Krall space

The jazz singer-pianist collaborated
with husband Elvis Costello
on her latest album

Just before her first performance with the Honolulu Symphony Pops five years ago, Grammy-award-winning jazz singer-pianist Diana Krall was riding out a storm on a cruise ship in Antarctica. Never comfortable with interviews anyway, and feeling nauseous from the mountainous seas, Krall seemed less than enthusiastic, her voice crackling over a bad radio contact.

Krall's concert The Honolulu Symphony Pops welcomes the singer Where: Waikiki Shell When: 7 p.m. Sunday Tickets: $38 lawn area, $78 second terrace, $93 first terrace and $128 pool area Call: 792-2000

"Can't hear you, so maybe this isn't a good time," she said. "I'm holding a throw-up bag so I may, you know. Now what is it you want to ask? Let's do this fast."

"That was a long, long time ago," said Krall from Australia. She performs Sunday night for the third time with the Pops. "I'm not a very good interview subject because it really stresses me out. Writers say I'm gruff, an ice queen, but it's just very hard for me to articulate into words what I do in music. I guess it shows."

Like in her music, Krall tries exceptionally hard to capture a feeling, a moment. Her intensity shows in rapid fire responses, pauses, expressions of self doubts, then a reversal of emotion to implausible strength and confidence.

"For a lot of reasons, I really do know who I am and what I want to do, try to do with my music, and I finally, with Elvis, have someone who actually understands that," she said.

Elvis, of course, is her husband and singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, with whom she collaborated on her current album, "The Girl in the Other Room."

Then a barely discernible cry slips over the telephone.

"I am so happy with what I can do in my work, and with Elvis, I've found such incredible happiness in my life," she says.

"The Girl In The Other Room" shows Krall's breadth in the jazz idiom, but now reveals her songwriting talent of which there had been years of pressure to take that step. It was after her mother's death that Krall, who turned 40 last year, began writing songs.

"It was the only thing that I could do to get through the pain," she said. "I didn't seem able to do anything else. That's how the universe works it.

"I'm very thankful that I met Elvis at the time that I did. He helped me to express myself."

The album's title song is a Krall original, a lyrical portrait of a mysterious woman distracted by love. Listeners can't help but be drawn to the effortless accompaniment of Krall's piano and that of long-time partners, drummer Jeff Hamilton and bassist John Clayton. The words were co-written with Costello, who has credit on seven of the album's 12 songs.

A risky collaboration?

"Not at all," Krall says. "We weren't trying to rewrite Cole Porter or George Gershwin. We were just trying to write whatever we felt without an agenda and come from an honest place."

Krall's choice of composers on the CD is also a departure from her other albums, with covers of Mose Allison's "Stop This World" or the joyfully carnal "Love Me Like a Man." She takes a sensual approach to Tom Waits' "Temptation" and does a tender rendition of her husband's "Almost Blue."

A beautifully reflective version of the relatively obscure standard "I'm Pulling Through" recalls the style of her teacher, jazz legend Jimmy Rowles.

"I don't feel less of a creative person by writing lyrics and arrangements and interpreting standards because if you're a jazz musician that's what you do," she said. "It's a canvas and you take it apart and put it back together again and write."

Was there a shade of artistic competition between she and her husband?

"You think I'd try to compete with Elvis Costello?!?" she says. "Are you nuts?"

Then Krall admits collaborations with other men she'd been romantically involved with haven't gone well.

"There have been times before, well, major blocks with other relationships and that's a real personal issue," she says. "But Elvis is a strong, incredible artist and extremely giving. He understands what I'm trying to do better than anyone."

COSTELLO, who is accompanying Krall to Hawaii but not expected to play, suggested she not try to write lyrics per se, but feelings and the things she loved, imagistic phrases like "the perfume still on my mother's counter."

"I write it out and he did the rest, the story," she said.

The sophisticated, mesmerizing blues of the track "Abandoned Masquerade" most expresses the need for Krall to step out from behind the beautiful romantic illusions found in so many songs of the past.

"Anytime you put strings with a song, people automatically think it's romantic," she said. "Listen to 'The Look of Love' and the lyric 'I get along with you very well/Maybe you'll be there.'

"That's pretty heavy stuff. I can find different ways to express myself, even through very literal personal recollections."

The last few months Krall has been transcribing Oscar Peterson tunes. "I've been working on one since I was 16," she said. "I want to bring things into the band so they can be inspired and we're not just doing a bunch of shows that are programs. We try to take risks and that's hard."

The Honolulu stop will allow Krall to relax in "my favorite place in the world."

"Hawaii is the only place I can really relax ..." she says.

She and Costello will vacation "someplace (here) where no one knows us." Krall is even considering surfing lessons. Then she gets an idea for her next album.

"The cover will have me on a surfboard and I'll sing a couple of Brian Wilson songs," she said. "Boy, will they really be scratching their heads at Downbeat magazine. 'What's she doing now?' "