Down Beat: Christmas Songs

[scielle]

Down Beat. Aaron Cohen. Chicago: Dec 2005. Vol. 72, Iss. 12; pg. 73

GOOD TUNES PUT DIANA KRALL INTO A WARM DECEMBER MOOD


Family is the focus when Diana Krall talks about her holiday traditions, like the internal warmth of December when she was growing up.

"My mother had the house decorated beautifully and everybody came over. We sang Christmas carols from old sheet music. Everybody would switch off playing piano," Krall said. "It was such a musical family. My dad, uncle, mother, her family and my dad's family all played music. We played until it was time to go to bed. We'd sing more traditional carols and then jazzed up versions of 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.' Some Fats Waller would sneak in there somehow. I can see my mother always laughing and saying, 'You and your nana would always get though the traditional Christmas and sneak "Ain't Misbehavin'" in there somewhere.'"

Krall also remembers another early avocation that must have set her apart from most Canadian teenagers. She has always avidly collected Christmas records, and raided her father's collection of 78s, as well as her band teacher's albums. One amazing find was Bill Evans performing "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town."

"I had great resources," Krall said. "I'm always searching for different angles, different ways of looking at things."

KralTs seasonal memories fondly come to the fore of her new album, Christmas Songs (Verve), featuring the clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. Krall offers her perspective on a set of familiar songs and performs them in the big band setting that recalls the swing era records she sought. Following the practice of her favorite singers, she provides top billing to her orchestral accompaniment. Bassist John clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton are the leaders of the group, but the lineup also includes such longtime friends as guitarists Anthony Wilson and Russell Malone.

"It was all a complete trust," Krall said. "I've known those guys for so long and I didn't have to say much. John and I talked about it, and I said, 'Write what you hike.' It was inspiring to be in the studio with the big band and hear those arrangements, the care and hard work that John put into it."

Veteran arranger Johnny Mandel also assembled and conducted the string section on three songs, notably the disc's closer, Irving Berlin's "Count Your Blessings Instead Of Sheep."

"He is one of the greatest writers, especially for vocalists," Krall said. "The recording process is fun because you get to play music you love and get to work with people you've never dreamed of ever getting the opportunity of working with."

As a lifelong student of the great jazz vocalists and composers, Krall is also aware that in many of these ostensibly joyous Christmas songs there are also painful feelings of loss and distant longing. "White Christmas" and "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" are two that are particularly loaded with emotional complexity.

"For many people, [late December] is a painful time," Krall said. "I wanted to make an album that reflected some sense that some of these songs were written post World War Π. There are references to lossthere always is in songs by living Berlin or popular American songwriters. It's not just the illusion of romanticism. If you're listening to 'What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?' you can read your own interpretation to that, but there are all sorts of emotions all over it. You should feel like you want to dance to it, there's hope, there's all these feelings. It's not one-dimensional. It's not just about Santa Claus. That's why we sing in church."

Early September was a particularly emotional time for Krall. She had just performed benefit concerts on behalf of multiple myeloma research, a disease that took her mother, Adella's, life three years ago. Hurricane Katrina had devastated New Orleans, and Krall joined many other musicians at benefit concerts in helping raise money for relief efforts.

Of course, songs can also directly express longing for a better world. Krall is equally enthusiastic about the optimistic words that her husband, Elvis Costello, wrote to Oscar Peterson's tune "When Summer Comes." Krall and Costello performed for the pianist in Toronto for his 80th birthday.

"We went up to Toronto and I had to do the biggest recital of my life," Krall said. "Oscar was absolutely wonderful. We went to his house to hang out in the evening and stayed until 1:30 a.m. Oscar and I played Nat 'King' Cole, sang, played tunes and talked about Ray Brown and other people. It was one of those times when you wake up and go, 'Did that really happen?'"

[Coda]

Thanks for the post, Scielle. If she felt that the Oscar Peterson concert was the biggest recital of her life, no wonder she was a little nervous! Interesting recap of Christmas at the Kralls, too.

[verena]

Never knew that Down Beat was released in Chicago ! I thought it was a Manhattan intellectual kind of thing.
Thank you Scielle, nice read.

So Diana says that when she was little at Xmas during the piano session she and her “nana” managed to play “Ain’t misbehavin’” right under the nose of her mother… Hey, she was naughty ! (may help explain where the teasy side of the Xmas CD cover is coming from). I wouldn't be surprised if the nana had something to do with it.

By the way who was the nana, a nannie ? That’s a new word. I knew “nounou”,” amah”, “ayah”, the funniest being “yaya” . Yeah, in the Philippines you say yaya. This country is great fun for a lot of things. Mind you Diana may want to ask her management to check Manila for a concert someday. Easy to get there, it’s on the way down from Tokyo to Sing, and no it ain't dangerous. In the same line of thinking Shanghai would be a great place, you could squeeze it in. Well, so much for digressing.

[Victoria]

By the way who was the nana, a nannie ?

No, I don't think she's talking about a nanny. I think she refers to her grandmother. Diana mentioned once in an article or interview, that her family used to gather and sing along around the piano, and her grandmother would either play the piano or sing, (or both)- (I'm a bit fuzzy on this detail.)
Diana also said that western Canada has more like a British tendency. (This includes their dialect, phonetics, lexicon, etc ). British people (=>western canadians) tend to use the word "nana" or "nan" to refer to grandmothers.
British children also use (informally) the word "nanny" meaning grandmothers.

[verena]

Thank you for the explanation.

I suppose nanny and nan come from granny.

[TheViolinSkirt]

Where I'm from Nana = Grandma. Or so it goes in my family.