Mrs Krall, a few times I heard you say to an audience, “I’m very shy.” After so many years on stage you still describe yourself this way?
Diana Krall: I guess so. Especially when compared with someone like David Foster, who was on stage with me in Paris. He is a very outgoing person and talks about everything. I usually don’t talk about songs. I just introduce the song, but I’m shy talking about what a song means to me. I prefer to talk about other things.
Is that why we rarely find liner notes in your CDs?
Krall: Yes, I think music speaks for itself. And I’m not a writer, I was not born to be a songwriter. I was born to improvise, to play jazz piano.
But you did write songs.
Krall: Yes, but it wasn’t very easy. I have produced records too, but I don’t want to think of it as my calling.
The first album with songs you wrote yourself, The Girl in the Other Room, was a big success. Didn’t that boost your self-confidence?
Krall: The songs weren’t radio hits. The album has been successful, yes, but only over time. Some were initially upset because they were expecting the sound of The Look of Love.
Personally I like songwriters like Neil Young or Joni Mitchell. They are singer-songwriters. I’m more content with expressing myself through other people’s words and music and using that as a creative vehicle.
You don’t just start out getting a record deal being a jazz pianist, you have to wash and dry some dishes first.
In a recent Guardian article you have been quoted as saying, “I’m not dramatic. That’s why I sit at a piano and I don’t stand out front of a big band.”
Krall: Yes, I’m not like Lady Gaga with Tony Bennett, although I like her. Lady Gaga is great. But I’m more coming from that sort of “Shirley Horn territory.” I can talk sitting at the piano while I’m playing. Eventually I do start talking about 45 minutes after the concert has started. Then the band goes off the stage and I sit at the piano, play and talk.
Sometimes you ask for requests…
Krall: I have, yes. I don’t always play them, but I do ask.
This makes me think of your early days, when you worked as a bar pianist.
Krall: Oh yes. For 20 years I worked as a bar pianist. When I was 15 I started playing jazz in local restaurants in Canada with bass players. Then I was a student in L.A. and Boston and I supported myself and my jazz piano lessons by playing in hotels and bars. I also went to Europe sometimes, to Sweden and Switzerland. For three months I lived in Zurich where I played in hotels six days a week.
Was that a good experience?
Krall: Yes. I lived in the Niederdorf area. On my way to the hotel there was always the lady of the night on the corner, we would say, “Hi, have a nice evening.” Then I would go play my six hours. And I would look at people. I was playing piano all night – and watching people.
It was a great time. I was very much alone and had to figure out what to do. I went to the opera, to concerts, museums, took trains all over Europe, sometimes to the wrong place but then made the best out of it. I was really an independent young woman at 24. It was really brave thing to do.
You don’t just start out getting a record deal being a jazz pianist, you have to wash and dry some dishes first.
What did you learn in this time?
Krall: Everything. I learned work ethic, I learned what it is like to work your ass off, to move, to look forward. I also learned a lot about people, watching people, how they treat you…
© Universal Music
Do you still sometimes play in places where people eat?
Krall: No. I don’t like if there are too many noises from spoons and plates. And then it’s always in the middle of a ballad that someone runs the blender and shouts “who ordered the margarita?” No, you don’t want to go to the Village Vanguard in New York and all of the sudden somebody loads the frozen daiquiri machine in the middle of a beautiful ballad. I know jazz musicians who would stop playing.
But I like clubs, the happy medium, when you have a bar, when people have a cocktail. I like that vibe more than a concert hall where everybody is sitting silently.
When fans write about your voice, they use words like “unaffected”. Is it hard, to achieve this way of singing?
Krall: It is really hard not to oversing. Just because David Foster plays the way he does, doesn’t mean you have to sing like Celine Dion. I have to make sure that I sing without tricks. These songs don’t need any tricks. You need to sing them really straight. Very “Clint Eastwood style”: Don’t do too much; just stand there. I think the more simply and straightforwardly you sing them, the more emotionally direct it comes across. Theatrical is not my style. I’m more like Shirley Horn, Carmen McRae… I don’t do scat or any of that. My style is not really jazz.
Stacey Kent says that when she sings, she imagines talking to her husband at the kitchen table. Do you also think of singing as a conversation?
Krall: Stacey Kent is one of the few singers I really like. She reminds me of great singers like June Christy. Stacey is a perfect example of someone who doesn’t oversing, doesn’t cuckoo. She just sounds great.
And to your question: Yes, I do that too. I feel like I need to sing in a way that is conversational. It’s more effective. I’m shy, but I’m not afraid to look the audience in the eyes when I’m singing. And then to stop and continue looking. Some people don’t feel comfortable with this silence, but I do.
So you really look at the people sitting in the first row?
Krall: Sure. I look at people’s eyes and I sing like I would talk to them. I’m not like “here is my invisible curtain, with the audience on one side and me on the other.”
Do you try to achieve perfection in the studio?
Krall: No. When I normally do records, with Tommy LiPuma, then the process is very different from how we made Wallflower. Making jazz records you have to compromise sometimes, you have to capture the first-take feeling. You have to be ok with some mistakes. Tommy would ask: “Are you ok with that?” – and I say, “Yes, I’m ok, because the piano was great, the guitar solo is great…” because you are capturing live performance in the studio. For Wallflower it was all about production, making a sound… It was more focused on vocals, doing different takes and getting the magic take. It wasn’t done all live in the studio.
This means that you used several takes for one song…
Krall: Yes, but usually not more than five takes. I’m not a “25-take” person. I’m very quick, five takes and I’m done. Otherwise it starts feeling not right.
I read some comments online where people speculate about the use of Auto-Tune on Wallflower.
Krall: It was not auto-tuned.
Would you say that Auto-Tune is the borderline between jazz and pop?
Krall: I heard Michael Bublé saying, “I can’t get played on the radio unless I use Auto-Tune.” I don’t know. To me, Auto-Tune sounds ridiculous. It reminds me of Cher.
But if we talk about the technical aspects of pitch correction…
Krall: I think everybody uses pitch correction. Everybody does. If you have a perfect take and you sing one note that’s off very little, then you can put it up a little bit. Everybody has Pro Tools. And you will do it to make sure that you have the take. Unless you decide to just sing it perfectly “bang on.”
The following quote comes from sound engineer Bill Schnee: “All artists have gone nuts with it. Turn the radio on and just try to find an out of tune note. Even singers who really can sing won’t stand for anything the least bit out of tune. Now they listen and say, “please fix it” – under the guise of making a more perfect vocal. I don’t believe the average person cares that much about perfect pitch.”
Krall: When I work with Tommy LiPuma the only thing we fight about is tuning. When he says, “We gotta just pitch that“ I answer: „Leave it alone“. I’m the person who fights against that.
But there are all sorts of little secrets. Is anything edited in jazz? Did Ted Curson edit anything? Did they splice anything? Maybe. Is a guitar solo edited in modern days? Sure!
I know a million bass players that say: I want to do that part again. Even Marc Ribot, an incredible guitar player who is on Glad Rag Doll. He plays perfect solos everywhere – but in the studio he still is like “I just want get that perfect.” In a recording studio it’s not like everybody comes in and goes after the first take, “Hey, I love that, I’m done.”
And then you can listen to Frank Sinatra records and hear him singing out of tune, because that’s the performance.
But that’s also what people like, isn’t it? It’s natural.
Krall: Ya, I guess so. It didn’t hurt Bob Dylan too much. If Dylan was auto-tuned, it’d be awful weird.
What role does authenticity play?
Krall: I don’t really have to proof my authenticity. All I have to do is sit my ass on that piano and play. I don’t have to say a word about authenticity. Of course it’s important to me. But also important for me is having fun, doing something different, trying something new, and giving up control. On stage I don’t have to write and act and stare at my own moves like I would in the studio.
Konzerte in Deutschland:
18.10.München, 19.10. Berlin
(Interview from February 2015, Paris)