The Girl in the Other Room [Hybrid SACD, SACD]

I always thought that Diana Krall was nice to listen to, but with nothingextra that made me buy any records of her. That was until I saw and heardher Live in Paris DVD, where the Canadian singer stepped out from theformer slick and almost icy approach and delivered that extra. Suddenlyyou could feel the warmth in her voice, her ultra sensual charisma camethrough with full force - I was hooked. Still feel though that her albumsare too polished for my taste, I stick with the fantastic live DVD.
Now Mrs Krall has made a studio album that connects to the feeling on theLive DVD. The musical setting is much more intimate than on her previousalbums. Basically you have one tight band, where the two most impressivemusicians to my ears are Anthony Wilson on guitar and Christian McBride onbass. Diana Krall herself sings like a goddess and plays a very goodpiano. The songs are a mix of jazz, blues and pop, with a more rootsyfeeling than her usual repertoire. There are also a mixture of covers andoriginal songs. The originals are all written by Diana Krall and ElvisCostello, though Costello has only contributed to the music on themajestic title track, otherwise he has stuck to the words. There is anatural flow to the song sequence on the album and the originals stand upvery good to the covers.
There are in my opinion no weak songs on the album, and my favourites(today) are the title track (Krall/Costello) and Temptation (TomWaits).
Audiowise the album is very good recorded and produced. The SACD layeradds that extra HiFi dimension with crispy treble and a deep and tightbass. But the real winner here is clearly the multichannel mix. Diana'svocal is placed in the front channels and center and all instruments arespread in all channels in a rather aggressive but still very tasteful way.In my opinion a perfect 5.1 mix, compared to i.e. Norah Jones Come awaywith Me which has a very wimpy 5.1 mix. The only negative to say about thesound quality is that from time to time you can hear some harschness tothe s-sounds.
Highly recommendable!!

i did have this album on normal cd and was very happy with it, but when i saw a sacd version i just had to get it, and boy what a difference. diana kralls skills on her piano are all there along with the rest of her talented ensemble, it really is a beautiful album not one single duffer song on it, i just love playing it as christian Mcbrides double bass really brings the joy of jazz with his skill, very highly reccomended.

Just to start by saying that SACD and DVD audio in 5.1 surround just take Krall to another Level, a huge difference in sound, emotion and musical experience, I should think greater than the move from mono to stereo ! (If that is , you have some half decent equipment, which is quite important).

This Album scores 5 stars on Sound Quality on the 5.1 mix, only because the recording is so good, and only for that reason. I will forgive the few minor issues, which would have normally dropped the rating slightly.

The first 4 tracks are excellent, track 4 Temptation is great, tracks 5/6/7/8 drop off slightly in the middle, then picking up again with an awesome track 9, from there the tracks just level off to the end.

If there were enough half decent SACD/DVDa (5.1) discs around I could be more critical, but there are not, so the only issue I have with this (and its pretty serious for the music engineers) is that on quite a few of the tracks they have place some of the instruments BEHIND THE LISTENER. This almost suggests that the Tracks were not recorded as a 5.1 mix. Maybe their cheap way of selling multichannel is to split a recording up into front and rear channels, ............not quite the spirit !

Its really wierd at first when you have Krall singing at you from the front, and a guitar playing right behind your head ! Takes some getting use to.

However not forgiving this at all, I would still say that the SACD was worth the money for tracks 4 and 9 ALONE!!! Everything else is a bonus.. If you have some serious equipment, turn the sound up on these two, and they will take you away !

Love Scenes in DVDa is a SUPERB recording (and recorded correctly), and the Live in Paris DVD is just amazing considering you get both the concert and a DTS 5.1 track which is extrememly good. These two are not to be missed !

Sorry, I have given up on normal audio CDs now ! Just do not compare !