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Elvis Costello has always marched to the beat of his own drummer -- and on this outing, that percussionist is hitting the skins with a jazzy touch and a feathery brush. It'd be easy to pin that stylistic shift on Costello's recent romantic linking with jazz singer Diana Krall, but from 1981's Almost Blue to his 1996 collaboration with Burt Bacharach, Painted from Memory, Costello's catalogue is peppered with conceptual experiments. North, which teams the singer with longtime partner Steve Nieve (the only accompanist on the lovely "You Turned to Me") and a wide array of jazz reedmen, is orchestrated in the mode of a classic Nat King Cole disc, unfailingly sweet but not sticky enough to be cloying. At its onset, the disc threatens to swamp the listener in blue notes (and blue moods), thanks to a passel of tunes that seem to refer, however indirectly, to the breakup of Costello's marriage to onetime Pogue Cait O'Riordan. Those dusky tunes -- particularly "Someone Took the Words Away," which features a smoky alto sax solo from Lee Konitz -- give way to glimmers of emotional sunlight at the disc's midway point. The light bounce of "When It Sings" finds Costello treading as close as he's ever come to the utterly guileless, a state that suits the perpetual cynic surprisingly well.
Condition:NEW. Punched upc
TRACK LISTINGS
Disc 1
1 You Left Me in the Dark 3:26
2 Someone Took the Words Away 4:35
3 When Did I Stop Dreaming? 5:22
4 You Turned to Me 2:32
5 Fallen 3:12
6 When It Sings 3:58
7 Still 2:27
8 Let Me Tell You About Her 4:23
9 Can You Be True? 3:45
10 When Green Eyes Turn Blue 4:17
11 I'm in the Mood Again 2:34
Disc 2
1 [DVD]
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