A High and Deserved Honor for Diana Krall

The most startling jazz aspect of this year’s Grammy nominations is the presence of Diana Krall’s “When I Look in Your Eyes” among the album of the year picks. It’s a rarity for a jazz album to be in this category, but if anyone deserves the attention, it’s Krall, who has clearly demonstrated the capacity to reach well beyond the jazz audience.

Among the regular jazz categories, only the vocal performance and the large ensemble performance groupings reveal some imaginative and/or high-quality choices. A vocal lineup that includes albums by Krall, Carla Cook, Etta James, Dianne Reeves and Cassandra Wilson offers some first-rate choices.

And the large ensemble selections are unusually far-reaching. Anthony Brown’s Asian American Orchestra is the most unusual inclusion. But Vince Mendoza’s and Sam Rivers’ nominations are almost equally unexpected. Bob Florence’s and Tom Harrell’s efforts are more traditional big-band albums.

The instrumental solo and the individual instrumental performance, individual or group categories, continue to be the least precise, least meaningful groupings. This year’s nominations manage--incredibly--to include two Concord label recordings, Chick Corea’s “Change” and the all-star (Corea, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Roy Haynes and Dave Holland) recording “Like Minds,” in both categories.

The contemporary album grouping is a bit more solid than usual this year, with entries from Russell Gunn, Bob James, David Sanborn, and Victor Wooten. But what in the world is trumpeter Tim Hagans’ decidedly non-contemporary effort, “Animation/Imagination,” doing in this category?