Christmas album featuring 1950s big band orchestration...

[scielle]

"A Christmas album featuring 1950s big band orchestrations is in the works" - now that, my dears, sounds perfect.

A Starbucks is born; Fans of Diana Krall can expect a bit of everything when the jazz singer plays Hong Kong next week, writes David Watkins

24 March 2005
South China Morning Post

"COFFEE SHOP" IS a cliché that's all too easily applied to the cosy warblings of jazz singers such as Norah Jones and Diana Krall. You might think such flippant dismissal would get them down, but not Krall - she's gone and perpetuated the stereotype by having her Hong Kong show sponsored by none other than Starbucks.

But then Krall is known for not really caring what people think about her, with interview skills that veer from blunt to self-deprecating. "I'd rather stick pins in my eyes," she says over the phone from her home on Vancouver Island, Canada, "than do press over and over again."

Not your lucky day, then, is it?

At the beginning of the conversation, Krall is struggling to talk. Her speech is slow, staccato, perhaps even slightly slurred - to the point where you wonder if she's been seeking some kind of herbal inspiration before the phone call.

"If I sound strange, it's because I'm in this whole channelling place where you kind of just leave," she says slowly. "I'm still in my pyjamas. I woke up, got a cup of coffee and went straight to the piano. I'm finding it hard to put sentences together because I've been so focused on the piano. In between interviews I'm immersing myself."

She puts this state of immersion down to her own reckoning that she's "not naturally gifted" when it comes to playing music. "I have to work really hard," she says, perking up slightly. "I'm learning this Oscar Peterson tune I've been working on since I was 15 years old and I'm determined I'm going to get it this time. When I get something like this it's always a big deal. I just wrote this arrangement that I'm so proud of. I played it over the phone to my husband with some other tunes that I'd made on the piano today, so I was all excited about it."

She married singer-songwriter Elvis Costello in late 2003 after the pair struck up a friendship around the time of her last performance in Hong Kong almost three years ago. He's credited with writing most of the lyrics on her latest album, The Girl in the Other Room, which combines Krall's usual take on traditional standards with some of her first original material since starting her career in 1993.

"I'm excited about coming to Hong Kong because it means I get to meet my husband there," she says. "It's a very romantic place to meet up." But Krall denies that Costello will stage a performance of his own while in town. "It's just called 'not being able to be apart for longer than six weeks', so we're going to meet up. He can just spend four days being my husband."

Judging by their recent interviews, both Krall and Costello are clearly infatuated with each other. The long-distance aspect of their relationship is always at the forefront of conversations with the pair.

"It's hard because we both love what we do - we just have to have careful planning," she says. "Fortunately, we have the same management and they understand that we need to see each other, so we can try to pick out moments when we can be together. We just do the best we can."

She credits Costello with helping her through a particularly rough time in her life. Her mother died in May 2002, around the time she also lost her two musical mentors: singer Rosemary Clooney and Ray Brown, one of the most influential jazz bassists of the past 50 years. Departure Bay, the closing song on The Girl in the Other Room, attempts to put this in perspective by recounting her childhood days. Costello co-wrote the lyrics.

"Fortunately, my husband has helped me through such a challenging time in my life," she says. "And then when you get it done, to have to go out and promote it and talk about it - to no longer be playing it for yourself and to be talking about it all the time - I found it very difficult.

"I'm very shy and sometimes it's mistaken for being aloof or snippy or whatever. But that was a difficult time and it wasn't easy to talk about. I mean it's OK - you put yourself in that position and I'm not saying that anyone's making me do anything. I get frustrated with myself in terms of what to keep and what to give away. I found that very psychologically tough."

After such a tumultuous period in her life, in which she was forced to embrace loss as well as new love, Krall is now in a position where she can look forward. A Christmas album featuring 1950s big band orchestrations is in the works, although she's reluctant to give too much away.

"I like to keep things close to my chest. I don't like to talk about anything creative while I'm still in it, because I don't want it to change. Next thing you know, I'll be playing electric guitar with a mohawk. Not likely, but still."

[Coda]

Thanks, Scielle. I'm still trying to visualize Diana with an electric guitar and a mohawk!

Plus, I thought the whole snapshot of where Diana is at now was interesting. A Christmas album with a 50s-style orchestration sounds like a pretty interesting album. I wonder if it will include those super-high soprano voices, too?

[fore15]

Thanks Scielle!!!....nice read!.....The Christmas Album sounds like it is going to be great!!