Pre-concert styling

[Victoria]

do you guys know if there's someone in charge or styling Diana's hair, make-up and wardrobe before she goes on stage? Or if she has ever had one of those style assessors that famous people get when they start to gain recognition?

[jazzanddianafan]

I get the impression that Diana takes care of her own wardrobe decisions, I have met the person that takes care of 'make-up', but I don't really know if that includes her hair....

For what it's worth, the feeling that I get is that Diana does not have too much of an personal entourage....

[Coda]

(I can't believe I still had this somewhere on my computer...couldn't find the link for it on this site. This was written before GITOR was officially released -- hence, the "white-label" advance copy.

--------------------

TT: Backstage pass

Last week, I got a call from a record-company publicist who asked if I’d be willing to
do an "EPK" with a well-known musician—I’ll call her Jane Doe. "Duh, what’s an
EPK?" I replied, and was informed that it stands for "electronic press kit," the canned
celebrity interviews that are made available to TV and radio producers in lieu of
face-to-face personal appearances. The actual interviewer—that is, the person asking
the questions—is carefully scissored out of the videotape, leaving only the talking
head of the celebrity in question.
I’m a journalist, not a publicist, and I normally wouldn’t have thought twice about
saying no, but Jane happens to be an old friend of mine (we met before she became
successful). Since she spends most of her time on the road, we rarely get to see one
another, so I agreed to be the mystery interviewer, and the record company promptly
messengered over a top-secret "white-label" advance copy of Jane’s new CD, which
will be released next spring.
I put the album on, and was staggered. I knew it would be a major stylistic departure
for Jane—I’d talked to her longtime producer about it a few months ago—but even
so, I wasn’t fully prepared for how self-revealing, even confessional, her music had
become. As I listened and marveled (for the album is extraordinarily beautiful), I
thought to myself, How on earth am I going to talk to Jane about this in front of a TV
camera?
The record company sent a big black car to pick me up Sunday morning, and the
driver whisked me to the discreet front door of a boutique hotel on a midtown side
street. I made my way to a chic sardine can of a room into which had been stuffed an
entire video crew. A few minutes later, Jane arrived, trailed by her assistant and her
stylist. (Don’t laugh—famous women musicians never step in front of cameras
without first being fussed over by a stylist.) We hadn’t seen one another for two years,
but no sooner did she walk through the door than we were hugging and chattering,
just as if she were fresh off the bus, hoping to make it in the big city. I told her I'd
become a drama critic, and she giggled and said, "Not like Addison DeWitt, I hope!"
(Jane has seen All About Eve more times than any straight person I know.) Once her
makeup was in place, we sat down in a pair of high chairs, and after what seemed like
a half-hour’s worth of tinkering with the lights, the cameraman rolled the tape.
Like many performers, Jane is shy, which sometimes causes her to seem standoffish.
In addition, she’s learned from hard experience to be on her guard when talking to
journalists. For her to speak frankly about so personal a work of art would thus have
been difficult under the best of circumstances. Yet there we were, brightly lit and
surrounded by a tight knot of technicians and handlers, and for a brief moment my
heart sank. Then I screwed up my courage and asked a question, and within a matter
of minutes we might just as well have been sitting together in an empty room,
swapping stories and passing a bottle. We talked about the record, the experiences
that inspired her to make it, and everything else that came into our heads. She came
close to getting choked up at one point, and my own eyes filled with tears in response.
The cameraman signaled for us to take a break so that he could change reels.
"Omigod, was that too much?" Jane asked. "I feel weak in the knees after talking
about all that stuff. I’ve never really talked about it like that. Was I rambling? Did I
sound dumb?" She ran to the bathroom to fix her face, and I let out a sigh. As a
Kingsley Amis character once put it, I felt as if I’d just sat through a complete
performance of La Traviata compressed into one and a half minutes. (It took a little
longer than that, but you know what I mean.) Jane returned, the cameraman rolled the
tape again, and we wrapped up the interview. More chatter, more hugs, then I
descended to my waiting car and we went our separate ways.
As I headed home, I recalled a passage from one of my favorite books, André Previn’s
:
I have never heard of a jazz musician complaining, "You never even called
me once," or "Where have you been?"
It’s not for lack of caring or that they aren’t glad to see you, but chances
are they haven’t been that easy to find either, so why be accusatory? Only
six months ago I went back into a recording studio to make the first jazz
album I had made in twenty-five years, and I had taken out fail-safe
insurance in the presence of Ray Brown, the indefatigable and brilliant
bassist, and Joe Pass, a guitarist whose technique and inventiveness leave
his colleagues open-mouthed. I knew them both well, I had worked with
both of them a generation earlier, and we had been friends at that time. I
walked into the studio, a quarter century of classical concerts later, and
was instantly received with the kind of relaxed warmth usually based on
twice-weekly dinners. Lots of jokes, some reminiscing, some future
planning, and a great deal of music making. I can’t remember an easier
record to make, and I went home in the early hours of the morning with
my nerves quiescent, my blood pressure down, and in a generally euphoric
fog.
Most of my friends are musicians of one kind or another, and I used to be one myself,
so I know what Previn is talking about. I didn’t go home feeling euphoric—the
interview had been too intense for that—but once again, I marveled at the mysterious
ability of artists to pick up the threads of friendship after a long separation. I
marveled, too, at the way in which Jane and I had somehow managed to shut out the
world and talk. Perhaps this, too, is a special gift of performers, the gift of emotional
concentration, for it is something they must do nearly every night of their lives.
At any rate, it’s an amazing album. And yes, I really do have the best job in the
world…except for my friend Jane. She’s got me beat.
posted by terryteachout @ 12:02 am |

[TRX-C]

I know for a number of years Diana's Hair & MakeUp person was Voula Ampas. I think she started working with Di about six years ago. Don't know if she's still working with her, but as of "The Girl In the Other Room", she was still on board.

[Victoria]

thanks for the info!