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Diana Krall knocks out Massey Hall with a show that is a unique work of art.

With her lioness mane of blond hair and that gait of hers that’s part seductive slink and part confrontational swagger, Diana Krall holds the house in thrall.

Diana Krall, I love you.

Perhaps that’s not the height of detached criticism, but it’s the way I felt after attending the first of Krall’s two Toronto performances on Thursday night at Massey Hall and I’m sure most of the audience felt the same.

This is no ordinary “sit at the piano and plunk out some tunes” kind of evening. Far from it. The show is called the Glad Rag Doll Tour, in honour of the 1920s song that gave its title to Krall’s latest album.

The milieu of the Ziegfeld Follies, its tragic beauties and a world that was going to spin so fast that it would crash right into a depression has inspired Krall in more than her tunestack and the plangent quality of her voice.

With the help of designers Colleen Atwood and Mark Seliger, she’s given us a whole world, of swag draperies, twinkling lights, moody shadows and fading romance.

An eccentric but wonderful choice of silent film clips accompany every song, sometimes underlining the theme, sometimes providing a contrapuntal note that’s contradictory, but not dissonant.

Krall herself has been liberated by this music. She’s more relaxed, more personable, more absolutely accessible than I’ve ever seen her. With her lioness mane of blond hair and that gait of hers that’s part seductive slink and part confrontational swagger, she manages to hold the house in thrall. Rhymes with Krall.

The casual bravura with which she slides from a rousing bit of barrelhouse blues to some tasty jazz filigree is a reminder of what an accomplished keyboard virtuoso she is. She turns down a request to sing “Over the Rainbow” by flipping her fingers in a Zez Confrey frenzy to deliver the Wicked Witch’s Theme music instead.

Wit, style and just a bit of attitude. Nice.

The piano skills remain impressive, but this time around you’re likely to notice her voice even more.

There are layers of flavour in that vocal delivery. Sip through the whipped cream into the hot chocolate and past that to discover the dark rum underneath.

That’s what Krall delivers in a song like “Cry Me a River,” making a three-minute chanson into a three-act drama.

I particularly cherished her trio of “thoroughfare” songs: “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “Lonely Avenue” and “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” Each one had a distinctive sound, an emotional resonance and the dramatic flare to take us on a mini-musical journey.

“Boulevard,” in particular, was a knockout. Watching a film clip of George Raft and Carole Lombard doing the tango while the lights above glowed indigo and Krall blazed from within, made for an image not to be forgotten.

Her five sidemen played with uncommon skill and she thanked them generously and often. But the major thanks for the evening should go to Krall, who took things just that one extra step that makes a good performer a great one.

The show she’s presenting at Massey Hall is a unique work of art and you have only one more night to see it. I’d make the journey.

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/02/22/di ... ronto-show

Diana Krall at ease during Toronto show

Five little words set hearts aflutter - okay, maybe just mine - on Thursday night at Diana Krall’s first of two shows at Massey Hall: “Elvis is in the building.”

And while Krall didn’t actually use that phrase about British musician hubby Elvis Costello, she did mention towards the end of her show, just shy of two hours, that he was at the concert and their six-year-old twin boys were also in Toronto.

They had all gone to see the dinosaur exhibit at the ROM.

The 48-year-old jazz singer-pianist from Nanaimo, B.C., seemed thrilled about the reunion and family ties were a major theme of the evening for Krall, currently touring Canada in support of her Juno-nominated new album Glad Rag Doll, with a very personal and playful show.

It’s definitely the most relaxed that I've ever seen Krall, who was chatty to the extreme - “stop talking,” she said to herself a couple of times - saying later she was nervous with many friends and teachers from her past in the crowd.

Certainly, her cinematic stage setup was eye-catching - evoking the vaudeville era that Glad Rag Doll was largely inspired by - with burgundy curtains, starry white lights, gold clamshell lights, a large crescent moon, and a screen onto which black and white movies by such greats as Georges Méliès and Fritz Lang, old burlesque films and cartoons, and even a clip from British TV show The Thunderbirds, were shown all night long.

Some might say that Krall and her five amazing backup musicians - with special mention of guitar shredder Aram Bajakian and bluegrass fiddler Stuart Duncan - didn’t need the distraction but I thought it added to the overall atmosphere.

Even home movies of Krall’s family and her beloved Vancouver Island made the cut and one of her father’s old record players was set up on the stage, which the singer cranked up right after the show ended.

There was also a standup piano, with its own lights and a sliding stained glass windows that revealed a mini-bar, that Krall took a brief turn on alone to play audience requests - Peel Me A Grape, Cry Me A River and Glad Rag Doll’s title track. She mentioned the moment was a throwback to the days of her first professional gig, when she was 15 years old and playing piano and taking requests in the Nanaimo bar, The NHL, and to prove it she played the Hockey Night In Canada theme briefly.

Despite all of that promise, the evening began somewhat oddly with an overture film featuring Steve Buscemi of Boardwalk Empire fame as a vaudeville barker before Krall came out in darkness to play the opening number, When The Curtain Comes Down, before she was fully lit for the followup, We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye.

By the third song, There Ain’t No Sweet Man Worth The Salt Of My Tears, Krall and co. had settled into a solid groove with guitarist Bajakian working his magic in the first of many electrifying moments to come.

Krall’s smoky contralto worked better on some songs than others, including Just Like A Butterfly That’s Caught In The Rain, the gospel-ish Let It Rain, and her children’s favourite, Prairie Lullaby.

But some genuine surprisingly highlights were of the more contemporary variety like Tom Waits’ piano pounder Temptation, Bob Dylan’s A Simple Twist of Fate, Buddy and Julie Miller’s Wide River To Cross, and The Band’s Ophelia.

However, you feel about her recent move left of what has been, until now, a pretty steady jazz centre for the last two decades, Krall seems to be having the time of her life up on stage right now.

Better late than never, I say.

SET LIST

When The Curtain Comes Down
We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye
There Ain’t No Sweet Man Worth The Salt Of My Tears
Just Like A Butterfly That’s Caught In The Rain
Everything’s Made For Love
Let It Rain
Temptation
Peel A Grape
Cry Me A River
Glad Rag Doll
Write Myself A Letter
Simple Twist of Fate
On The Sunny Side Of The Street
Lonely Avenue
Wide River To Cross
Just You, Just Me
Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
I’m A Little Mixed Up

ENCORE:

Take It With Me
Ophelia
Prairie Lullaby