Watching an old film clip of George Raft and Carole Lombard dancing divinely on the screen above as Diana Krall intoned the romantic refrains of “Sway” onstage was one of many fine moments at the Portsmouth Music Hall on Wednesday night.
Krall defines musical elegance in an old-fashioned way that has enthralled audiences since she first appeared on the scene more than 20 years ago. She can be contemporary but the approach to her work seems almost timeless. Multiple generations find her appealing.
Now, at 52, Krall is back on the road with an excellent band in support of her latest album, “Turn Up the Quiet.” The disc has been hailed as a return to form for the British Columbia-born singer. Its mix of jazzy standards and songs from folk and rock sources goes down smooth.
The singer sat at her piano and quickly launched into a swinging, upbeat ” ‘Deed I Do.” Following her lead on vocals and piano, her stellar band, featuring Robert Hurst on bass, Karriem Riggins on drums, Anthony Wilson on guitar and Stuart Duncan on fiddle, offered a taste of solo and ensemble moments to come in the two-hour performance.
“L-O-V-E” allowed the singer to pay homage to Nat King Cole with some piano stylings that referenced the late singer’s fleet approach to the keyboard. Krall obviously enjoys pushing the microphone away to just play piano as much as she likes to sing.
Distinctive arrangements freshened such tunes as “Blue Skies,” with some hand drumming leading the way and a turn-around phrase based on Thelonious Monk’s “In Walked Bud” adding spice.
“Night and Day,” was given a slow samba feel, while Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Quiet Nights” lived up to its title with a dreamily slow rhythm enhanced by delicate acoustic work from Wilson. Employing an array of guitars during the evening, the Krall band veteran was a major instrumental voice throughout. Wilson’s trading of solos with the equally fast-fingered Duncan drew hearty applause.
With a touch more low-end on the vocals adding to her trademark way of establishing musical intimacy, Krall offered a solo take on Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,” filling the venerable hall with a personalized romanticism that stopped time for a bit.
Those looking for an earthier approach got that with the singer’s take on Tom Waits’ “Temptation.” Under red spotlighting, Krall and company ventured into much more prosaic realms of attraction. Both Wilson and Duncan offered edgy, turned-up solos as the singer growled out the stakes in the late-night musical world they created. An instrumental quote from the Beatles’ “He’s So Heavy” helped to further ground this dark rumble of a number.
Krall created a small running joke between songs about not personally meeting many of the long-gone composers she favors – Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, for example. By way of introducing her first encore, she acknowledged that she had met the next songwriter. By the time she gave his name, savvy fans in the crowd had already picked up on the fact that “Almost Blue” was a song written by her husband, Elvis Costello.
A touching take on Bob Dylan’s “Wallflower” and a rollicking version of The Band’s “Ophelia” kept company with a hard swinging “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” to finish off an evening that once again confirmed Diana Krall as a singular artist.
Steve Feeney is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.
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