The first offspring of the Elvis Costello-Diana Krall marriage has recently arrived - Krall´s CD _The Girl in the Other Room_ (Verve). Lovely jazz piano + small combo, and that great voice grappling (successfully!) with Elvis´ lyrics. In between their eight new songs (her music to his lyrics), covers of Costello´s "Almost Blue", plus terrific tunes by Joni Mitchell, Moses Allison and Tom Waits. Hardly avant-anything, but classy. Moving, panoramic closer, "Departure Bay", about her first Xmas home after her mother passed away. Bound to bring a tear to the eye of the hardest cats out there (everybody´s got a mom, everybody´s got a childhood home...). For another kind of jazz, recommended reading: _Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s_, by Gerald Nachman (New York, 2003). -- Stephen Fruitman Dept of Historical Studies Umea University SE-901 87 Umea Sweden