{"id":21049,"date":"2015-08-22T12:21:33","date_gmt":"2015-08-22T19:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=21049"},"modified":"2021-05-26T05:57:13","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T12:57:13","slug":"jazz-singer-pianist-diana-krall-is-fantabulous-funny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/jazz-singer-pianist-diana-krall-is-fantabulous-funny\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz singer-pianist Diana Krall is fantabulous, funny"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Diana Krall<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019d planned to see Diana Krall last winter, but she got pneumonia and canceled.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t take it personally. But I was<\/em> disappointed.<\/p>\n

A few nights ago, I went to the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa to see the 50-year-old Canadian.<\/p>\n

I was anything but disappointed.<\/p>\n

She was fantabulous \u2014 both her vocals and piano artistry.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember her contralto voice being quite so hoarse or husky before, but I do recall a similar inability to sit still throughout her concert.<\/p>\n

My legs shook and my toes tapped \u2014 at the same breakneck pace as her foot keeping time.<\/p>\n

I also can\u2019t recall her being so self-deprecatingly funny.<\/p>\n

Including an oops, immediately followed by the admission, \u201cI hit the wrong key.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although some critics of her current \u201cWallflower\u201d national tour have trashed her 12th album as filled with schmaltzy, sultry covers of pop tunes dating to the \u201860s, I regarded her live selections from that same-titled album only a fleeting distraction from her life\u2019s blood \u2014 rollicking jazz.<\/p>\n

To ensure that genre remaining predominant, Krall employed five dazzling sidemen.<\/p>\n

Most notable was fiddler Stuart Duncan, who bowed, plucked and strummed his way into my heart and ears despite his instrument being a jazz rarity. Though each virtuoso may have deserved equal time, Duncan resembled George Orwell\u2019s pig in \u201cAnimal Farm\u201d \u2014 more equal than the others.<\/p>\n

Together, Krall and crew romped through two unbroken hours of songs, coaxing a good third of them into the showstopper category.<\/p>\n

With the best of the best being Tom Waits\u2019 \u201cTemptation,\u201d which spotlighted each guy in electrifying \u2014 and sometimes electrified \u2014 solo riffs.<\/p>\n

Krall, who switched periodically from piano to synthesizer to create a countrified twang or clipped rock \u2018n\u2019 roll beat, dipped heavily into standards, a mainstay of her previous concerts \u2014 in this case such classics as \u201cExactly Like You,\u201d \u201cDeed I Do\u201d and \u201cOn the Sunny Side of the Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also invoked the ghosts of Oscar Peterson, playing a few lightning-fast bars from an arrangement of his before claiming she hadn\u2019t learned more, and Nat King Cole, paying homage to that singer-pianist via \u201cYou Call It Madness But I Call It Love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only for an instant did she border on boring me \u2014 with two straight extracts from the \u201cWallflower\u201d album.<\/p>\n

Instead of sticking with historic conventions, she\u2019d undoubtedly have done better using The Mamas and The Papas\u2019 \u201cCalifornia Dreamin\u2019\u201d and The Eagles\u2019 \u201cDesperado\u201d as springboards to jazz inventions like those that thrust her into celebrity.<\/p>\n

During the show, a large screen at stage rear projected static wallflowers, blossoming flora and a stylized shot of her twin boys.<\/p>\n

I found those accents superfluous to the musical marvels onstage.<\/p>\n

Ditto the lights that occasionally blinked from the amps.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed, however, Krall\u2019s drawing laughs by inserting strains of \u201cMoon River\u201d into a tune she admitted was \u201cnot usually known as a funny song,\u201d and smiles from a confession that \u201cmy left hand and my right hand aren\u2019t talking to each other very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

I also loved the frequent, idiosyncratic flipping of her long dirty-blonde locks from her face.<\/p>\n

And I smiled admiringly when she took her bows alongside her backups \u2014 Duncan; guitarist Anthony Wilson; bassist Dennis Crouch; drummer Karriem Riggins; and keyboardist Patrick Warren \u2014 rather than alone.<\/p>\n

As I look back, I think this Sonoma County performance outranks my previous favorite, a freebie Stern Grove outing in San Francisco where not even the heat or mosquitos could quash my Krall pleasure.<\/p>\n

This time, she, who\u2019s been married since 2003 to chartbusting pop-rock singer Elvis Costello and who\u2019s sold more than 15 million albums worldwide, ended a 20-minute encore with \u201cOphelia,\u201d which again brought the sold-out Person Theater crowd of more than 1,600 to its feet as a single unit.<\/p>\n

That segment also had included a swingin\u2019 version of\u00a0 \u201cThe Frim Fram Sauce,\u201d which had been popularized by Cole, and a snoozer, Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cWallflower.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some fault-finders are hell bent on chastising Krall for \u201cselling out\u201d by concocting a heavily stringed, non-jazzy pop album.<\/p>\n

Almost as stubbornly as denigrators bombarded Dylan when he switched to electric guitar.<\/p>\n

Count me not among them \u2014 in either case.<\/p>\n

Upcoming star turns at the Person Theater of the Wells Fargo Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa, will include comedian Lewis Black\u2019s \u201cThe Rant Is Due: Part Deux\u201d on Sept. 11, vocalist Frank Sinatra Jr.\u2019s \u201cSinatra Sings Sinatra\u201d on Oct. 8, and Rosanne Cash with John Leventhal on Oct. 16. \u00a0Information: www.wellsfargocenterarts.org<\/a> or 1-707-546-3600.<\/em><\/p>\n

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a> or www.vitalitypress.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d planned to see Diana Krall last winter, but she got pneumonia and canceled. I didn\u2019t take it personally. But I was disappointed. A few nights ago, I went to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":4,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"