Diana Krall

Musician

• Born: November 16, 1964
• Place of Birth: Nanaimo, British Columbia

Contribution: Diana Krall is a Grammy Award–winning jazz vocalist and pianist who has enjoyed strong crossover appeal throughout her career. She is perhaps best known for her albums When I Look in Your Eyes (1999), The Look of Love (2001), Quiet Nights (2009), Glad Rag Doll (2012), and Turn Up the Quiet (2017).

Background

Diana Jean Krall was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, on November 16, 1964. From a very early age, she was singing and playing piano with her father and grandmother, starting classical piano lessons at the age of four.

At the age of fifteen, Krall was hired to play piano at a local restaurant and was a member of her high school jazz band. She attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston on a Vancouver Jazz Festival scholarship. After that, she lived briefly in Los Angeles to study with jazz pianist Jimmy Rowles on a Canadian Arts Council grant, before moving to Toronto and finally to New York in 1990, where she performed as part of a trio.

Her first album, Stepping Out, was released in 1993. Two years later, she collaborated with music producer Tommy LiPuma on Only Trust Your Heart, which introduced her to a much wider audience.

Music Career

Krall’s real breakthrough came with the release of her 1996 album All for You, dedicated to the music of the Nat King Cole Trio. The disc stayed on Billboard’s Traditional Jazz Top 10 chart for nearly seventy weeks and was named one of the top adult pop albums of 1996 by the New York Times. Krall’s first Grammy nomination was for the album Love Scenes, which went gold in 1999.

Krall’s 1999 release, When I Look in Your Eyes, was an international top seller and the first jazz album to be nominated for an album of the year Grammy in twenty-five years. It also earned her a Grammy for best jazz vocal performance.

Her 2001 album, The Look of Love, was also a Billboard chart topper and went quintuple platinum (selling five million or more) in Canada, a first-time achievement for a Canadian jazz artist. The album earned Krall three JUNO awards in 2002: artist of the year, album of the year, and best vocal jazz album of the year. She won another Grammy in 2003 for Live in Paris.

Krall’s 2004 album The Girl in the Other Room was a departure from her previous albums. Not only did she branch out from jazz classics to cover a range of blues and pieces by contemporary artists, but she also collaborated with her husband, musician Elvis Costello, on original compositions. The album reached number four on the Billboard 200, and ranked first on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart in 2004 and 2006.

Krall returned to American jazz classics for her 2006 album, From This Moment On, which topped both the Billboard Top Canadian Albums and Top Jazz Albums charts that year, reached number seven on the Billboard 200, and received a Grammy nomination for best jazz vocal album.

Krall’s 2009 album, Quiet Nights, marked another departure for the artist. Inspired by Brazilian bossa nova, Quiet Nights debuted in the Billboard Top 10 and eventually reached number three on the Billboard 200. Krall won a 2010 Grammy Award for her instrumental arrangement on the album.

For Glad Rag Doll (2012), Krall turned to her father’s 78-rpm record collection, selected thirty-five vaudeville and jazz pieces from the 1920s and 1930s, and then had producer T-Bone Burnett decide which songs to record. Glad Rag Doll peaked at number one on the Billboard Jazz Albums charts for 2012 and 2013, and reached number six on the Billboard 200 for both years. In 2013, Krall was nominated for a Juno Award for vocal jazz album of the year.

Krall has toured extensively in North and South America, Asia, Europe, and Australia, sometimes performing with jazz great Tony Bennett. Her songs have been featured in television shows and films, including the television series Sex in the City and the film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In 2004 she appeared in the film De-Lovely as a musician. In addition to the Grammy Awards ceremonies, her television appearances include Late Show with David Letterman (2006, 2009, and 2012); the documentary In Good Time: The Piano Jazz of Marian McPartland (2011); and The Colbert Report (2012).

After the release of the album Wallflower (2015), which charted in the tenth spot on the Billboard 200, she followed up this effort with 2017's Turn Up the Quiet. The year 2018 saw her collaborate with Bennett on their first full-length record, Love Is Here to Stay, which features songs that pay tribute to George and Ira Gershwin. The duet album earned a Grammy nod for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. Two years later, she collected songs that she had previously recorded with LiPuma, who died in 2017, to release as This Dream of You in 2020.

Krall received the Order of British Columbia in 2000, an honorary doctorate from the University of Victoria in 2003, and a spot on Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2004. She was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005.

Personal Life

Krall appeared on People magazine’s list of the “25 Most Intriguing People of 2001” and married British rocker Elvis Costello in 2003. The couple had twin boys Dexter Henry Lorcan and Frank Harlan James in 2006.

Bibliography

Doherty, Mike. “Krall’s Ragged Runs.” Maclean’s 8 Oct. 2012: 72–74. Print.

Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Diana Krall." All Music, 2024, www.allmusic.com/artist/diana-krall-mn0000255210. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

Gallant, Michael. “Diana Krall: Casting for Chemistry.” DownBeat Dec. 2012: 30–34. Print.

Heckman, Don. “Girl Next Door Is Now Girl in the Other Room.” Los Angeles Times, 13 Apr. 2004, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-apr-13-et-heckman13-story.html. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

Krall, Diana. “Diana Krall.” Jazzwomen: Conversations with Twenty-one Musicians. By Wayne Enstice and Janis Stockhouse. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004: 179–92. eBook.

Krall, Diana. "Diana Krall on Sharing Music in Quarantine, Hanging with Iggy Pop and Stanley Donen, and Honoring Her Late Producer with 'This Dream of You.'" Interview by A. D. Amorosi. Variety, variety.com/2020/music/news/diana-krall-this-dream-of-you-interview-1234783794/. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

Krall, Diana. “Diana Krall: Old-Time Music, Rooted in Nostalgia.” Interview by Steve Inskeep. NPR, 8 Nov. 2012, www.npr.org/transcripts/163108110. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

Krall, Diana. “The Look of Love.” Chatelaine May 2009: 196–201. Print.

Ouzounian, Richard. “Diana Krall Says She’s Given Up Trying to Be a Diva.” Toronto Star, 15 Feb. 2013, www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/diana-krall-says-she-s-given-up-trying-to-be-a-diva/article‗a53628c1-b08e-5c1e-9110-9fda6899d358.html. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.

Shapiro, Michael. “Old Is New: For Modern Jazz Singer Diana Krall, Her Latest Album Only Seems Old-Fashioned.” Press Democrat [Santa Rosa, CA] 24 Aug. 2012: n.p. Print.