No-one would deny that Diana Krall is a talented and sophisticated lady, a jazz singer and pianist who breathes life into old lines and classic songs.
She is coming to Taipei and performing at the National Dr. Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall (國父紀念館) tomorrow night, her first visit to Taiwan and the last date of a long tour through Asia.
After this she will fly to Paris, where she has another concert, and then home to New York, where she currently lives, and Canada, where she was born and raised.
Krall seems tired, and says her schedule of press interviews and concerts gives her little time to explore the countries she is visiting. Such is the punishment for fame and critical acclaim.
Even so she says that she is looking forward to her Taiwan visit. "I have been travelling on the road so long now, but the advantage of the work is that I can hang with tourists and talk about life and culture, it's very important to keep on learning about other people and other places."
"To keep on learning" appears to be something of a mantra for Krall, who started playing classical piano at the age of four, but who merged into the jazz mainstream at school where she joined a band. Before long she was playing weekend cabaret gigs in her home town of Nanaimo and she hasn't looked back since.
She got a scholarship to the prestigious Berkley College of Music in Boston and started to develop a more formalized study of jazz improvisation. Then she moved over to Los Angeles in search of fame and fortune and more musical education from pianist Jimmy Rowles, who Krall cites as one of the biggest influences in her career. She calls him her "musical grandpa." It was Rowles who encouraged her to sing more.
"He taught me that if you want to sing then just sing. It doesn't matter if you are not born with a voice like Sarah Vaughan, just do it."
Though it's not an original (not many of her songs are either) Just do It is another of Krall's mantras. It seems to work for her. Since her debut album in 1995 she has gone gold with the 1997 Grammy-nominated Love Scenes, which was a critical and popular success and lifted her into the exclusive club of international singer-pianist jazz artistes, joining her idols and contemporaries like Dinah Washington, Roberta Flack, Arethra Franklin and Carmen McRae. She has also collaborated with Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell and other pop vocalists.
"I can't imagine doing anything else," Krall says about her musical career, "If I wasn't doing this maybe I would be a cowboy, but then I can do that anyway down in Carmel."
As it happens the former Mayor of Carmel, Clint Eastwood and his wife are special friends of Krall. Eastwood is a big fan and even supplies quotes to help market her albums. Krall delivers the title credits tune Why Should I Care, in the tough-guy movie True Crime, and her version of Midnight Sun was a featured part of the soundtrack to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Krall has even done a couple of cameo performances in films and made an appearance on Melrose Place -- not just once but twice, for her sins. Nevertheless, the focus is still her music, and the current tour is primarily about promoting her new album, When I Look in Your Eyes, though she promised to include older songs from her repertoire, no doubt including the popular Peel Me a Grape and Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You.
Her latest album contains cover versions of the greats, such as Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. Production on the album adds strings to the trio and quartet arrangement she has used in the past, generating a rich almost ambient setting as a platform for her voice, which is capable of the kind of precise phrasing that allows the lyrics to reach out.
It is music in the classic jazz tradition that relaxes the mind and stimulates the musical tastebuds. She says her voice isn't pretty, even likening it to "a canoe being dragged across the road" by which she means gravelly. But, it is smooth and has a stainless steel quality, strong and clean, though capable of a soft refrain and even a blues tinge.
Her piano playing is technically brilliant, she is flawless and without artificial flourishes. But, it is her singing which is increasingly taking the notice of reviewers, one of whom likens her career progression to that of Nat King Cole: a jazz pianist who also sings, a jazz singer who plays piano, to a singer, period.
You can decide for yourself Sunday night -- if you can get hold of tickets.
Diana Krall is performing at the Dr Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Sunday, Nov. 21, 7:30pm.
On April 26, The Lancet published a letter from two doctors at Taichung-based China Medical University Hospital (CMUH) warning that “Taiwan’s Health Care System is on the Brink of Collapse.” The authors said that “Years of policy inaction and mismanagement of resources have led to the National Health Insurance system operating under unsustainable conditions.” The pushback was immediate. Errors in the paper were quickly identified and publicized, to discredit the authors (the hospital apologized). CNA reported that CMUH said the letter described Taiwan in 2021 as having 62 nurses per 10,000 people, when the correct number was 78 nurses per 10,000
As we live longer, our risk of cognitive impairment is increasing. How can we delay the onset of symptoms? Do we have to give up every indulgence or can small changes make a difference? We asked neurologists for tips on how to keep our brains healthy for life. TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH “All of the sensible things that apply to bodily health apply to brain health,” says Suzanne O’Sullivan, a consultant in neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, and the author of The Age of Diagnosis. “When you’re 20, you can get away with absolute
When the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese forces 50 years ago this week, it prompted a mass exodus of some 2 million people — hundreds of thousands fleeing perilously on small boats across open water to escape the communist regime. Many ultimately settled in Southern California’s Orange County in an area now known as “Little Saigon,” not far from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where the first refugees were airlifted upon reaching the US. The diaspora now also has significant populations in Virginia, Texas and Washington state, as well as in countries including France and Australia.
May 5 to May 11 What started out as friction between Taiwanese students at Taichung First High School and a Japanese head cook escalated dramatically over the first two weeks of May 1927. It began on April 30 when the cook’s wife knew that lotus starch used in that night’s dinner had rat feces in it, but failed to inform staff until the meal was already prepared. The students believed that her silence was intentional, and filed a complaint. The school’s Japanese administrators sided with the cook’s family, dismissing the students as troublemakers and clamping down on their freedoms — with
RSS