Diana Krall: Glad Rag Doll

"First, you could understand it as a nifty bit of pop archaeology: a bouquet of songs culled mostly from the ’20s and ’30s, known to Ms. Krall because of a youth spent riffling through her family’s stash of 78-r.p.m. records. ... The producer is T Bone Burnett, whom you may know from any number of other albums filed under the inexact category of Americana, notably 'Raising Sand' by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, which won a Grammy in 2009 for album of year. ... 'All the world can see behind your mask,' she sings in the title track, a song memorably recorded by Ruth Etting in 1929. Arranged as a delicate duet with the guitarist Marc Ribot, it’s the moral heart of this album, an indictment of womanly artifice that Ms. Krall has said she associates with photographs of the Ziegfeld Girls. ... But it has never been a bad idea to engage Ms. Krall’s friskier side, and it’s satisfying to hear the swagger in her phrasing on 'I’m a Little Mixed Up,' a tune originally recorded by the blues singer Betty James. On 'Prairie Lullaby,' a song forever associated with Jimmie Rodgers, she plays the cowboy angle straight, while subtly emphasizing the drowsiness in her delivery. She sounds even better on another song with country pedigree: 'Wide River to Cross,' by Buddy and Julie Miller, longtime associates of Mr. Burnett" (Nate Chinen, "New Music," New York Times, 10/1/12).

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