Just For Now

Irene Kral | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 15, 2004)
• Original Release Date: May 15, 2004
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Jazzed Media
• ASIN: B00027150U
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #285,327 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Recorded live in 1975 and unreleased until now, this moving session by jazz singer Irene Kral offers up some of her most heartfelt renditions of many tunes associated with Irene over the years, plus a few surprises not recorded before. This wonderful live recording was performed at The Catamaran Hotel in San Diego, California and features Irene Kral with Mike Wofford on piano, Bob Magnusson on bass, and Tony Morillo on drums. "Yet she remained an insider’s favorite. Singing in a clear, diamond-hard voice, she offered a dose of the truth: love stories with no lacey trimmings, torch songs without self-pity, impeccably sculpted into neat vocal packages. Stereo Review critic Peter Reilly would call her singing "as classically pure and humanly radiant as a Renoir painting ... as fine and lasting as an Hermès wallet or a Rolls-Royce car." "But in 1975, when she made the splendid live recording you now hold, Kral was a Van Nuys housewife in the midst of a grueling battle with cancer." "But when Kral died at forty-six on August 15, 1978, no one could say she hadn’t fulfilled her musical promise. This CD, culled from four performances at the Catamaran, a San Diego jazz spot, is Irene Kral at her peak." -James Gavin, New York City, 2003 [James Gavin is the author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, published in 2002 by Knopf.]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Is What Singing Is All About, July 10, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Just For Now (Audio CD)

This excellent live recording is a recently discovered buried treasure captured in 1975 when Irene was at the peak of her fine form. While her forte was the ballad, of which there are several definitive renderings on this CD (check out "Just For Now" and "The Meaning Of The Blues"), she also demonstrates that she could swing with the best of them ("Experiment, Wheelers And Dealers"). The true beauty of Irene's singing is that she could squeeze every drop of emotion out of a song that the composer intended without butchering it like so many singers do today. Irene was a musician, her instrument her voice, and on that instrument she was a virtuoso. Let's hope that this recording, among others by Irene, continues to light the path for singers of tomorrow.