Diana Krall

From the start of her work in the 1990s, Diana Krall seemed to evoke an earlier and more refined time, above all the middle decades of the twentieth century when singers such as Nat King Cole helped restore interest in the Great American Songbook. Her breakthrough recording of 1996, All for You: A Dedication to the Nat King Cole Trio, openly honored that era, yet Krall did not limit herself to delivering the material in a period style; the album’s subtitle made clear that she gave the same weight to her own piano work. That deliberate choice lent her performances a poise and suppleness that continued to serve her. While she returned often to songs composed in the first half of the twentieth century, she also broadened the notion of the American Songbook by including bossa nova and material by pop and rock singer-songwriters, now and then recovering lesser-known corners of twentieth-century popular music and jazz. Across her career she has kept a steady equilibrium between respect for tradition and a flair for elegant experiment, allowing her to hold the attention of both jazz listeners and a wider audience.

Diana Krall was born and raised in Nanaimo, British Columbia, in a home filled with music. Her father played piano as an amateur, and her mother sang in a choir. She began studying the instrument at the age of four and progressed rapidly. In high school she concentrated on jazz, performing both at school events and in modest local venues. Her skill earned her a scholarship to Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where she studied from 1981 to 1983 before leaving to move to Los Angeles in pursuit of a jazz career.

After three years in Los Angeles she relocated to Toronto, which served as an intermediate stop before she settled in New York in 1990. There she signed with Justin Time Records, which issued her debut album, Stepping Out, in 1993. The record attracted the notice of Tommy LiPuma, who produced her next release, Only Trust Your Heart, issued by GRP in 1995. Its success led her to Impulse! for the 1996 tribute All for You: A Dedication to the Nat King Cole Trio.

All for You established Krall as a major jazz artist, bringing a Grammy nomination and a seventy-week run on Billboard’s jazz charts; the RIAA awarded it platinum certification in 2011. Love Scenes, recorded with a trio, followed in 1997. It became her first album to appear on Billboard’s Top 200, reaching number 109, and earned gold status in 1999 and platinum in 2002. For her 1999 Verve debut, When I Look in Your Eyes, she remained with standards and enlisted Johnny Mandel for the arrangements; Mandel had previously worked with Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett in the 1960s.

When I Look in Your Eyes transformed Krall into a crossover figure. It reached number 56 on the Top 200, received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year—the first jazz album so honored since Bobby McFerrin’s Simple Pleasures in 1989—and won the award for Best Jazz Vocal Album before achieving platinum certification in 2000. That same year she toured with Tony Bennett, confirming her status as a leading interpreter of vocal jazz. In 2001 she explored bossa nova on The Look of Love, again working with arranger Claus Ogerman, who had collaborated with Antonio Carlos Jobim at the height of his commercial success in the 1960s. The album entered the Billboard charts at number nine, captured Juno Awards for Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best Vocal Jazz Album of the Year, and became her third platinum-certified release. Live in Paris, drawn from a 2001 engagement at the Paris Olympia, appeared in October 2002, earned another Grammy for Jazz Vocal Album, received gold certification, and peaked at number 18 on the Billboard Top 200.

Krall married Elvis Costello in 2003; the couple later welcomed twin sons in 2006. Their partnership shaped the 2004 album The Girl in the Other Room, which included six joint compositions, interpretations of songs by Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits, and Krall’s first original material as well as forays into contemporary repertoire. The record debuted at number four on the Billboard charts and was certified gold. In 2005 she recorded the seasonal collection Christmas Songs with the Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra; it reached number 17 and later earned platinum status. She continued with a larger ensemble on 2006’s From This Moment On, which entered the charts at number seven. A compilation, The Very Best of Diana Krall, appeared in 2007. In 2009 she released Quiet Nights, another project with Claus Ogerman that debuted at number three; its title track won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s). That year she also co-produced Barbra Streisand’s Love Is the Answer alongside her longtime associate Tommy LiPuma.

Krall revisited early jazz and ragtime on Glad Rag Doll, a stylistically focused album produced by T-Bone Burnett that debuted at number six. For 2015’s Wallflower she returned to the classic rock and singer-songwriter repertoire that had first sparked her interest in music; the album reached number ten. She returned to the Great American Songbook and to co-producer LiPuma on 2017’s Turn Up the Quiet, recorded with three separate jazz ensembles, which entered the charts at number 18. The following year she joined Tony Bennett for Love Is Here to Stay, a full-length tribute to George Gershwin that debuted at number 11.

Her next release, This Dream of You, appeared in September 2020. Drawn from sessions for Turn Up the Quiet, the album served as a tribute to her late producer and collaborator Tommy LiPuma.