Diana, Elvis & Herbie TV appearance Apollo New York City

[jampot]

Join Herbie, Diana Krall and Elvis Costello for a special TV show taping!





****HERBIE HANCOCK****


Musical Performance & Interview with Elvis Costello


Date: September 10th, 2008


Time: Doors open at 6:45pm

Doors close promptly at 7:30pm


Location: The Apollo Theatre

235 West 125th Street

New York City


APPLY FOR TICKETS NOW!


You must be at least 18 years of age to be considered (proper ID will be required)
Ticket requests are limited to two (2) per person
In your ticket request, please include the following:
Legal first and last name and, if requesting an additional ticket, the legal first and last name of your intended guest
Your age, mailing address, email address, and phone number - include the same for your intended guest, if applicable
Tickets are limited and will be distributed on a first-come-first-served basis – please, respond ONLY if you are absolutely certain of your ability to attend

EMAIL TICKET REQUESTS WITH A DAYTIME PHONE NUMBER TO: riverside@herbiehancock.com




By Friday, September 5th, 2008, all confirmed ticket recipients will receive a phone call or email detailing the procedure for the issuance of tickets, as well as providing further information regarding this extraordinary event.


This is an exclusive event wherein the buying and selling of tickets can and will result in the forfeiture of said bought and/or sold tickets

[narrow daylight]

Join Herbie, Diana Krall and Elvis Costello for a special TV show taping!





****HERBIE HANCOCK****


Musical Performance & Interview with Elvis Costello


Date: September 10th, 2008


Time: Doors open at 6:45pm

Doors close promptly at 7:30pm


Location: The Apollo Theatre

235 West 125th Street

New York City


APPLY FOR TICKETS NOW!


You must be at least 18 years of age to be considered (proper ID will be required)
Ticket requests are limited to two (2) per person
In your ticket request, please include the following:
Legal first and last name and, if requesting an additional ticket, the legal first and last name of your intended guest
Your age, mailing address, email address, and phone number - include the same for your intended guest, if applicable
Tickets are limited and will be distributed on a first-come-first-served basis – please, respond ONLY if you are absolutely certain of your ability to attend

EMAIL TICKET REQUESTS WITH A DAYTIME PHONE NUMBER TO: riverside@herbiehancock.com




By Friday, September 5th, 2008, all confirmed ticket recipients will receive a phone call or email detailing the procedure for the issuance of tickets, as well as providing further information regarding this extraordinary event.


This is an exclusive event wherein the buying and selling of tickets can and will result in the forfeiture of said bought and/or sold tickets

This Elton John site has this:
http://eltonjohnnews.blogspot.com/2008/ ... -fans.html

On Wednesday, September 10, in the afternoon, Elton will give an interview and musical performance for "Spectacle: Elvis Costello with Sir Elton John and Diana Krall." This recording will take place in Harlem, at The Apollo Theatre, 235 West 125th Street, New York City.

This is a unique opportunity to see and hear Elton with his friends Elvis Costello and Diana Krall, and we are delighted that the makers of the show are inviting 50 Elton John fans to be part of the audience. If you would like one or two free tickets for this very special event, please first of all read the following and be sure that you fulfil all criteria:
* You must be at least 18 years of age to be considered (proper ID will be required)
* Ticket requests are limited to two (2) per person
* In your ticket request, please include the following:
1) Legal first and last name and, if requesting an additional ticket, the legal first and last name of your intended guest
2) Your age, mailing address, email address, and phone number - include the same for your intended guest, if applicable
* Tickets are limited and will be distributed on a first-come-first-served basis - please, respond ONLY if you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN of your ability to attend and to stay in the theatre from 1.45pm until the taping ends, which could be up to three hours. We cannot guarantee that everyone who applies will get tickets.

If you want to apply, please send an email to Editor@eltonjohn.com. making sure you give ALL the information asked above and with the subject line ELTON/ELVIS.

By Friday, September 5, 2008, all confirmed ticket recipients will receive a phone call or email detailing the procedure for the issue of tickets, as well as providing further information regarding this extraordinary event.

Please be aware that this is an exclusive event wherein the buying and selling of tickets can and will result in the forfeiture of said bought and/or sold tickets.

[scielle]

Official site has the following:

It has been awhile since our last Newsletter and we know many of you are looking forward to hearing news about what Diana is up to since completing her tour of Europe and the UK in August. We will be sending our Newsletter out very shortly to all registered members of dianakrall.com, so if you are not registered with us yet, please do so today. Hint: Diana will be appearing on a television show in the New York area very soon and there will be an opportunity for a limited number of REGISTERED FANS to see her LIVE for FREE!!! Stay tuned...All the best, Michelle Krall Wigmore.

[scielle]

And also - the Sept. 8th show will feature Rufus Wainwright!!! (whom I loooove; saw him at Kenwood a few weeks ago; same venue Diana played in Aug. Also miserably rainy day but fab show.)
http://www.rufuswainwright.com/news/def ... =nid_14096

[Bud]

Thanks for the info, everyone. Great job on tipping us off.

I'm wondering if Michelle's note is referring to something else coming up. I haven't seen any email from the fan club - hopefully my spam filter didn't do something it shouldn't have!!

[scielle]

Elvis might be coming to a talk show near you.
He's out and about promoting "Spectacle", which starts Dec. 3 (in US, and Canada, I think a bit later in UK)
This week alone he was on Letterman, NBC's Today Show, and Conan yesterday.
And - get this - the Conan interview included a duet of Cole Porter's Don't Fence Me In with the evening's other guest .... Madeleing Albright!
Which, being the repository of random DK articles, reminded me of this old piece, which I just dug out on factiva.com:

JAZZ TELLS A STORY -- DIANA KRALL IS SUCCESSFUL IN A WAY FEW JAZZ MUSICIANS ARE. PART OF IT IS ARRIVING AT A TIME WHEN CROONING AND TORCH SONGS ARE POPULAR AGAIN
HUGO KUGIYA
31 August 1997
The Seattle Times

THE SCENT OF Coco Chanel chaperones Diana Krall out of her dressing room at the Royal Theater in Victoria. Waiting backstage, she happens to be, as usual, surrounded by men - a concert promoter, her tour manager, the Joey DeFrancesco trio, which opened for her, and her own sidemen, guitarist and sometimes muse Russell Malone, and her bass player of a few months, Neal Caine.

They are American. She is Canadian, the only one on her own soil. She is the best skier in the room, and the only one who knows how to clean fish. She beats the Americans in other ways, too.

Malone passes time playing a collegial game of Name-That-Tune, a diagonal slice through the K-Tel archives, that once ubiquitous TV clearing house of greatest-hits albums. He strums "Leave a Tender Moment Alone" (Billy Joel), "After the Love is Gone" (Earth Wind & Fire), "You Send Me" (Sam Cooke), "Rise" (Herb Alpert). All answered by a knowing hum belonging to the unstumpable Canadian.

Her memory bank of American popular songs makes clear what she does with her time when she's not shopping.

Tonight's outfit is a carefully chosen gold, sleeveless, wraparound cocktail dress, cut above the knee. Her shoes, which take her up a stairwell to the stage, are gold to match, open-toed, thin straps above the ankles, 3-inch heels as thick as gavels.

She is fit to play Michelle Pfeiffer's character, the vulnerable chanteuse, in "The Fabulous Baker Boys," or any similar male fantasy of siren lying on a piano, caressing the microphone. But the audience does not see that much of her or her outfit because the seated Krall is also the piano player.

"We can't see you!" someone affectionately shouts from the audience after her first song. "We miss you!"

To which Krall responds by singing the song "I Miss You So."

It was not planned, honestly, Krall says later, just coincidence. Just the way Krall's life has worked out lately.

Although Krall, 32, has achieved fame far beyond Vancouver Island, where she grew up, her name is not instantly recognized. Her face is nebulously familiar, but maybe that's because you're thinking of actress Helen Hunt. Her distinct singing voice is more suited for memory. Perhaps you subconsciously downloaded it while listening to the Acura, Kleenex or Levi's commercials, whose jingles used her voice.

Hockey fans from home might remember the face as that of the teenage girl who played a beer-stained piano for mozzarella sticks and tips at a sports bar in Nanaimo called the "NHL." While the NHL closed down and became "Chez Michelle," a French restaurant, Krall went on to play the Blue Note, the Algonquin Hotel and Carnegie Hall. Three times.

And, along with her parents, she was invited to the White House last spring for a state dinner with President Clinton and Canada's prime minister. Never before could she have imagined Howie Mandel passing rolls to her mother, by way of Madeleine Albright.

She was returning to Nanaimo, a town the size of Bellingham on Vancouver Island's east coast, to perform a benefit concert this month. The performance should nearly coincide with the release of her fourth album, "Love Scenes," which she recorded with Malone and bassist Christian McBride, considered by many to be the best young bass player in jazz. This latest is the most personal of her albums; its songs are connected to the natural surroundings she grew up in.

"They are love songs of different forms," she said, "not only songs about love between men and women, but things that mean a lot to me, like Jimmy Rowles (her late teacher).

"The underlying thread in all these tunes is simplicity and subtlety. A lot of the lyrics make reference to the ocean, garden, rain, mountains, things that are very important to me. It's very much about being a Northwesterner."

KRALL IS COMMERCIALLY successful in a way few jazz musicians are. Part of it is arriving at a time when crooning and torch songs are popular again. There is renewed interest in singers like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, thanks largely to jazz pianist and vocalist Harry Connick Jr., who in the late 1980s when he garnered notice, was a rarity - a young man singing old songs to a young audience. Many others followed his route.

The genre of lounge music has reintroduced standards and swing music to the young. In the 1990s it became hip for rock musicians to sing Cole Porter (Bono), or record a duet with Sinatra (Chrissie Hynde). Natalie Cole resurrected her career recording her father's old songs. In the middle of this landed Krall, whose appeal also is the visual package she brings to the stage, a sultry voice matched with a glamorous look.

Although she is tired of the "blond sex kitten" image the media have conjured to help explain her success, it has certainly not hurt her career. She has been said to resemble Sharon Stone and Drew Barrymore. (She sees more sense in her long-suggested likeness to Elvis Presley.) Perhaps because the sight of a young, attractive blond woman is rare on a jazz stage.

Similarly, Connick rose to popularity. Like Krall, he is an accomplished pianist mentored by an old-school pianist (Krall by Rowles, Connick by Ellis Marsalis), learned to sing later, worked it into his act, and with his good looks and charming stage presence, became a pop star.

In high school, Krall was cut from the choir because her voice was too low. In fact, it still is. She sang at home, but with no intent to do it professionally. She was then concerned only with being a great jazz pianist like her idols, Ahmad Jamal and Dave McKenna.

Krall was just out of high school, home playing piano at a restaurant in Nanaimo, when a drummer, Jeff Hamilton, whom she had met at the Port Townsend Jazz Festival, showed up to listen to a set with none other than bassist and jazz godfather Ray Brown. Brown became a friend, advising her to move to Los Angeles to study with pianist Jimmy Rowles. Though not a great singer himself, Rowles had accompanied Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

Krall only recently - this year she said - became comfortable and confident singing, which she began doing earnestly in 1990 during a regular gig at a hotel in Boston. Her first album, "Stepping Out" in 1993, was still mostly instrumental. Many jazz instrumentalists eventually sing as part of their act, but few make an impact doing it. Last year, Krall was nominated for a Grammy as best jazz vocalist.

Krall, at least publicly, does not claim to be a great technician of the piano or of voice. She admits having difficulty playing especially fast. She doesn't claim to have great vocal range. She does not scat, instead using the piano to do her improvising.

But her adoring audience, which ranges widely in age and gender, does not buy a ticket to listen to her play be-bop at 400 beats per minute. They want to hear beautiful songs, something Krall understands.

"Melody and beauty will never go out of style," said Russell Malone, 33, who shares exactly Krall's musical philosophy. "Guys in my generation neglect learning songs. There are many young musicians who take themselves way too seriously. They come with this condescending attitude, wondering if the audience is qualified to listen to their music. You don't want to alienate the audience. The greatest jazz musicians never do that. Things like dynamics, time, feeling, pacing, they often get buried. They can't be taught.

"I was in a club in New York three weeks ago, listening to four musicians, whom I respect deeply. But I couldn't stay for more than one song. I was getting nervous; I was gritting my teeth; I had to leave. I went to hear this guy (saxophonist) Lou Donaldson, a guy who can really play the blues. I mean he was swinging. I heard two bars and I was happy again, snapping my fingers."

Jazz, indeed, has evolved into long solos, contests of who can play the fastest or longest, or hit the highest note. The trend of modern jazz has been to please or impress other musicians, instead of a wider audience.

KRALL HAS REVIVED old melodies, not in a sentimental way but with plenty of new twists and surprises. Her interpretations make liberal use of the blues. They are largely original, without compromising the original intent and feel of the song.

She might, for example, slow down "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" to accentuate the song's tortured angst. Yet it sounds very much like the version made popular by Tony Bennett, the suggestion of a Latin rhythm intact.

Her voice is not necessarily silky smooth. If it were juice, it would have pulp. It sometimes seems to want to crack. Or to have a life of its own, wiggling at the end of phrase, getting three notes where normally there would be one. The imperfections of her voice, its rough edges, make her songs almost operatic in their emotional depth. Beyond the words, she physically sounds like what she is singing, be it regret, wistfulness or the wanton hedonism in "Peel Me A Grape."

Less tends to be more in Krall's trio. She omitted drums from her last album, building a trio out of piano, bass and guitar, as Nat King Cole did with his trio. The resulting sound is intimate and subtle, without forsaking rhythm. Her pieces swing powerfully, despite the missing drums. She decided to stick to the format in her latest album.

"Coming from playing with (drummer) Elvin Jones, it was quite a change," said Caine, 24, a political science major at Tulane University before he realized his hobby of jazz was his true love. "It's my responsibility to keep time. It's made me more aware of playing the changes, not skating through them.

"In the 1970s there was a movement away from acoustic jazz and standards. People are fortunately getting back to playing them. I don't look at it as digressing. These are beautiful timeless songs. Being different for the sake of being different is nothing to be proud of. Sometimes playing wild and crazy can hide a lack of musical understanding."

The sparse instrumentation in Krall's trio allows the subtle harmonic changes in a song to be fully heard. Her songs are remarkably quiet. Even in a large concert hall, a whisper from the back row is likely to be heard. She is refining the old classic, moving jazz in a more accessible direction, making it what it originally was - popular music.

The music, still, is serious jazz. The trio loves to solo. All three can school anybody. But they always comes back vigorously to the melody. Krall has achieved a difficult balance, to capture a largely mainstream audience and maintain the respect of other musicians. Ray Brown singled out Krall as the jazz world's next superstar.

"Are you kidding? She's great," said DeFrancesco, 26, the organ prodigy discovered by Miles Davis. "I'm a fan. When you have a good sound, that's all you need."

AFTER THE CONCERT, THE Kralls, four of them, are in the same room, if for only 23 minutes because Diana's younger sister Michelle soon has to drive home, to Nanaimo, two hours to the north. Diana has just finished her last encore in Victoria. Diana visits Nanaimo, she estimates, about every two months. But rare and short-lived is the occasion her family can come to her.

Three days earlier, parents Jim and Adella took the ferry from Schwartz Bay to Tsawassen, across the Strait of Georgia, to attend their daughter's opening-night performance at the du Maurier International Jazz Festival in Vancouver last June. Nanaimo claimed her; now so does Vancouver, though she has no particular roots in the city. Canada's own Lady Di, as she was introduced at a concert, sold out the Orpheum Theater in downtown Vancouver quicker than any musician who has performed at the festival.

Diana's celebrity still triggers curiosity and amusement in Jim and Adella. Adella commended a "nice man" who asked for Diana's autograph, as if it was the man, not her daughter, who performed the favor. Her parents stayed two nights in her hotel suite, rode in the limousine (actually a 15-foot van), followed her to a promotional appearance at the giant HMV record store (a chain similar to Tower Records), and waited in a cafe as the Bravo cable network interviewed her a few tables away.

Of the two, Diana seems most like Jim, a tax accountant and a marvelous pianist who played in a dance band in his younger days. Jim, like his daughter, is friendly but not chatty. He's good at poignant stories and wisecracks, but not so great at small talk.

He shares with his daughter a vast musical curiosity. Records, not just jazz, are his hobby. At his daughter's record store appearance, he purchased two operas on CD.

Although both Krall sisters grew up singing around the house with equal access to the upright piano, Michelle went another direction with her career - law enforcement. She became part of Canada's mounted police force. Like her sister she went into a field dominated by men.

"Maybe because he had two girls," Adella said, "he never treated them like girls or put them in a mold because they were women."

Diana wanted to be an astronaut before her high-school band teacher got her hooked on jazz with a John Coltrane record. Though she never got to fly, a Canadian astronaut aboard the space shuttle took along her CDs, which became his favorites. So in a way, Diana thought, she made it to outer space after all.

The flight of her career was rocket-like in 1996, the year she won a Grammy and her third album "All For You" sold about 200,000 copies. For 61 consecutive weeks - the streak ended in July - it was among the top 10 best-selling jazz albums. A jazz album that sells 150,000 is generally considered a huge success. At last year's jazz festival in Vancouver, Krall was asked to close for Ellis Marsalis but insisted on opening out of respect for Marsalis. Her mum, she says, keeps her grounded.

The Kralls are the type of family who grew up listening to National Public Radio's "A Prairie Home Companion," a show on which Diana has performed twice. That, not Carnegie Hall, got the family truly excited. For them to hear host Garrison Keillor say Diana's name on the air was "a real thrill," Adella said, the end of a circular journey.

One year has passed since Adella received a bone-marrow transplant from one of her sisters at Vancouver General Hospital. Memories of the Tsawassen ferry are mostly those of weathering the effects of chemotherapy during the 90-minute crossing. The cancer has not returned.

"It was the best of times because I was getting all this recognition," Krall said. "It was also the very worst time you could imagine.

"I used the music to work through it. Once you get on the bandstand, all the stuff goes away. But it was extremely difficult to be on the road."

Free of worry, she now loves being on the road, which this year has included jazz festivals in Puerto Rico, Montreal, Montreux in Switzerland, Holland, and a two-week gig at the Blue Note club in Tokyo. To remember where she is, she makes a routine of shopping and eating out in the city she is in. She recalls her experiences of the day during the shower she takes before the show and retells it to the audience between songs.

Her rapport with the audience is comfortable and chummy. She speaks slowly in monotone, even when delivering jokes. She often lets several seconds of silence go by before delivering the punch line, which is often subtle.

"This is the diva portion of the show when I get to stop playing and just sing," Krall said in Victoria, as she glanced mischievously at Malone. "It gives me the chance to think of interesting things to do with my hands."

HER OFTEN UNOCCUPIED home is a loft apartment in Manhattan. She has no pets or boyfriend. She has a rooftop garden, tended by a friend who has the time and inclination.

"Tonight I'm going to sleep four hours," Krall said after her Victoria concert. "But that's OK. I love being on the road. I'm riding a wave. I can sleep as much as I want next year."

She calls herself domestic because she "loves to shop, loves to decorate and loves to cook." Food - eating it and cooking it - gives her kinetic life a binding. "When I'm traveling it's important to me to see what things are about," she said. "Usually the only time I have to learn about the culture is when I eat."

In Seattle, she had shrimp dumpling soup at Etta's. In Memphis, it was barbecue. In Japan it was baby squid. In Mexico, it was larvae and worms. She will try anything at least once.

"The bottom line is to be constantly curious," she said. "That is fun. That's my credo. In art, music, books."

Stacy, a young woman who talked her way backstage after Krall's Victoria performance, seemed like the kind of person you'd love to help. Eager, lots of energy, determined to earn a conversation with her role model. Krall saw her teenage self mirrored in Stacy's face.

"I've been there so many times," Krall said. "She was so very sincere. She looked at me with those eyes. I told her to follow her passion. Find a person you want to study with and move there. My passion, my goal was to make a record with Ray Brown."

And she did on her second album, "Only Trust Your Heart."

Recording with musicians who were once her idols, being treated like a rock star in foreign cities, dining with heads of state. It is new enough that it still seems "bizarre" when someone even compliments her music.

"If you don't get excited about it . . . " Krall said. "You can't be ashamed to be corny. It's a darn ball."

Last fall, Krall ventured late to Penn Station to meet a visiting friend. While waiting, she noticed a woman staring at her curiously.

"You know who you look like?" the woman asked.

"Yeah, Helen Hunt, I get it all the time," Krall said.

"No, you look like that singer. Diana Krall."

[gundy516]

Thanks Scielle, I've marked my calendar! And thank you again for digging up this article. What a great read!

[Coda]

Thanks, scielle, for "being the repository of random DK articles." I'm grateful.

[jampot]

Channel 4 will premiere 'Spectacle: Elvis Costello with... The Police' in the UK and Ireland on December 3 at 9pm.

The show will air in the USA on January 7 at 9pm on the Sundance Channel.