You only need to hear a few bars of Diana Krall’s new album Turn Up The Quiet to sense the joy the artist took in making this recording.

The first words Diana sings are, “Lately, I find myself out gazing at stars.” Minutes later, the same voice asks, “Isn’t It Romantic?” with such tenderness that it is hard to disagree.

“I have thought about these songs for a long time. Being in the company of some of my greatest friends in music allowed me to tell these stories just as I’d intended. Sometimes you just have to turn up the quiet to be heard a little better.”

Diana Krall is first and always a jazz pianist. This time out she is most determinedly the bandleader. She has chosen the repertoire, conceived the ensemble arrangements and gathered three distinct bands for these sessions.

Krall has always reached back into the riches of the past to animate and inhabit songs in the present moment but here on Turn Up The Quiet, she shakes any remaining dust from some of the finest leaves in that greatest of songbooks.

Themes of love and hope are to be found in her choices but this is no mere escapism. Turn Up The Quiet is the work and play of a woman in the best days and nights of her life.