Rocky Mtn News: Krall's personal best

[Bud]

Singer proves a revealing writer

By Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News
July 13, 2004

The Girl in the Other Room may or may not be jazz singer Diana Krall's best record, but there's no question it's her most personal.

Rocked by the death of her mother and writing songs for the first time with new husband Elvis Costello, she made music that dealt with that loss.

"After we played it for some people, there was a lot of silence," she says with a laugh, her dry sense of humor intact, during a recent phone interview.

"Here's my new record! I'm so excited! You play it for people you trust and you respect and they just go pale. There wasn't a lot of jumping up and down, let me tell you."

The thing is, the album isn't really that big a departure - Krall's unmistakable piano and vocals are still there. The most surprising thing about her fledgling songwriting is how neatly it fits in next to classics by Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell and Mose Allison ("I'm not saying I deserve that. I just have good taste" in cover songs, says Krall, who plays tonight at Coors Amphitheatre, formerly Fiddler's Green.)

She did have some thoughts that perhaps songs such as Narrow Daylight and Abandoned Masquerade might be a little too revealing, she says.

"I feel a little bit like my insides are out. But you're not thinking, 'It's too dark,' or, 'It's too personal.' You're so thrilled with the accomplishment."

And a lot has been accomplished. When we last spoke, Krall talked of wanting to cover Costello songs and maybe work with him someday. A few years later, she's married to him, covers his classic Almost Blue on the new album and they've collaborated on songs.

She'd never written songs till now, because "it wasn't my time," she says. "I had 'jazz piano player' on my plate, 'jazz singer' on my plate. There wasn't enough time in the day (to add songwriting duties)."

But in a way, her improvisational work was a form of songwriting already. To come up with the melodies for The Girl in the Other Room, she taped herself playing piano and then "had the discipline to transcribe fragments and piece them together."

"Before I lost my mother in May of 2002, I had a conversation with Elvis Costello about being ready to write and do something different. That was in the air for me," she says.

"I was preparing myself even for that change, and then artistically, personally, the rug got pulled out from under me. Instead of melting down quietly somewhere, I met the right collaborator. I was ready, but it wasn't a conscious 'OK, I'm gonna make a change.' It was, 'Maybe we can write one tune together.' "

She and Costello holed up in her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia, and just wrote. Krall did all the music, and Costello worked with her on her lyrics. They ended up with six songs worthy of the album.

Then came another challenge: With all this personal material, how do you choose other songs to fill out the record? She went to the songwriters who have inspired her, such as Waits and Mitchell.

Growing up in Canada, you'd think Mitchell would be an icon for Krall. "She wasn't. I was listening to Fats Waller and Oscar Peterson. I was listing to John Coltrane. I discovered Joni and got into her music only 10 years ago. I'm working backwards, discovering Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan and Neil Young and those artists," she says.

"(Growing up), I wanted to go to New York and be a jazz musician. I wasn't interested in writing about where I was from. I wanted to leave there."

She's since immersed herself in Mitchell's work and recorded her Black Crow for the new album. "Those songs are very complex harmonically and melodically as well as lyrically," she says. "But they're also soulful. Anyone can write a complex, difficult tune, but if it moves you, that's the key."

Waits, on the other hand, "has been constant for me, always," she says. "He's an old soul. You can hear the influences he has from wherever - Howlin' Wolf to Louis Armstrong.

"He's just amazing. I saw him perform last summer for the first time in my life. Mule Variations - I'm always finding something in it. When I got Nighthawks at the Diner, I thought, 'Wow, what is this?' " The Waits song Temptation is also on the new disc.

Her artistic risks paid off. The Girl in the Other Room made its debut at No. 4 on the Billboard album chart, easily the highest ranking of her career, and the reviews have been glowing. Her profile is raised even higher as she and Costello both sing on-screen in the new Cole Porter biopic, De-Lovely.

"I really expanded my acting abilities on this one. I got to step out of being just 'girl singer' and chewed on Louis B. Mayer's ear for five seconds. A big departure for me," she says wryly.

brownm@RockyMountainNews.com

Source: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/music/article/0,1299,DRMN_54_3029903,00.html