So it seems there's a new Diana Krall album just out. I'm paying so much attention that I had to find out by seeing a poster in the window of a Border's bookstore. So I just went to Amazon to check it out.

I'm wary of Diana Krall after what has happened to her in recent years. If you take a chronological listen to her albums, there's a disturbing trend. She starts out as a pianist who sings a bit. In fact, on her first album ("Steppin' Out"), there are some songs she doesn't sing on at all. My very favorite album, "All For You," is just her, a bass, and a guitar (a la (and in explicit tribute to) the Nat King Cole Trio), and her piano therefore necessarily supports the album. Her most recent studio album (setting aside "Live in Paris"), "The Look of Love," however, is garbage. She got popular, people started talking about how she sings so well (she doesn't sing THAT well), and there are many songs where she doesn't play the piano at all--and those where she does play, it's usually drowned out by unneccessary strings. The whole thing is one slow bossa nova. It's good make-out music, but the problem is that Diana has forgotten that she's a pianist who also sings, NOT a singer who also plays the piano. And she has forgotten also that one of her greatest skills is the ability to swing. On older tracks like "Straighten Up and Fly Right" or "Hit That Jive Jack," the swing is the thing that makes them among my favorite recordings.

So although I own every album she's released up to this point (anyone want to buy "The Look of Love" off me?), I'm hesitant to get this new one, for fear it's more of the same. Reading the reviews at Amazon, though, it seems she's doing something different. This time, she's covering a lot of pop songs and playing a lot of originals. In the past, she's stuck pretty closely to jazz standards. That seems to distress some people, but I don't mind. One of my favorite Diana songs is her (piano-heavy) cover of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" on the "Live in Paris" album. Other people seem to be concerned about a pop-ward turn in her repertoire. But as long as she stays true to her principal talents (piano and swing), I'll still be fan, no matter what songs she plays.