Krall Encore (The Press, New Zealand)

[scielle]

KRALL ENCORE
Rosa SHIELS
9 April 2005
The Press (Christchurch), NZ


Diana Krall is on tour again, but where does she go for inspiration? ROSA SHIELS finds out.


`When I'm home in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, I'll get up in my PJs with a cup of tea, sit at the piano and I'll just stay there all day until somebody goes, `Hey! You'd better eat something!' or `Walk -- go outside and get in the fresh air!'"

Diana Krall in her PJs? The picture that more often comes to mind is that lanky blonde sashaying onto the stage in stilettos and a little black dress, then swinging up a storm of jazz via piano and a husky, drawly alto.

But a girl's got to have down time, and for Krall, whose working life is frequent touring and demanding live performance -- the Paris Olympia in front of a symphony orchestra, for example, and the Montreal Jazz Festival -- that down time comes when she is back home on Vancouver Island in Canada's British Columbia, where she grew up.

It's where she can relax and tune into the creative head space required to come up with new material and fresh angles on old material.

"I live in New York but I have a place on Vancouver Island that is proving to be just the place where I can hide aoot" -- Krall's Canadian accent, so far undetectable, comes through right there.

By turns tired from touring and fired up, she speaks toothily and close to the phone, and words tumble upon themselves.

"It's quiet and I thrive there artistically. And I visit with my dad and with my family in the evenings, and that's lovely.

"That's all I do there -- I run, jump and play outside in the beautiful fresh air. The oxygen is crazily strong. I need time to meditate and focus ... and it's really hard on the road to get that time. That's why I try and take creative breaks off."

Krall is yearning for that space right now after a sleepless night on tour in Kuala Lumpur. She's making her way across Australia and will touch down in Christchurch at the end of April.

It is the pared-down, touring version of the Krall roadshow, and a chance to hear some fine improvisational work minus the more complex arrangements that orchestral accompaniments necessitate. Krall is working with Kareem Riggins on drums, Robert Hurst on bass, and Anthony Wilson on guitar, and she is delighted with the lineup. "It's one of the best bands I've ever had. I'm really excited. They're amazing people as well as amazing players."

Does being a bandleader come as easily to her as it appears? "Oh, it's hard because if you work with people you admire as much, who are challenging you every night, then you have to have the confidence and courage to learn how to say what you want. It's a work in progress always," she says.

Courage is the key word in improvisation, and jazz players are driven by it and thrive on it.

"Yeah. You just have to go for it. That's what you're supposed to do, you know. You're supposed to strive."

Strive she's done since she was a little girl learning piano. Music filled the household -- her father was a pianist -- and alongside the classical pieces she was learning she'd play Fats Waller tunes. Pop music of the day fed into the mix, but it was jazz that pushed her buttons and she discovered early on that improvisation came naturally to her.

"I found that I could improvise and had a feel for swing, and I was attracted to people like Oscar Peterson and Wynton Kelly. I dreamt of one day knowing what it felt like to play with somebody like Ray Brown or Jeff Hamilton and John Clayton."

Krall was playing in jazz clubs when she was 15. She won a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1981, then moved to LA on a Canadian Arts Council grant to study piano with Jimmy Rowles after encouragement from one of those idols, Ray Brown, who'd heard her play in Canada.

Solid study followed with various masters, including US-based, New Zealand pianist and arranger Alan Broadbent, and her marriage of vocals to piano prowess elevated her to the world stage.

Her 1999 album, When I Look in Your Eyes, featuring such songs as Let's Face the Music and Dance and Devil May Care, stormed the Billboard jazz charts and stayed there for 52 weeks, garnering a Grammy for best jazz vocals, another for best-engineered album and shone out with a nomination for album of the year amid the usual plethora of pop and R'n'B offerings.

In the foreword to her latest DVD, Live at the Montreal Jazz Festival (Verve), legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson has this to say:

"Her musicality has a depth and finesse that these days is seldom heard in many public jazz presentations. I admire Diana because her approach has a dignity and truth to it that immediately captures one's musical attention."

Husband Elvis Costello was the lyrics collaborator on five songs on her recent album, Girl in the Other Room, including the personal song Departure Bay, which alludes to the death of her mother and her love for her homeland.

"I think that's my favourite song on the record. It stands as something that I think I'll always play. That particular piece has references to everything I felt at that time and how I still feel ... I'm very proud of that song and very thankful to Elvis Costello for helping me to have the courage to write it and to say those things."

Neither as young as she looks nor as old as her low-register voice might suggest, Diana Krall, 40, is no longer the ingenue but a seasoned player awarded respect from all quarters. A proud Canadian, Krall received the Order of British Columbia in 2000 and continues to be a goodwill ambassador for Canada.

And these days, when she performs in Paris, it is her own song, Departure Bay, that the audience calls out for.

"They're screaming it out. That's where I lost it on stage one night when I came out for an encore and played Departure Bay alone. My mother woulda thought it was a riot, you know. That was definitely a defining moment in my life. A big moment, definitely."