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Grammy nominee Krall
Staff and wire reports
set for Honolulu Pops showTHE timing of Diana Krall's Honolulu Pops concert with the Honolulu Symphony couldn't have been better. On Tuesday, her album "When I Look in Your Eyes" was nominated for an "Album of the Year" Grammy, a surprise contender, given the attention generally lavished, not on jazz performers, but on pop stars like the Backstreet Boys and TLC, among her competitors for the award.
The album has topped Billboard's jazz chart since its July 1999 release.
"When I Look in Your Eyes" also won her a nomination in the category of Jazz Vocal Performance.
Whether she wins will be determined at the 42nd Grammy Awards Show Feb. 23, but Honolulu audiences can gauge her live performance tomorrow and Saturday at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. The concert will also feature the debut of the new Pure Heart -- Jake Shimabukuro, Lopaka Colon and Guy Cruz.
IN CONCERT
What: Honolulu Pops with special guests Diana Krall and Pure Heart; Matt Catingub conducts
Krall couldn't have imagined a nomination for her vocals, recalling she was forced to define her role in her first conversation with the great composer and arranger, Johnny Mandel. When she told him she was both a singer and a pianist, he replied, "Oh, so you're a hyphenate! Are you a singer-pianist or are you a pianist-singer?"
Krall the singer needs Krall the pianist as an accompanist; but Krall the musician prefers to play the piano.
She comes from the British Columbia town of Nanaimo, where she was surrounded by music and musicians. Her father and mother play piano, and the whole family played and sang on Sundays at her grandmother's house.
"We'd all take turns. I can't remember not playing." She studied classical piano but played jazz in the school band with bassist-teacher Bryan Stovell. Her first gig was at age 15 in a restaurant, and she's been playing ever since.
That Krall became hyphenated was only natural. She took her inspiration from singer-pianist, Fats Waller. "I was raised on Fats Waller. My dad is a record collector, and he must have every Fats Waller recording made on 78s, LPs and CDs. Fats was the first person I heard play piano and sing. I started playing his repertoire when I was a kid. I tried to learn all his tunes and to play and sing at the same time.
"My favorite singers all have played piano: Dinah Washington, Roberta Flack, Shirley Horn, Andy Bey, Aretha Franklin, Sarah Vaughan and especially Carmen McRae. She has really been important to me, and is one of my biggest influences. And Nat Cole was the ULTIMATE."
She studied for a while on a Vancouver Jazz Festival scholarship at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and later returned home to B.C. She became friends with Jeff Hamilton and Ray Brown, who encouraged her to venture to Los Angeles -- where a Canadian Arts Council grant enabled her to study with pianist Jimmy Rowles.
Potent as both a pianist and vocalist, Diana Krall possesses an extraordinary talent for creating music that speaks personally to every individual who hears her perform. But don't expect Diana to tell her listeners what to feel.
"Tony Bennett taught me how important emotional directness is in music," she says. "It's all about how you communicate. You tell a story, but you leave it open to personal interpretation."
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