|
commercial success has redefined the
rules of the jazz market, she's remained
true to her deep roots in bop and swing.
Drawing upon a deep well of material
from America's pop and jazz traditions,
she's created consistently compelling,
distinctive music by infusing
time-honored songs with her own abundant
musicality and charisma.
The Very Best of Diana Krall includes
personalized interpretations of timeless
vintage standards by such essential
composers as George and Ira Gershwin,
Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and
Hart, Van Heusen and Cahn, and Bacharach
and David. The material encompasses the
lush romanticism of "S'Wonderful," the
playfully seductive humor of "Peel Me A
Grape" and the yearning balladry of
"I've Got You Under My Skin." Krall also
demonstrates her versatility with
musical settings that range from the
playful swing of "Frim Fram Sauce" to
the intimate bossa nova of "The Look of
Love"
The collection also features three
previously unreleased performances, a
moody, evocatively orchestrated reading
of the Frank Sinatra classic "Only the
Lonely," a pensive reading of "You Go to
My Head," a standard popularized by
Sinatra and Billie Holiday, and an
inventive reworking of Tom Waits' "The
Heart of Saturday Night," the latter
demonstrating Krall's ability to apply
her interpretative abilities to
contemporary material.
Born into a musical family in Nanaimo,
British Columbia, Diana Krall began her
musical journey during early childhood.
While her mother sang in church, her
father, a stride pianist with an
extensive knowledge of jazz and Tin Pan
Alley standards, had a massive record
collection that introduced her to many
of the jazz and pop greats that would
inform her own musical development.
"I was immersed in music growing up,"
Krall recalls. "My father has a vast
collection; he collects 78 records, and
that's how I first heard Fats Waller,
Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. I
connected with music on such an
emotional level that it wasn't 'This is
what I want to do,' it was 'This is what
I have to do.'"
Krall began studying piano at the age of
four, and subsequently played in her
high school's jazz band. At 15, she
began playing regularly in restaurants
and bars around her hometown. At 17, she
won a scholarship from the Vancouver
International Jazz Festival to study at
the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Meanwhile, Krall's playing attracted the
admiration of legendary bassist Ray
Brown, who suggested that she move to
Los Angeles to study with seminal
pianist Jimmy Rowles. It was during that
period that Krall began singing as well
as playing. In 1990, after a three-year
stint in L.A., she relocated to New
York, where she began performing with
her own trio.
Krall began her recording career in 1993
on Canada's Justin Time label, releasing
her first album Stepping Out, recorded
with bassist John Clayton and drummer
Jeff Hamilton, a pair of jazz
heavyweights who would remain longtime
Krall collaborators. The debut disc
reached Number Three on Billboard's jazz
chart and caught the attention of noted
producer Carl Griffin and veteran
producer and label exec Tommy LiPuma,
who signed her to GRP Records and
produced her sophomore effort, 1995's
Only Trust Your Heart. That album teamed
Krall with a prestigious musical cast
that included Ray Brown and Stanley
Turrentine, and marked the beginning of
a long and productive association with
LiPuma, who would continue to produce
Krall's albums for GRP, Impulse! and
Verve.
Krall's third album was the acclaimed
1996 Nat "King" Cole Trio tribute All
for You: A Dedication to the Nat "King"
Cole Trio, which spent 70 weeks on the
Billboard jazz chart and won the artist
her first Grammy nomination. 1997's Love
Scenes, recorded with guitarist Russell
Malone and bassist Christian McBride,
was an even bigger hit, reaching the top
slot on the Billboard jazz chart and
making unexpected inroads into the
mainstream market.
Krall achieved both a musical
breakthrough and a commercial watershed
with her 1999 release When I Look in
Your Eyes. The album broadened her
sound, employing an expanded
instrumental ensemble as well as
orchestral arrangements by Johnny
Mandel. When I Look in Your Eyes became
an international sensation, going
platinum in the United States and
spending an entire year in Number One
position the Billboard jazz chart. In
addition to winning Krall a Grammy for
Best Jazz Vocal Performance, it also
became the first jazz album in a
quarter-century to receive a Grammy
nomination for Album of the Year.
Krall's crossover success was further
reflected in her participation in the
historic Lilith Fair tour in 2000, and
the prominent presence of her songs on
the soundtracks of TV's Sex in the City
and such films as Midnight in the Garden
of Good and Evil.
Krall maintained her expansive musical
approach for 2001's The Look of Love, a
lush collection of ballads and bossa
novas featuring arrangements by Claus
Ogerman and tracks recorded with the
London Symphony Orchestra. The album
confirmed Krall's status as a
pop-culture phenomenon, achieving
platinum status and reaching Billboard's
pop Top 10. Her 2001 performance at the
Paris Olympia was released as her first
live album, Live In Paris, which once
again topped the Billboard jazz chart
and earned Krall her second Grammy
award.
In 2004, Krall released The Girl in the
Other Room, the first album on which she
added her own compositions to her
repertoire of standards and covers.
Krall wrote half of the album's dozen
songs, with lyrical contributions from
Elvis Costello, whom she had married in
December 2003. The move towards original
songwriting was motivated in part by the
death of Krall's mother, as well as the
losses of her mentors Ray Brown and
Rosemary Clooney.
Krall describes The Girl in the Other
Room as "a very intense and creatively
satisfying experience. After I lost my
mother, I was not able to return to a
lot of the songs I really loved, because
I just wasn't feeling them. So I needed
another way to express myself."
2004 also saw the release of the concert
DVD Live at the Montreal Jazz Festival,
as well as Krall joining Ray Charles on
his bestselling Genius Loves Company for
a duet of the Charles standard "You
Don't Know Me."
In 2005, Krall released the
holiday-themed Christmas Songs, a
collection of spirited seasonal
standards. Recorded with John Clayton
and Jeff Hamilton's esteemed outfit the
Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, the
album marked her first venture into
big-band arrangements.
Krall returned to the Great American
Songbook, while maintaining the big-band
format, on 2006's From This Moment On. A
typically engaging mix of bittersweet
ballads and effervescent swing numbers,
the album was another Top 10 smash,
while demonstrating Krall's ongoing
determination to embrace new musical
challenges.
Also in 2006, Krall teamed with Tony
Bennett to revisit "The Best Is Yet to
Come" on Bennett's all-star Duets: An
American Classic. Krall and husband
Elvis Costello topped off the year with
the birth of twin sons.
While The Very Best of Diana Krall
offers a sampling of her prior musical
achievements, Diana Krall is firmly
focused upon the future. "I can sing
different songs now, because I'm a
mother and a wife and I have different
experiences," she notes. "And there's
some songs that I can't sing anymore,
because they were right for me then but
not right for me now. It's been
interesting doing a best-of record and
looking back at what I've done, and
reliving all the emotions that go with
that. But I prefer to move forward."
|
|
