Live In Paris

Personnel: Diana Krall (vocals, piano, Fender Rhodes piano); Alan Broadbent (conductor); Michael Brecker (tenor saxophone); Ron Mounsey (keyboards); John Pisano (acoustic guitar); Anthony Wilson (guitar); John Clayton, Christian McBride (bass); Jeff Hamilton, Lewis Nash (drums); Paulinho Da Costa (percussion); The Orchestra Symphonique European.

Recorded live at the Paris Olympia, Paris, France on November 29-30 & December 1-2, 2001 and Avatar Studios, New York, New York.

LIVE IN PARIS won the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

Diana Krall is best known as a purveyor of gently drifting ballads, with a trademark laconic delivery. Such preconceptions may be slightly nudged, if not altered, when her LIVE IN PARIS concert document kicks off with a swinging, up-tempo "I Love Being Here With You" that finds her making like Annie Ross, while also giving her top-shelf band a chance to blow. Aficionados of those aforementioned narcotized standards will soon be set to their ease however, as Krall moves slowly and deliberately through the likes of "Let's Fall in Love" and a bossa nova-tinged "I've Got You Under My Skin," her voice sailing atop a velvet sea of strings provided by Alan Broadbent and the Orchestra Symphonies European. Towards the end of the program, she turns to more modern contributors to the Great American (or in one case, Canadian) Songbook, offering a solo piano-and-vocal rendition of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" and a decidedly pop-oriented studio take on Billy Joel's ubiquitous "Just the Way You Are."