Article: Canadian jazz singer performs selections from new album Glad Rag Doll Monday

Krall space

By Jane Stevenson, QMI Agency 
Friday, March 1, 2013 7:24:21 EST PM

After two decades as a recording artist, Canadian jazz singer-pianist Diana Krall decided to gently shake things up.

So the artist, known for her smoky contralto and jazz standard covers, decided to hook up with producer T Bone Burnett and a new band to record Glad Rag Doll, an album of largely ’20s and ’30s songs culled from her father’s collection of 78 rpms.

Her tour supporting the album reaches the RBC Theatre at Budweiser Gardens on Monday at 8 p.m. Fans shouldn’t be surprised if Krall riffs a bit about London’s jazz connections. After a previous concert at the downtown London arena, she was intrigued to hear about the late Oscar Peterson’s piano flights and nights at Campbells, the legendary club which used to be the Campbells club. Demolished decades ago, the club was across the street from what is now the downtown London arena.

The Glad Rag Doll story goes back more than 40 years, to Krall’s childhood.

“It all started when I was four years old; my dad collected 78s and cylinders so I grew up hearing this music,” says Krall, 48, from New York City where she lives with her six-year-old twin boys and husband and fellow musician Elvis Costello.

“Then, I went to visit my dad for awhile this summer on my breaks and we started listening to 78s again . . . I fell in love with the music when I was very young but it’s inspired by my dad.”

Krall calls it maybe her “most personal album” yet, although the same could be said of 2004’s The Girl in the Other Room whose Krall-Costello-written material was largely inspired by the death of her mother in 2002.

Collaborating with Burnett, who has previously worked with Costello, seemed a good fit for Glad Rag Doll, whose sound Krall says was inspired by such artists as The Band, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis.

Krall recorded about 35 songs off the 78s from her dad’s collection on her iPhone and presented them to the band and Burnett to help her whittle down to the final 13 that made the cut.

“I knew that he wouldn’t try to make a ’20s record,” says Krall of Burnett. “He’d be like, ‘Well, let’s just kind of mess this up a little bit ... Let’s put a little Howlin’ Wolf on here.’ We weren’t trying to do a nostalgia piece.”

In fact, Krall calls it one of the greater recording experiences.

“It was a really great vibe in the studio. I loved it ... you put the right cast of characters together and then you get something that’s unique, hopefully ... It’s not like a traditional jazz-type record. They’re all mischief-makers, these guys, and it was just an open creative place.”

As you might imagine, Krall’s subsequent Glad Rag Doll tour, which began its Canadian run in her hometown of Nanaimo, B.C., also features a new approach in concert with the emphasis on multi-media.

“I’ve got a big movie screen as well that is accompanying the songs we’re doing because a lot of the songs are new to people,” says Krall. “It’s not something they would associate with the great American songbook. I wanted to go into early film, like early Edison films and Georges Melies especially, some other wacky stuff. Some films I found of singalongs at my aunt’s house ... It became a supremely ambitious project.”

A film featuring Boardwalk Empire actor Steve Buscemi as a vaudeville barker and his artist-wife Jo Andres kicks off Krall’s show once the curtain comes down as an overture.

“I’m not plate-spinning but it’s more involved than anything I’ve ever done before,” she says. “It’s different music and a different show for sure. Otherwise, I’d go out with my other touring band and do what you’ve heard before and then play a few things.”

That’s not to say there isn’t a section where she plays older songs from her repertoire and takes requests.

“I have a little request moment so people can throw tomatoes at me at will — (They go) ‘Play something we know!’

‘I’m not going to!’ ” she jokes.

“And it’s a huge risk to do that. You have to be really clear that you’re not abandoning your fan base and you’re not all of a sudden doing ‘this’ instead of ‘that’ ... You have to keep yourself artistically interested, and trust that your audience is going to come with you.”

— with files from James Reaney/The London Free Press

Fuente: www.lfpress.com