Glad Rag Doll

Another voyage into the past

Diana Krall will draw your attention at least the artwork of her new, eleventh studio album that is called Glad Rag Doll. Young again, clad in rather tempting style, the famous Canadian singer and pianist invites you to go on a journey into the music of the first half of the last century. Diana has long been known as a leading performer of covers, mostly jazz songs, and her new CD is another attempt to give a new life to old melodies, which, being living classics, are practically unknown to the young listener. What distinguishes this record is the production executed by T Bone Burrnett who endowed the album with a very specific sounding. The ensemble of amazing musicians led by guitarist Mark Ribot did exactly as the producer instructed them and surrounded Krall’s voice with truly magic music.

A great contribution by instruments

For Diana Krall, Glad Rag Doll has proved to be, in a certain sense, a risky endeavor. The singer affords occasionally to step aside from wide format jazz that caresses the ear and pleases you at the first listen, and offers something different. The last experiment of that nature, the awesome album The Girl In The Other Room (2004), with Diana as a main song-writer, was welcomed very cordially. The advantage of the new record by the Canadian artist is the dramatic change of musical preferences. Soft orchestral arrangements, typical of most of her works, make way for Mark Ribot’s guitar. Of course, listeners will have plenty of chances to enjoy piano played by Krall herself, but what makes the record so exquisite is Mark’s six-string instrument, so distinguished, put in front. Careful plucking and accurate, calculated solos create effortlessly the sensations of a romantic evening. Krall described this work very briefly and clearly: a song and play record.

Let yourself forget about everything with this album

The majority of the originals covered on Glad Rag Doll were initially performed in the twenties and thirties of the past century, in the epoch of Great Depression, and in some particular countries and cultures are still capable of bringing about rich associations. Diana Krall not only attempted to restore the spirit of those times, but merge with the image of female performer of that kind of music. The album features different sorts of songs, playful and lively, tragic and sad, but the atmosphere is all the same. Arguably, the best highlights here, Let it Rain, and Lovely Avenue, are filled with extreme attractiveness and sensuality thank to Diana Krall’s singular work. These are no more museum expositions, dull and nevermore timely, but new works in which the soul of the long gone time lives. The set is indeed very level and smooth, with not one song to seem like a filler. In line with that, there can be only one fault to be found with Glad Rag Doll, that the record may seem too monotonous to some listeners. As a matter of fact, all you have to do is just distance yourself from everything around you and submerge into the world so artfully reconstructed by Diana Krall and her musicians.