Dayna Kurtz- Beautiful Yesterday Pretty, but not startling * * *

Maybe it was made too quickly, the follow up to Postcards from Downtown. Once again Dayna brings out gorgeous songs, independent, powerful and full of meloncholy. Her urgent delivery still keeps your attention, the sound of her acoustic guitar springs angrily into your ears, and as if that was not enough, there is now the third element introduced, a jazz trumpet and piano by the (salon-like) Norah Jones. She coos along, (credibly?) a bit on I Got It Bad. Yes, an Ellington cover. Three quarters of the numbers are covers. And that makes this, thanks to the beautiful interpretations, an only slightly disappointing second album. We want the authentic Dayna numbers! We want her to wring her talent out to the last drop, captured in autobiographical texts and self-composed music. Her appearance comes at a time when the musical landscape is full of Idols idiots that are so seldom talented that it seems a sin to me but also a wee bit of a waste to record the music of other great musicians such as Prince (Joy in Repetition) or Leonard Cohen(Everybody Knows) The more covers, the few Dayna classics to choose from. This is a quality recording, certainly. But cover-translator was not the road to fame that I had envisioned for Kurtz.