Diana Krall: Live in Rio

[davcole]

I have to admit that I don't know a lot about Diana Krall. I know she's been a very popular jazz artist over the years, I know she's had a few concert DVD's and judging by the photos of her, she's pretty damn hot!

Well I decided to Netflix this concert and here's a few randoms:

OMG... who told her she can sing? Oh my goodness, how do you take Jobim standards like Corcavado and Girl from Ipanema and sing them tone deaf? It was disgraceful!! I'm sorry but whoever told Diana she could sing was lying to her! The only songs I felt she sang well were the Nat King Cole songs she covered. I am sorry but she seemed as if she were sleepwalking throughout much of the set. No stage presence at all. On the good side, the girl can play!!

I have to give it to Diana, she really is a talented pianist and she's best at straight ahead jazz. Her technique is faultless and she's equally adept playing with both hands (many aren't) and she's versatile in different forms of music, be it the jazz or the samba.

Oh yeah, she's still hot!

As for the disc, I have to say the following:

This is not a pretty looking disc. There is lots of low level video noise throughout much of the film. While the close ups on stage look nice, the medium and long shots look pretty terrible given the video noise. They either needed better cameras or better lighting cause this just didn't work. On the good side, it doesn't have any softness and very much looks HD.

The audio is where this disc shines. This is the disc quality the Chris Botti- Live with the Boston Pops should have been. Very dynamic and wide ranging. Clarity of the instruments and the resonance was perfect. You could make out every detail of each musician (minus one caveat) the guitar, piano, drums, acoustic bass and orchestra came through perfectly. The only downgrade I can give the mix is that sometimes percussionist Paulinho da Costa was a bit far back in the mix. I'd count this as one of the finer concert audio mixes i've heard.