These Singers Face the Music Very Well Indeed

The title song in the much-awaited new album from Diana Krall is a gorgeous Leslie Bricusse ballad from the 1967 film “Dr. Dolittle.” And her capacity to find its tender inner qualities is one of the touchstones of the recording, a clear indication of Krall’s desire to take her singing beyond the light-hearted trio jazz formats that largely have dominated her work in the past. This number, along with six other tunes orchestrated by Johnny Mandel, showcases a Krall who appears focused upon evolving into a mature, versatile vocalist.

To a large extent, she has done that, although her lack of experience as a sheer vocal performer sometimes surfaces and she falls back upon the buoyant, instrumentalist-as-singer style that she executes with such dexterity. When she is good, however, she is very good, and her performance on the title number, her willingness to try something new via a sensuously slow bossa version of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” the insinuating articulation of “Do It Again,” and the intimate closeness she brings to “I’ll String Along With You” bode well for the future.

There’s plenty for fans of Krall the singing and swinging jazz vocalist-pianist as well, including her delicious take on Bob Dorough’s “Devil May Care” and a sly variation on Michael Franks’ “Popsicle Toes.” But the real fascination is the glimpse it offers of a talented artist--who would surely have a hit album either way--taking the risk of attempting to raise her game to a considerably higher level.

English singer Norma Winstone is far less known than Krall. But she is a jazz singer with admirable skills of her own, highly active and highly praised in Europe and Great Britain since the late ‘60s, and fully deserving of a wider hearing in this country. Interestingly, there are elements of her style and her sound that are reminiscent of the late Irene Kral, a singer who also had considerable influence upon Diana Krall (different spelling, no relation). But Winstone also at times--especially in her more improvisatory moments--recalls the free-flying musical adventurousness of Sheila Jordan.

That said, it should be noted that Winstone has integrated these elements into a style that is very much her own. And this collection, in which she is heard in the most intimate setting of all, performing with the sole accompaniment of pianist (and former husband) John Taylor, is a superb example of state-of-the-art, imaginative, virtually beyond-definition singing. The provocative choice of material supplements such familiar items as “Lazy Afternoon,” “Come Sunday” and “I Loves You, Porgy” with Dave Brubeck’s “Strange Meadowlark” and Winstone’s own whimsical lyrics for Steve Swallow’s “Ladies in Mercedes” and Carla Bley’s “Sing Me Softly of the Blues.”

Michael Franks has always been a favorite among jazz fans and jazz musicians. In part, the popularity traces to the rhythmic qualities of his singing style, in part to the fact that he insists upon working in a jazz setting. “Barefoot on the Beach,” his Windham Hill debut after 24 years with Warner Bros., is another collection of his catchy tunes and vocals, their effectiveness heightened by the presence of some fine players: Randy and Michael Brecker, Bob James, John Patitucci and others.

An unrelenting romantic, Franks also has a bittersweet side, often tinged by the presence of his ineffable wit. And, like all true romantics, he realizes that the dream can never be completely fulfilled, singing, in “Like Moon Behind a Cloud,” “Lady, lovely as light, you lie beside me/While I dream, but at dawn you disappear.”

Like his 1976 hit “Popsicle Toes,” the material is filled with catchy melodies and lyrics with enough twists and turns to merit frequent rehearing. No, it’s not momentous stuff, but it’s honest, swinging, witty and romantic music, and can we ever get too much of that?

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