Diana Krall returns to Jakarta a happier person

Prodita Sabarini ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sun, 10/05/2008 10:42 AM  |  People

When the award winning jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall came to Jakarta six years ago, it was under gloomy circumstances.

Just before she started her tour of Asia in 2002 her mother had died of multiple myeloma. Weeks after her mother's death, two close friends and musical mentors, Rosemary Clooney and bass player Ray Brown, also died.

She was so sad that she did not even perform an encore during her concert in Jakarta at the time.

Now, the 44-year-old mother of two-year-old twins is back in Jakarta for her Asia tour promoting her 2007 album The Very Best of Diana Krall, and she is happy.

"I like encores. If you want me to play more, I'll play more," she said merrily on Saturday.

Krall was sitting in the VIP lounge at the Ritz Carlton Jakarta, which is the venue for her concert tonight. Her flowing honey-colored hair was draped gracefully on her shoulders.

She wore a pendant on her neck that enclosed pictures of her sons. She looked beautiful in an old Diane Von Furstenberg dress, which Krall said reminded her of her mother. "My mom wore them (Diane Von Furstenberg dresses) too in the seventies."

She said revisiting Jakarta had brought back memories of her first trip, "The last time I came here, I lost my mother, my boyfriend broke up with me and all was not so great," she said jokingly.

"But I'm happy that I'm able to come back here now and share my happiness," she said.

A lot has happened since her last visit to Indonesia. In 2002, she was promoting her album The Look of Love, which mesmerized the world and in retrospect, is a deeply personal album, which reflected her anticipation of her mother's death.

Since then, the Grammy Award-winning artist for Best Jazz Performance (1999) and Best Jazz Vocal Album (2002) has released five albums.

In that time, she has experimented by performing covers of Tom Waits and Joni Mitchel singles, by writing her own lyrics, including a swinging-big-band record, and, in the case of her latest album, by compiling her best singles on one album.

She married singer-cum-songwriter Elvis Costello in 2003 and gave birth to twin sons in 2006, which she said had greatly inspired her musical career.

After experimenting by writing her own lyrics in the album The girl in the other room and by playing with a big band in From this moment on, she found that she was most true when she performed standard jazz, swing and bossa nova, which would be expressed in her next album.

She said that her next album had been influenced by Brazilian music and was very sensuous and romantic, "It's a love letter for my husband."

In her next album she will sing one song in Portuguese and another Brazilian song that has been translated into English. She did not write any of the lyrics on the album.

"I think writing is really hard, unless you're a writer. I feel more like an actor. I take songs creatively and turn them into something else," she said.

She said she had learned much from Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Louis Armstrong.

"They always keep their musical integrity even though they're entertainers. They're great entertainers and they play for people but their artistry was never compromised," she said.

During her concert tonight, Krall will perform with extraordinary musicians -- bassist Robert Leslie Hurst III, a lecturer at the University of Michigan; drummer Emmanuel Karriem Riggins, who is also a producer who worked with The Roots and Erykah Badu; and long time guitarist Anthony Wilson.

She will perform singles from her best of album, including "S'Wonderful", "The Look of Love", "Let's Face The Music and Dance", and "I've Got You Under My Skin".

Tonight at the Ritz Carlton, the audience will meet a happier more mature Krall, one who loves to entertain.

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