Although I am a musician and a lover of any music performed well, I have not (up to this point) done music critiques. I am not certain why I have decided to begin doing them now. Whatever the reason, I hope that others find my critiques helpful.
Where to begin... with my latest purchase, I think. Diana Krall - Christmas Songs. There have been many rave reviews of this album. Unfortunately, mine will not be another one. Being a fan of Ms. Krall, I truly wish I could write glowingly about the entire album, but there are only a couple of songs that shine in this collection. "Jingle Bells" is one of them. Ms. Krall seems to have a lot of fun with this song and the band certainly does make it swing right down to the guy shaking the bells. Her "scat" near the end of the song is very cool as the band seems to be in conversation with her. So, what is missing from most of the other songs? In "I'll Be Home For Christmas," Ms. Krall's smokey voice and gift for seducing every consonant come through. However, it feels like most notes are being cut short, almost as if the singer is out of breath. At some brief moments, her voice takes on a quality of someone who has sung too much heavy metal or yelled at a college basketball game the night before the recording, as it scratches near her "break." This shortness of breath and scratchiness of voice are apparent in most of the other tunes as well, so I will not belabor the point by going through the entire album song by song. I hope that Ms. Krall has not developed nodules on her vocal cords as happened with other singers, Billy Joel, Elton John, and Julie Andrews, and that we will continue to hear great things from her in the future. As for the band, it is fantastic and certainly compliments Ms. Krall making the album worth the price on its own. But sadly, I do not find this to be Ms. Krall's best work.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
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