An Evening With Diana Krall
About a month ago (yes I'm slow) I attended a Diana Krall concert. It was a pretty full house, perhaps 88-90% full. My silver reserve seat was reasonably positioned facing the stage and a bit more than the length of a basketball court in distance from the stage. It was better than the crappy gold seats that were available.
My overall impression was mixed. She sounded every bit as good as advertised, a wonderful vocal talent & pianist, with a lot of range and good improvisation. I was disappointed I guess in that her performance was relatively short. There was a support act, Mark Scholtes, that went for perhaps 30-35 minutes (guessing as I didn't have a watch) and then there was another 30 min wait for Ms. Krall and her trio which had the natives restless. They got stuck in with gusto performing a few brassy upbeat numbers, and then some of Diana's own recent compositions & some from husband Elvis Costello. In between there were a few pauses as she spoke to the audience (she has an alluring slow, soft, husky voice) recalling a few anecdotes, a joke about Canadian Geese, green bananas etc. After what seemed to be a little over an hour, she said something along the lines of it's been great and I was thinking "What? You're finished already???" She played the last piece. Then there was the obligatory standing O and they left the stage. Then of course the obligatory encore and she returned sans the trio (who were pretty good) to perform one more song.
Perhaps it was just as well it ended rather soon. To be honest I was getting a bit sleepy during some of the numbers, particularly the blues pieces with extended double base sections . Yeah I know, sacrilege! I am a jazz philistine! But on the way out I overheard some guy saying to a friend "gee I was getting a bit sleepy" and his friend goes "yeah that type of music tends to make you a little too relaxed". So I guess I wasn't alone.
My overall impression was mixed. She sounded every bit as good as advertised, a wonderful vocal talent & pianist, with a lot of range and good improvisation. I was disappointed I guess in that her performance was relatively short. There was a support act, Mark Scholtes, that went for perhaps 30-35 minutes (guessing as I didn't have a watch) and then there was another 30 min wait for Ms. Krall and her trio which had the natives restless. They got stuck in with gusto performing a few brassy upbeat numbers, and then some of Diana's own recent compositions & some from husband Elvis Costello. In between there were a few pauses as she spoke to the audience (she has an alluring slow, soft, husky voice) recalling a few anecdotes, a joke about Canadian Geese, green bananas etc. After what seemed to be a little over an hour, she said something along the lines of it's been great and I was thinking "What? You're finished already???" She played the last piece. Then there was the obligatory standing O and they left the stage. Then of course the obligatory encore and she returned sans the trio (who were pretty good) to perform one more song.
Perhaps it was just as well it ended rather soon. To be honest I was getting a bit sleepy during some of the numbers, particularly the blues pieces with extended double base sections . Yeah I know, sacrilege! I am a jazz philistine! But on the way out I overheard some guy saying to a friend "gee I was getting a bit sleepy" and his friend goes "yeah that type of music tends to make you a little too relaxed". So I guess I wasn't alone.
posted by Dr. Kananga at 11:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home