Canadian singer and pianist Diana Krall is a rarity, bridging the 20th and the 21st century. Her jazz is not “smooth” or “contemporary,” and there’s no “fusion” in it. 

Since her quietly startling debut with Stepping Out in 1993, she has worked on improvising standards from a template of the classic singers and instrumentalists of the 1950s, most notably the great Nat King Cole. She also did a duet album with the recently deceased Tony Bennett in 2018, Love Is Here To Stay.

Krall never was trendy; she’s practiced a means of expression that’s darn well timeless. Along the way she’s racked up five Grammys, 10 Juno awards (from Canada’s recording academy), and nine gold, three platinum, and seven multi-platinum albums worldwide.

Rock music fans know her because of her husband of 20 years, the great British singer and songwriter Elvis Costello, but she’s never needed his fame. She’s got her own gig.

Krall is coming to Foellinger Theatre on Tuesday, Aug. 1, during the U.S. leg of a world tour, reconnecting with legions of fans after her 2020 album This Dream of You, which topped the jazz charts in many countries around the world. It’s not hard to understand that she’s beloved in Europe as well.

Great American Songbook

Suzanne Lorge, writing for Downbeat magazine, said of This Dream of You: “This is the Krall who sold millions of jazz records and introduced the Great American Songbook to a generation of non-jazz listeners. But she’s always advanced her interests outside of standards and traditional pop.”

Krall, singing from the acoustic piano, pitches all her songs in the contralto register, down in the tenor range, but her voice isn’t dark or heavy. She sings with a hushed, sometimes breathy delivery, sensuous and expressive, often sultry and beguiling, in a way that has gotten more languorous over the years. 

It takes a certain kind of band to accompany such a quiet voice. On stage, Krall inhabits her own traditional microcosm of the world of the jazz singer, accompanied by upright bass, drums and guitar — it’s been her template throughout her career. It’s the perfect recipe for a singer to interpret what we love to call the Great American Songbook.

Complementary pieces

Krall has toured with many different musicians, but it must be a blissful occasion for all that on this tour she is accompanied once again by veterans Jeff Hamilton on drums and John Clayton Jr. on bass. They were the original band members on Stepping Out. Joining them is guitarist Anthony Wilson, who plays the hollow-bodied, archtop jazz guitar in an acoustic fashion, and who has been Krall’s most frequent collaborator since 2001.

Krall plays piano with a remarkably spare, sparse texture. Don’t be fooled: she’s a virtuoso at the keys, but it’s her style to never play more than the song needs, no extraneous flourishes of notes, nothing more than is required to support her delicate, expressive singing voice. 

The same can be said about every member of her band. Clayton’s acoustic bass is never strident. Hamilton switches from sticks to brushes on the quietest pieces with the loosest feel. Wilson knows when to hold back and wait until it’s time to punctuate the arrangement with a tight solo. 

Krall herself plays a melodic lead on piano at a few carefully chosen points. It’s a master class in playing the right notes at the right moments.

Expect the unexpected

It’s quite thrilling to hear great musicians who know they don’t need to prove anything and have no desire to overplay. There’s restrained power and subtle control in everything they do, even though it’s light and playful much of the time. 

Krall and band make a clear, direct sound that has no need for the electronic effects or over-the-top showmanship that is part of the fun of rock n’ roll. This kind of jazz draws in the audience in rapt attention, everybody on the edge of their seat and listening for every note. Krall and company are known for making an amphitheater full of people feel like they are sitting with the band in a small room in a jazz club, and that’s the vibe you will feel at the Foellinger.

We could talk about the setlist, but it’s going to change every night based on her mood. She has 17 albums with songs to choose from, and well beyond that, her band can comp any of hundreds of tunes from memory.

Most of the songs they interpret are standards, written by songwriters from the 1930s through the ’50s. Usual suspects are Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, and the list goes on. She has been known to pull out a jazz interpretation of a ’60s or ’70s rock song from her 2015 album Wallflower, something by Elton John, Bob Dylan, or her fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell or Gordon Lightfoot (who passed away this year), but don’t count on it. 

Just roll with whatever she feels like sharing that night. Each Diana Krall concert is a particular, unique experience.