THE jazz pianist and singer (and Mrs Elvis Costello) turns back to her first love after dabbling in more mainstream popular music.

This collection of 11 jazz standards is as bright and pristine as it is laid-back – occasionally reclined perhaps too much, but it’s all beautifully cool and sophisticated.

What these renditions remind you is just how good a singer Krall is: not a belting-it-out jazz singer, but a perfectly enunciating crooner whose voice seems to whisper straight into your ear.

Her piano playing is as crisply sharp as always, and shines on LOVE and comes fully to life in the closing I’ll See You In My Dreams. Opening track Like Someone To Love sees Krall singing: “Lately, I find myself gazing at stars” in wonderment, before touching romance with Isn’t It Romantic.

Night And Day is woozy with strings, while I’m Confessin’ is a playful stroll down lover’s lane. The playing is peerless throughout, and how cheering it is to hear the jazz fiddle of Stuart Duncan, especially on that closing track.

Review by Spencer Taylor