In a lot of ways, jazz singer-pianist Diana Krall is an understated performer. Her show Oct. 6 at the Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts — part of her “Turn Up the Quiet” tour — was spare and stripped down to just her and her piano, and just two accompanists — bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Karriem Riggins. But what the trio accomplished musically on that mostly bare stage was nothing short of extraordinary.

Clearly not one for crowd patter, Krall walked onto stage casually, said a few words, and launched into the 1920's jazz standard, “'Deed I Do.” At first, there was an appearance of awkwardness on the stage — as though she were unsure where exactly to sit, where to place the microphone — but that odd nervous energy fed into the song, cutting its sugariness a tad, giving the sentiment something of a bite.

This is perhaps Krall's biggest gift as an interpreter of song: She takes music that's so familiar, so baked into the cultural consciousness, and reminds the listener why it was so vital in the first place by capturing not just its beauty, but by creating an emotional space within the song. On the 1939 Frank Sinatra hit “All or Nothing At All,” for instance, the song begins with the gentle, tentative plucking of Hurst's bass, and when Krall's vocals come, they begin at a slow whisper. There's a tension that burbles in the space between notes, small instances of quiet that reverberate in the listener's chest.

“All or nothing at all,” she sang, “Half a love never appealed to me/If your heart never could yield to me/Then, I'd rather have nothing at all.”

Slowly introducing musical elements to the song as it progressed, that spareness was, almost imperceptibly, supplanted by a cascade of music and emotion, a vibrancy that fed into her upbeat rendition of Nat King Cole's “L.O.V.E.” and — perhaps most impressively — her searing take on the Cole Porter classic, “Night & Day.”

There were really two polarities at play in the performance. The first is the interplay and spirit of improvisation between the three musicians, a revelry that allowed the trio to build off familiar melodies into something new and unexpected. The second is the subtlety with which Krall hands the subject of “love,” eschewing melodrama and sappiness for something nuanced and true. In her hands, a song such as the Cole popularized “You Call It Madness (But I Call It Love)” simmers with a heat that's equal parts wounded and steadfast. By the same token, the sweet-spirited "I Was Doing All Right,” written by George and Ira Gershwin and popularized by Ella Fitzgerald, manages to ride the edge of the song's inherent joy, capturing the fluttering heartbeat of love without exaggeration.

Krall took a solo turn with the Gershwins' “Not For Me,” which resounded with longing and vulnerability, and highlighted the beauty of her piano playing, two qualities that were even more heightened as the band quietly rejoined her for a sizzling, heartbreaking take on Irving Berlin's “How Much Do I Love You.” It was a gorgeous, almost overpowering moment, broken up by the upbeat pivot into the jazz standard, “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” originally popularized by Sinatra and Billie Holiday, and the Shirley Horn classic, “Just Found Out Above Love,” which closed the main set and was received with a standing ovation.

Interestingly, some of Krall's most surprising and riveting work occurred in the encore. The trio returned for a scintillating rendition of the Gershwins' “'S wonderful,” before Krall took a leap forward in time and delivered a staggeringly gorgeous take on Joni Mitchell's “Amelia.” It was fascinating to hear Krall dig into a more complicated lyric and a less malleable melody, illustrating just how talented a performer she is by moving her out of her usual milieu and yet still feeling a part of her body of work. On a similar note, she closed with Bob Dylan's “This Dream Of You,” which burned with all the longing and incipient heartbreak of the older work, showing just how universal that feeling is, and yet also how there's always something about it new to say.

Email Victor D. Infante at Victor. Infante@Telegram.com and follow him on Twitter @ocvictor.