.” Paying homage to Alfred Cheney Johnston’s photographs of the Ziegfeld girls, the cover shows the curvaceous Diana, looking marvelous in a corset, stockings and suspenders. At 48, boy, she still sizzles hot!

The racy cover could well represent what the album is all about. No, Diana does not sing out of her comfort zone. “Glad Rag Doll” is both new and old. It’s new because Diana sounds much more fashionable, with slanted rock guitars and booming drums highlighting an expressive candor in her lush voice. The sound is “old”: vaudeville songs, blues and rootsy-rockabilly music from the 1920s and 1930s, as well as jazz-era pop songs. But make no mistake about it. The album does not give Diana a makeover; she is very much herself here.  It just proves that her musical genius is so much bigger than what we thought it to be.

The Internet was in its infancy in the Philippines when I first heard her sing.  Then, mp3.com was lording over the music world, and never mind if I would spend hours giddily downloading her songs via dial-up. Her smooth contralto vocals and mastery of the keyboard fascinated me.  Before I re-discovered analog music, I had collected some of her CDs  — her first, “Stepping Out” (1993), and her third, “All For You: A Dedication to the Nat King Cole Trio” (1996). This third album virtually catapulted her to jazz stardom. It was nominated for a Grammy and stayed for 70 weeks on the Billboard jazz charts.

My very first vinyl album of Diana’s was the superbly recorded “The Girl in the Other Room.” It took my rediscovery of analog format to really appreciate Diana’s soothing voice. I had been fan since then.

“Glad Rag Doll,” released in both digital and vinyl formats in October last year, was produced by T-Bone Burnett with his typical mark: house rhythm section of guitarist Mark Ribot, bassist Dennis Crouch, and drummer Jay Bellarose. The album thumps, shakes and sizzles, even if most of the songs are decades older than Diana’s usual catalogue. In the album, Diana’s sultry voice has been fastened to a rugged setting, and the result was magical.

The joyful  Betty James rockabilly tune, I’m a Little Mixed Up, is backed up by distorted  guitars with the rhythm section playing a slap-happy backbeat which egged on  Diana to play barrelhouse piano that is as sinewy and clasp as any James Goodwin repertoire.

There are some selections that will be familiar to Diana’s fans: I Used to Love You But It’s All Over Now swings first through an acoustic guitar, before a slack rhythm section gives her soothing voice a much-welcomed lift.  We Just Can’t Say Goodbye rolls along with pre-Bop grace that perfectly accentuates her vocal tone

My favorite is a more current tune, Julie Miller’s Wide River to Cross, a country-folk song which couldn’t be any more melancholy or gloomy. Here, Diana’s husband Elvis Costello is also featured, injecting a somewhat stressed high synchronization. This track is four minutes of heaven as Diana gently pounds the keys of her piano — just perfect for a Burnett arrangement.

This album is a must-have!

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