Krall, Diana

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Diana Krall

Singer, piano

Often referred to as the “glamour girl of jazz” for her stunning appearance, Canadian jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall became the toast of the international jazz scene, as well as to more mainstream audiences, during the mid-1990s. “Whenever anyone who would be considered a jazz musician hits in this way, it’s a little bit of a strange alchemy that we can’t figure out,” editor-in-chief of Jazziz magazine Larry Blumfield told reporter Steve Dollar of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. “In the terms of her appearance and the way she uses jazz tradition, she’s more accessible to a broader audience than a lot of other artists are, without necessarily dumbing things down. One thing that really works in her favor is she’s able to straddle that fence between what a real jazz fan wants and what a popular audience needs.” Moreover, the tall musician with long, straight blond hair and green eyes proved that her artistry, rather than her looks, led her to attract fans from around the world. The New York Times called her “a superb jazz pianist and an even better singer,” as quoted by David Hayes in Chatelaine, although she would humbly describe her piano technique as limited and never thought she had a good voice. Once when she was nine years old, she tried out for a local youth choir and was rejected because the teacher thought her voice was too low. Chastened by the rejection, she rarely sang in public until more than a decade later. In spite of this, Krall would later draw attention as much for her sultry singing as for her accomplished piano playing. “Krall’s style is a Canadian accent with excellent time and a voice that is inherently lovely,” remarked Gene Lees in Jazz Times. A modest yet commanding performer, Krall plays mostly her own interpretations of the old jazz standards accompanied by her relaxed, intimate singing style.

Despite Krall’s undeniable talent as a serious pianist and singer, her success drew attack from some jazz critics and fans who accused her of selling out to the popular culture (In 1998, she appeared on two episodes of television’s Melrose Place playing herself as a performer at a local bar and toured with Sarah McLachlan’s all-female Lillith Fair concert.) “Too many jazz fans don’t want anyone else to like it, and when someone breaks into huge sales, the only-l-understand this music group draws its snickersnees” commented Lees. And Krall herself felt somewhat uneasy about her sudden fame. “Well, I’m shy. And I’m embarrassed,” she admitted to Lees. “I feel like that when I walk out on stage and everybody claps. When we finish a show… and people give me a standing ovation, I feel like saying, ’No, it’s okay, sit down and don’t bother.’ I’m not comfortable with it. I love to make people happy but I’m not comfortable with that.” Furthermore, Krall, who never wanted to rise to the top of jazz and who just wanted to play the piano, found that standing in the limelight included it’s draw-

For the Record…

Born November 16, 1964, in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada; daughter of an accountant father and teacher, librarian mother; one sister. Education: Attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA; also studied with Alan Broadbent, Mike Renzi, and Jimmy Rowles.

Began playing piano in local bars at age 15; earned scholarship at age 17 to Berklee College of Music; attended jazz camp in Port Townsend, WA; discovered by drummer Jeff Hamilton and legendary bassist Ray Brown, earned grant from Canada Arts Council to study in Los Angeles with Broadbent and Rowles, 1983; moved to New York City to study under Renzi, joined jazz trio in Boston, 1990; released first album, Stepping Out, 1993; released All For You, a tribute album to Nat King Cole; released Love Scenes, 1997; toured with Lillith Fair concert, 1998; released WhenlLookln Your Eyes, 1999.

Addresses: Home —New York City, NY. Record company —Verve Music Group (distributes Verve, GRP, and Impulse), 555 W. 57th St., New York City, NY 10019. Website —http://www.vervemusicgroup.com.

backs, adding, “I think I put a lot of pressure on myself where it isn’t necessary. I’m trying to handle it. I’m happy for my success, and I’m trying to enjoy it.”

Diana Krall was born on November 16, 1964, in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada, a town located west of Vancouver across the Strait of Georgia on Vancouver Island. As a child, Krall, the oldest of two daughters (her sister later became a police officer in Nanaimo), enjoyed a home always filled with music. Her father, an accountant, accumulated over the years an enormous record and sheet music collection and Krall’s mother Adella, an elementary school teacher andlibrarian who later earned a master’s degree in educational administration, played the piano and sang. Both parents loved music and old television and radio shows. In addition, the future jazz musician’s great, great aunt performed in Vaudeville in New York City. “I couldn’t have had more supportive parents,” Krall related to Lees. “The most important thing for me is my family.” Nevertheless, Krall’s parents at first held other hopes for their daughter’s future. When one of her piano teachers told her mother that Krall possessed the potential to play jazz or pop music as a professional, Krall’s mother recalled to Hayes,“I just smiled and thought, well, that’s nice of her to say but Diana’s going to university. I didn’t want her playing in bars. I didn’t have much regard for music as a career.”

In many ways, though, Krall experienced a typical middle-class, small-town upbringing. She spent summers at the beach and winters on the ski slopes, listened to rock stars like Peter Frampton and the group Super-tramp, and held dreams of exploring space as an astronaut, building model rockets with friend BobThirsk. (While Krall never made it to Canada’s space program, Thirskdid,andheeventookoneofherCDsonthespace shuttle with him.) However, Krall, who began playing the piano at age four, was also drawn to the music handed down from her father’s record collection, including recordings of Fats Waller and Bing Crosby. She started taking piano lessons and singing with her grandmother, on her father’s side; Krall said she sounds a lot like her as an adult with her low, sultry voice. Every day after school, she would go to her grandmother’s house to play piano and sing, but Krall would never sing at home because she never thought she had a good enough voice. By 15, she played in a local bar and restaurant, singing as little as possible. At age 17, she won a scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. She studied in Boston for 18 months before returning to Nanaimo.

Krall’s big break came two years later in 1983, when her parents sent her to jazz camp in Port Townsend, Washington. Through the camp director, Bud Shank, she met several of her future friends, including drummer Jeff Hamilton, a member of an influential west coast jazz quartet called the L.A. 4. A few weeks later, when his quartet was playing a show in Krall’s hometown, Hamilton brought legendary jazz bassist Ray Brown (the first husband of singer Ella Fitzgerald who Krall would later record with) to hear her perform at a bar down the street. Like Hamilton, Brown was impressed by the young pianist’s talent. During their stay in Nanaimo, she invited the two musicians to her family’s home for dinner, and Hamilton convinced Krall’s mother that her daughter could “make it in jazz.” Although her mother had previously disapproved of Krall pursuing a career in jazz, an industry often known for disappointments and drug use, she changed her mind after spending time with Hamilton and Brown. She remembered thinking,“These musicians have distinguished careers. They’re pretty real people,” as she told Hayes.

Thus, with her parents’ blessing, Hamilton encouraged Krall to move to Los Angeles to study, and she earned a grant from the Canada Arts Council to do so. There, she first studied with Alan Broadbent, but she found her most important influence and teacher in pianist Jimmy Rowles (1918-1996), who played with singers such as Billie Holiday and Peggy Lee. The first time Krall went over to his house to meet him, she ended up spending most of the day. He conducted .informal lessons and told Krall old stories about Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and other jazz legends. “It was just as important to me to hang out and listen to stories as it was to practice andplay,” Krall told Lees. “He’d play for me, and then I’d play for him. But most of the time was spent with me listening to him play. And we’d listen to records. We’d listen to Ben Webster, Duke Ellington.” Furthermore, Rowles, also a singer noted for his passionate, stylish vocals, pressed Krall to develop her voice. With his encouragement, and because she realized she would earn more opportunities to play if she sang, Krall conceded and started performing in Los Angeles piano bars. Three years later, she moved to Toronto, then to New York in 1990, where she studied with Mike Renzi and for awhile commuted to Boston to work with a jazz trio.

By now, critics, jazz fans, and record labels were taking note of Krall’s soulful voice and confident piano skills. In 1993, she released her debut album on the Canadian label Justin Time entitled Stepping Out, a forceful trio work with bassist John Clayton and friend Hamilton on drums. Following her debut, the record company GRP, one of North America’s foremost jazz labels, signed Krall, and she released her second album in 1995. Her former mentor Brown also appeared with fellow bassist Christian McBride for the record entitled Only Trust Your Heart. In addition, tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine contributed to the recording as a special guest, adding more variety to the ensemble.

After a Canadian summer jazz-festival tour with guitarist Russel Malone and bassist Paul Keller in 1995, Krall made her next album, 1996’s All For You, a tribute to jazz great Nat King Cole. Again, Krall illustrated the way in which she allows her music to breathe and encourages musical conversation within her band. “Alternately happy-go-lucky and smokey, All For You features Krall’s single-malt vocals and accomplished piano playing (backed by guitar and acoustic bass) on a collection of mainly lesser-known standards (the classic jazz repertoire of songs written by the great Broadway show tune composers of the 1930s and ’40s). A high-light: ’Frim Fram Sauce, ’ a novelty tune recorded by Cole in 1945,” commented Hayes. The album, nominated for a G rammy award that year, topped the jazz charts in the United States for over two years and broke sales records (for a jazz recording) around the world. Jazz artists, especially newcomers, rarely see their albums appeal to such a wide audience.

Krall’s next release in 1997, Love Scenes, further exemplified her continuing maturity and her band’s cohesiveness with a more relaxed tone than her previous albums. Joined by Malone and McBride, the record built upon jazz standards of artists such as Irving Berlin, Harry Warren, Percy Mayfield, and George and Ira Gershwin. This release was also nominated for a Grammy award. Then in 1998, Krall released a collection of favorite Christmas songs entitled Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. This year also saw Krall’s popularity skyrocket, aided by her hit single, a Fats Waller tune called “Peel Me a Grape.” She appeared on two episodes of the Fox network’s Melrose Place, accompanied pop singer Celine Dione on her Christmas album, recorded a duet with alternative artist Sarah McLachlan, and joined McLachlan and a host of other female musicians for the Lillith Fair concert. Krall told Dollar, regarding her playing Lillith Fair,“It was wonderful to hear teenage girls (yell for) ‘Peel Me a Grape’ and ‘Go Russell!’ I was sitting at the press conference with these women (Sarah McLachlan and others), going, ’Oh my God, these people are just as serious about what they do as we are.’”

Krall followed these successes with 1999’s When I Look In Your Eyes, this time on the Verve label. John Ephland of Down Beat magazine noted that like her prior releases, Krall’s most recentalbum continued her focus on “sultry standards, bouncin’swingers, acontemporarytunethrown in for fun.” Other musicians featured for the album included Malone, Ben Wolfe and Clayton sharing duties on bass, Hamilton, Lewis Nash on drums, and Larry Bunker on vibes. The noted orchestrater Johnny Mandel also worked with Krall for When I Look In Your Eyes as director.

Krall now lives in New York City and continues to focus on her jazz career, keeping an apartment in Manhattan’s Union Square neighborhood. Because herfamily always remains central to Krall’s life, she travels back to her hometown in Canada to visit about once a month. Krall, a pianist and singer who mainly reinterprets the music of the past, says she only writes her own music when she feels she has something to say. Instead, the jazz artist finds creative fulfillment in taking an old standard and arranging it and performing with her own style. To those critics who accuse Krall of “going pop,” the talented musician told Dollar,“I’m not out to please the jazz police, nor am I out just to win an audience. I’m just out to make the kind of record that I would love to put on and listen to.”