DownBeat September 2001 [antikvár]

Chairwoman although the voice flowing out of the monitors is plainly, and inimitably, that of Diana Krall on this March afternoon, a certain Sinatra aura permeates the building. It's partly the building itself, the same Capitol studios complex in Hollywood where Sinatra frequently held sway. But it's also a matter of prevailing musical attitude and material. On this mfacdown day, for Krall's eagerly awaited new album, the songs in question are Sinatra-related standards, "Only The Lonely" and "But Not For Me." Her by-now classic voice and lean, meaningful piano work are entwined with lush and smart orchestral arrangements by the legendary Claus Ogeraian, who collaborated fruitfully with Sinatra. Diana Krall Credits Luck, But Those Who Really Hear Her Kr^ow Her Success Comes From A Deep Musical Love Producer Tommy UPuma and engineer AI Schmitt— her working partners on her last few albums, including her 1999 album. When I Look In Your Eyes—make assorted knob-tweaking and technical adjustments. Krall wanders around the room and settles into a side room where her laptop is plugged in. Suddenly, we hear another famous American male voice, the AOL man cheerfully announcing, "You've got mail!" Suddenly, it becomes clear we're not in the early '60s anymore. History keeps rearing back on itself with Krall. When the reporter compliments her inventive piano solo on "But Not For Me," she demurs, referring to an important mentor in her life, "Oh, that's all Jimmy Rowles' influence." But she has to take some credit. "No," she says emphatically. "I don't" Krall has a series of influential musicians in her life, who she regularly circles back to in conversation: Included in the list are Rosemary Clooney, her "road mother," Rowles, bandmates like John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, Christian McBride and Russell Malone, UIHuna and Ogerman. As she describes the process by which she came to work with Ogerman, luring him out of a long-standing retirement from arranging work (apart from his classical composing), Krall says, with a serious expression: "I'm very lucky. I wish for things to happen, and they happen." at Capitol, the atmosphere is, on the surface, relaxed. But an implcit tension can be sensed around Krall's world at this juncture, in the space between a massive success and its follow-up project Consider that When I Look In Your Eyes, with Johnny Mandel string arrangements, stands as one of the best-selling albums in jazz liis-tory, having sold more than 2 million—and counting— since its release two years ago. Consider her rendezvous with the 2000 Grammys, being the first jazz artist to have been nominated for Best Album of the Year, and coming away with the Best Jazz Vocalist award. Jazz, still a marginal world in the grand music biz scheme, is unaccustomed to numbers and kudos on this order. Krall has taken some critical heat for her work, which may be partly a suspicion of mass success in a world frained to survive, and even savor, life on the fringes. But the truth is, it couldn't have happened to a nicer woman, and someone devoted to her art. "You have a lot of different types of pressures that you're dealing with," LiPuma says, in a Jtme interview, a few weeks after they finished The Look Of Love. "You have an album that suddenly sells 2 million worldwide, and obviously, the foUow-up, there's a certain amount of pressure that you can't help but have. Everybody's watching. It would have been very simple for us just to go back with the same winning team, to get Johnny. We're going to work with Johimy on her Christmas album, so it wasn't a question of her not Uking what Johnny did. To the contrary. But we just wanted to do something a Uttle different, instead of When I Look in Your Eyes, Volume Two." What happened, instead, was that Krall met with Ogerman in Munich, and they initiated a creative pact She knew and admired ^tr MicZiVetr^ By Josef Woodard with-hip-orchestrations project, Cityseape. She explains, "I bought that when I was a student at Berklee and I used to Usten to it every night before I went to bed." She also had a powerful liking for the Joâo Gilberto album—arranged by Ogerman and produced by UPuma—Amoroso (from which she got the idea to do "S'Wondenful" and "Besame Mucho" on the new album), and such older work as the Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim album collaboration. "When Claus said he'd do the project," Krall says, "I got together with him and we spent a week in euphoria in the studio. I mentioned just casually 'Dancing In The Dark.' My boyfriend had just bought me The Band Wagon— Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, great tunes. Claus found that interesting as well. It just became a process of he and I talking together and coming up with ideas.