Diana Krall has a good voice and plays decent piano, but this somewhat ridiculously packaged Verve CD seems like an obvious attempt to turn her into a pop icon, and sex symbol to boot. The bland arrangements by Claus Ogerman (who conducts the London Symphony Orchestra or the Los Angeles Session Orchestra on each track) border on easy listening, while Krall and her various supporting musicians, including John Pisano, Russell Malone, Christian McBride, and Peter Erskine (among others), clearly seem stifled by their respective roles. There are plenty of strong compositions here, including standards like "I Remember You," "The Night We Called It a Day," and "I Get Along Without You Very Well," but the unimaginative and often syrupy charts take their toll on the performances. What is even sillier is the label's insistence on attempting to photograph the artist in various sultry poses, which she evidently wants to discourage by refusing to provide much of a smile (the rumor is that she's not happy with this part of the business at all). If you are looking for unchallenging background music, this will fit the bill, but jazz fans are advised to check out Krall's earlier releases instead.© Ken Dryden /TiVo

The popularity of thematic albums has led violinist Lisa Batiashvili and her publisher Deutsche Grammophon to group together three masterpieces which relate in some way to literature that falls under the broad label of “Secret Love Letters”.Presented as a blend of chamber and symphonic music, this recording offers a wonderfully romantic version of César Franck’s celebrated Sonata in A major, which may have served as a basis for Marcel Proust’s Vinteuil sonata. With the help of incredible young Georgian pianist Giorgi Gigashvili, Lisa Batiashvili offers an interpretation that is simultaneously fiery, poetic and dreamy. The two musicians take their time, stretching out the phrases in perfect complicity. The violin is breathtaking; this is art in the truest sense of the word.This sumptuous sound can be heard again later when the Philadelphia Orchestra (conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin) casts the magical spells hidden within Karol Szymanowski’s Premier Concerto, Op. 35. Inspired by a long poem by Tadeusz Miciński, this unique work (which is a “concerto” in name only) rustles with the sounds of nature and possesses a burning eroticism. It also has a sonic outlook which is often reminiscent of Stravinski’s The Firebird.Ernest Chausson’s admirable Poème pour violon seals the sincere friendship between the French composer and the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. Far from slavishly illustrating Turgenev’s short story on which he based his work, Le Chant de l’amour triumphant expresses the mysterious and noble side of the tale.Lisa Batiashvili and Giorgi Gigashvili also offer Claude Debussy’s very first melody, Beau Soir, as an encore, using the arrangement once created by Jascha Heifetz. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Based on Sinéad O'Connor's version of "You Do Something to Me" (a highlight on the Red Hot + Blue album), an album of pop standards performed with a big band might have actually worked. At times, such as on "Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home" and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," Am I Not Your Girl? does work. However, O'Connor runs into trouble with acknowledged standards and songs heavily identified with other vocalists. She doesn't offer a new perspective on these songs, and her airy voice is buried by overwrought string arrangements. Plus, there's O'Connor's bizarre two-minute rant on love, hatred, herself, and the Catholic Church. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Repeating their treatment of California country music icons Merle Haggard and Buck Owens on 2013's Bakersfield, singer and guitarist Vince Gill and pedal steel player Paul Franklin now pay eloquent tribute to Ray Price. Born in Texas with a passionate baritone voice, Price was a huge presence in country music by the early 1970s. Along the way he roomed with Hank Williams and led a band, The Cherokee Cowboys, that became a launching pad for talents like Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck and Roger Miller. On Sweet Memories: The Music Of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys, Gill decided to avoid Price's best-known hits like "City Lights," "Crazy Arms," and "For the Good Times" in favor of deeper tracks. Bereft country weepers were a Price specialty, and the opener "One More Time," sets the tone as the narrator inevitably tries and fails to do right: "And I make a vow each time you leave that this will draw the line/ Then you come back and just like now I'm falling one more time." At the heart of Sweet Memories is the always amazing instrument that is Vince Gill's voice. Debuting with Pure Prairie League in 1979, Gill spent time with Rodney Crowell's Cherry Bombs and Emmylou Harris's Hot Band before going solo. A triple threat who besides his pure high tenor voice is also a virtuoso guitar player and an accomplished songwriter, Gill has won 21 Grammy Awards and over the last several decades has become one of the most respected elders in the genre. With a band that includes Stuart Duncan on fiddle, John Jarvis on piano and Andrea Zonn on harmony vocals, Gill shows off his lesser-heard lower range on "You Wouldn't Know Love" as Frankin's pedal steel weeps behind them. While a rendition of "Danny Boy"—the Irish lament that became one of Price's signature hits in 1967—predictably becomes a Gill vocal showpiece, it's the title track that provides this set's most moving moments. Written by fellow Texan Mickey Newbury and recorded by Price in 1971, this version soars with Gill singing his own harmonies and includes low-key but imaginative solos by both principals. Another high-class look back from a current country hero with a welcome passion for the music's glorious past.  © Robert Baird/Qobuz

As a singer and songwriter, Carla Bruni usually follows the labyrinthine tracks in French music established by artists such as Georges Brassens, Jane Birkin, and Pierre Barouh. Therefore, cutting a collection of standards from rock, pop, and jazz might seem out of character. The songs on French Touch are those Bruni sang and played on the guitar between the ages of nine and 29. The album was initiated by Grammy-winning producer, arranger (and then-head of Verve Records) David Foster. He was knocked out by a Bruni performance in Los Angeles and offered to produce an album. She is accompanied by her regular band and a slew of studio aces including drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist Dean Parks, and harmonica ace Mickey Raphael -- who appears on a lovely, Caribbean-inspired version of "Crazy" that also features its composer, Willie Nelson in duet.While these readings are intimate, they are imbued without nostalgia or artifice. Foster arranges these songs according to Bruni's particular needs as a singer: her breathy contralto, though always intimate and tender, is surprisingly expressive in the English language. She opens with a moody yet sparse read of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" as a poignant ballad with Cyril Barbessol's ghostly piano, minimal percussion, strings, and nylon-string and slide guitars. Bruni follows with reading of the Clash's "Jimmy Jazz," complete with fingerpops and Fats Waller-esque piano, muted trumpet, and clarinet derived from early-'30s jazz. The Rolling Stones' "Miss You" is viewed through the Barry White and Love Unlimited production aesthetic, with strings swirling atop the airy, funky disco backbeat, hand percussion, and nylon-string guitar. ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All" is delivered sincerely, but its string-drenched chart is twee and forgettable. The reinvention of "Highway to Hell" as a slippery jazz-inflected blues is anything but, with its swinging horns, electric piano, and bumping bassline. The gorgeous cabaret-tinged reading of Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" is imbued with a flawless balance of innocent longing and moody introspection. It's followed -- with a nod and a wink given to her husband Nicolas Sarkozy's difficulties during his time as France's president -- by a too-sweet "Stand by Your Man" that weds Cafe Saravah's nouveau chanson breeziness, upscale honky tonk, and smooth pop. Bruni closes the set with two gorgeous American pop standards: "Please Don't Kiss Me" is modeled directly on Rita Hayworth's version from the 1947 film The Lady from Shanghai. It's juxtaposed with Johnny Mercer's "Moon River," rendered without any of the stylistic artifice of the great pop stylists. Bruni's version is modeled on Audrey Hepburn's singing of it in Breakfast at Tiffany's alone on a windowsill. Though buoyed by an elegant yet economic use of strings, it nonetheless recollects that iconic silver screen moment. The songs on French Touch are idiosyncratic and free of drama. But they are chock-full of tenderness; Bruni delivers them with keen insight into the lyric meanings these melodies convey.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

After releasing two excellent -- but very different -- records in 2017, Samantha Fish spent the last year undergoing some changes. She moved to New Orleans and left her longtime label Ruf Records for Rounder. The guitar slinger has always stretched herself musically. For years she soaked up examples imparted by mentors in her twin pursuits as a guitarist and bandleader, transforming what worked in her own image -- she remade the blues that way too. On Kill or Be Kind it's the worthy ambition to become a better songwriter. Not content to pen rhyming couplets to frame blistering solos and riffs, she has, since Belle of the West, sought the place where melody lives. Fish and Grammy-winning producer Scott Billington sought out top-notch co-writers to collaborate on the album. Jim McCormick returns for four songs. Kate Pearlman and Eric McFadden who usually write for country and pop artists are also here with Oklahoma roots rocker Parker Milsap and Ohio bluesman Patrick Sweeney. Fish cut the record in New Orleans and in Memphis.Love is the theme on this album. It's everywhere. So are the many changes that go along with having it, losing it, and abandoning it. Fish runs the blues voodoo down on the squalling slide opener "Bulletproof" with noisy, howling production that weds Billy Gibbons' nasty distorto-boogie to Tom Waits racket-making musicality. Immediately following, the title track's swampy Rhodes piano, organ, and roiling horns meet her incendiary vocal and a loose backbeat. "Watch It Die" is smoking blues-rock with killer lyric poetry. The words get rung out with a passionate vocal that matches Fish's wrangling slide guitar and punchy horns. "Fair Weather" weds gentle rock to R&B in a deep ballad about the aftermath of a broken romance. "Love Your Lies" pops out of the box with a '60s girl group vibe; testifying Memphis horns and Fish's guitar cook it down on the backbeat. Its hook is irresistible. The whomping tom-toms that introduce "Dream Girl" frame Americana pulled taut between desire and disappointment: "If I could give up the happy ever after/I'd be gone…." The guitar break is short and spare, yet it underscores all the emotion the lyrics convey. "She Don't Live Around Here Anymore," is sweet yet deeply sad soul. In the grain of Fish's voice lies a vulnerable tenderness that's held in check by the wisdom in her shattered heart. The bluesy R&B in "Dirty" underscores the dark, hurtful, ravenous side of love and names it unreservedly. Closer "You Got It Bad," is revved-up, gritty soul-blues where horns and Wurlitzer frame Fish's snarling slide and searing vocal. The cut sends the album off on a cautionary note that's as much a confession in a cracked mirror as an affirmation of love's redemptive and destructive power. Kill or Be Kind is a watermark for Fish. Her writing, singing, and playing all serve the truth of what she seeks here: the heart of song.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

The undisputed king of delivering covers that are both personal and elegant in equal measure (take As Time Goes By in 1999 and The Jazz Age in 2012), Bryan Ferry is back with an EP in which he pays tribute to all his favourite love songs. It opens with the haunting Love Letters, which was originally written by jazz and soul singer Ketty Lester—who was also known for playing the role of Hester-Sue Terhune in Little House on the Prairie. Maintaining the same subtly modernised sound, it continues with a tribute to one of his favourite duos, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, who wrote the track I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself (popularised by Dusty Springfield in 1964). The former Roxy Music frontman delivers an incredible interpretation of this classic song that’s draped in melancholy and nostalgia. This almost ghostly EP concludes with a jump through time: Fooled Around And Fell In Love written by Elvin Bishop in the 1970s and The Very Thought Of You, a jazz classic first recorded in 1934. The latter is without doubt the highlight of Love Letters and is sure to remind some listeners of These Foolish Things, a track originating from the Tin Pan Alley collective that Bryan Ferry uncovered in 1973. By mixing retro sounds with a modern touch (something he even manages to do with his vocals), he’s really cemented his place as one of the most original and creative cover artists. ©Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

Given the critical and commercial success of The English Riviera, Metronomy could have easily spent another album or two expanding on its polished, erudite pop. However, they're too mercurial a band to do the obvious thing. On Love Letters, they abandon their previous album's sleek precision for fuzzy analog charm. Metronomy recorded the album at London's Toe Rag studio, a fixture of British indie rock, and Joe Mount and company imbue these songs with the room's warmth and intimacy. Musically and emotionally, Love Letters is rawer than what came before it, trading breezy synth pop for insistent psych-rock and soul influences. The main carryover from The English Riviera is the increasing sophistication, and melancholy, in Mount's songwriting. Previously, his best songs were playful and ever so slightly emotional; on Love Letters, he flips this formula, penning songs filled with lost love, regrets, and just enough wit to sting. The album opens with three striking portraits of heartbreak: "The Upsetter" equals its distance with its urgency, capping it all with an achingly gorgeous guitar solo. "I'm Aquarius" traces the fallout of a star-crossed relationship impressionistically, with girl group-style "shoop doop"s almost overpowering Mount's reasons why it didn't work ("you're a novice/I'm a tourist"), as if memories of his ex crowd out everything else. "Monstrous" turns Metronomy's signature jaunty keyboards Baroque and paranoid, with a doomy organ that closes in when Mount sings "hold on tight to everything you love," and a counterpoint that captures the way loneliness and heartbreak circle each other. These songs set the stage perfectly for the desperate romance of "Love Letters" itself, which updates punchy, late-'60s Motown drama so well that it's easy to imagine the Four Tops singing it. Here and on "Month of Sundays"'s acid rock vistas, Metronomy's nods to the past feel more like footnotes than following too closely in anyone's footsteps. However, they sound more comfortable with their own quirks as well, giving more muscle to "Boy Racers" than their previous instrumentals, and more depth to "Reservoir," which is the closest it gets to a typical Metronomy song (if there is such a thing anymore). Confessional and insular, Love Letters is the work of a band willing to take pop success on their own terms and reveal a different -- but just as appealing -- side of their artistry in the process.© Heather Phares /TiVo

On this prime collection of R&B and blues songs and influences from Boz Scaggs' youth -- and four new yet classic-sounding self-penned originals -- the blue-eyed soulman eschews the slick production values of his pop chart-toppers such as "Lido" and "Lowdown," instead getting way down and his hands dirty with the honest blood, sweat, and tears of the real down-home blues. Packing in tow drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist Fred Tackett (from Little Feat), and slow-burning, soulful horn arrangements by Willie Mitchell, one of the founding fathers of Memphis soul (and composer of Come On Home's title track), Scaggs' covers of songs originally composed and performed by such legends as Jimmy Reed ("Found Love"), T-Bone Walker (the legendary "T-Bone Shuffle"), Sonny Boy Williamson ("Early in the Morning") and Bobby "Blue" Bland (the thunderous "Ask Me 'Bout Nothing (But the Blues)"), along with "It All Went Down the Drain" (Earl King), and the smoldering "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)" (David Porter with Isaac Hayes), are absolutely impossible to resist. Come On Home is a genuine musical treasure.© Chris Slawecki /TiVo

On this prime collection of R&B and blues songs and influences from Boz Scaggs' youth -- and four new yet classic-sounding self-penned originals -- the blue-eyed soulman eschews the slick production values of his pop chart-toppers such as "Lido" and "Lowdown," instead getting way down and his hands dirty with the honest blood, sweat, and tears of the real down-home blues. Packing in tow drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist Fred Tackett (from Little Feat), and slow-burning, soulful horn arrangements by Willie Mitchell, one of the founding fathers of Memphis soul (and composer of Come On Home's title track), Scaggs' covers of songs originally composed and performed by such legends as Jimmy Reed ("Found Love"), T-Bone Walker (the legendary "T-Bone Shuffle"), Sonny Boy Williamson ("Early in the Morning") and Bobby "Blue" Bland (the thunderous "Ask Me 'Bout Nothing (But the Blues)"), along with "It All Went Down the Drain" (Earl King), and the smoldering "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)" (David Porter with Isaac Hayes), are absolutely impossible to resist. Come On Home is a genuine musical treasure.© Chris Slawecki /TiVo

At the beginning of the ‘80s, Green On Red (a group that emerged out of the Paisley Underground scene) rehabilitated the most rebellious country music. A few years later, other American indie rock groups enjoyed reviving the flame of this plague-stricken genre. Filtered over time and with a lo-fi aesthetic, this alternative country mixes the heritage of Gram Parsons with the Flying Burrito Brothers, Neil Young, the Byrds from their Sweetheart Of The Rodeo period and the Rolling Stones from Exile On Main Street. Led by Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, Uncle Tupelo affirm themselves as one of the most gifted representatives of the genre. But the duo split, with Farrar leaving to found Son Volt and Tweedy heading off down the Wilco path. With A.M., the first shining album from his new combo which appeared in 1995, the songwriter from Illinois confirmed his talent in the art of fusing all his roots influences from the past by giving them a sound that’s considerably rougher and more contemporary. Above all, Jeff Tweedy writes with a pen made of hardened steel. It follows that compositions such as I Must Be High, Casino Queen, Box Full Of Letters and Passenger Side are quick to forget their heavy influences (Stones, Parsons, Young…) and underline the talent of the gentleman. As well as the original album, this remastered Deluxe Edition offers eight bonus unpublished tracks such as first versions of Outtasite (Outta Mind) and When You Find Trouble, in fact being the last studio recording for Uncle Tupelo. © MZ/Qobuz

This is a typically excellent recording from the husband-wife team of tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine and organist Shirley Scott. With assistance from guitarist Kenny Burrell, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and drummer Otis Finch, Turrentine (who always had the skill of playing melodies fairly straight but with his own brand of soul) and Scott dig into "Love Letters," Lloyd Price's "Trouble," "Something Happens to Me," a couple of basic originals, and "Goin' Home." The Turrentine-Scott team never made an unworthy disc; all are easily recommended, including this one.© Scott Yanow /TiVo

Uncle Tupelo played their final show on May 1, 1994, and little more than a month later, the band's final lineup, minus co-founder Jay Farrar, was cutting an album under the name Wilco. The group's transition happened so quickly that frontman Jeff Tweedy hadn't even found a new lead guitarist when they set up in the studio -- Brian Henneman from the Bottle Rockets was drafted to play on the band's first sessions. Given all this, it should come as no surprise that Wilco's debut LP, 1995's A.M., is by far the one with the closest resemblance to Uncle Tupelo. The attack sounds more than a bit like the twangy roar of UT's final album, 1993's Anodyne, albeit with a brighter and better detailed mix, and many of the songs recall the melodic style of Tweedy's contributions to the former incarnation of the band. And Henneman's soloing serves a similar function to Jay Farrar's Neil Young-inspired leads in Uncle Tupelo, even if Henneman's playing has a leaner personality of its own. But stripped of the dour tone Farrar brought to the band and the occasionally strained seriousness of his outlook, A.M. sounds like this band is having a blast in a way they never had before. It's all but impossible to imagine Uncle Tupelo kicking up their heels with numbers like "I Must Be High," "Casino Queen," or "Box Full of Letters," and the interplay between the musicians -- Henneman on guitar, Tweedy on vocals and guitar, John Stirratt on bass, Ken Coomer on drums, and Max Johnson on banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and Dobro -- feels playful and easygoing, even on sorrowful tunes like "I Thought I Held You" and "Should've Been in Love." And while Tweedy was still finding a more individual voice as a songwriter, "Dash 7" and "Too Far Apart" contain echoes of the sort of music Wilco would be making a few years later. A.M. beat Trace, the first album from Jay Farrar's Son Volt, into record shops by six months, but in the minds of many alt-country fans, Tweedy's album was the weaker effort. However, viewed in the context of Wilco's catalog more than 20 years on, A.M. sounds like the point where Jeff Tweedy and his collaborators let go of Uncle Tupelo and took a bold, smart step into their future.© Mark Deming /TiVo

Elvis Presley’s legendary 1970 marathon sessions in Nashville are among the King’s last shining moments. The sessions would notably lead to albums like Elvis: That’s the Way It is, Elvis Country (I’m 10,000 Years Old) and Love Letters from Elvis but would also mark the advent of a pop-sounding country rock which influenced numerous wannabe-cowboys (a style which would nevertheless fizzle out before the end of the 70s). For the session’s 50th anniversary, the songs are all reunited in a never-before-heard unaltered version that omits layers of overdubbing and supplementary orchestrations. Matt Ross-Spring (who has worked with John Prine, Jason Isbell and Margo Price) provides a radiant mixing here. Some rarities and previously unreleased material like the covers of Willie Nelson’s Funny How Time Slips Away and Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water are including as an additional bonus. Here is an Elvis on the rise once again after his marvellous 1968 Comeback Special and the masterpiece From Elvis in Memphis released the year later… In the famous studio B of Nashville’s RCA studios (which was all-familiar to Presley) for five days in June  (an additional session took place on the 22nd of September), the King is surrounded by multi-instrumentalist Charlie McCoy, bassist Norbert Putnam, pianist David Briggs, and his legendary stage guitarist James Burton (and his demonic solo on I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water !) and former Muscle Shoals member Eddie Hinton. In short, the band are loyal virtuosos and five-star session men who bring a great sense of confidence to the record as they magnify the King’s great voice. These marathon sessions mix country songs with rock and a dash of soul. All compositions are chosen by Elvis himself. Live in the studio, his singing is godlike, and Ross-Spring’s flawless mixing brings a sense of modernity to the general sound of these seances. There’s no need to be an expert on the King to appreciate the value of these 4 and a half hours of lively and pure music. An essential. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz