AND SHE SWINGS TOO

By David E. Thigpen

When Diana Krall strode from the wings at a recent tribute concert to saxophone great Benny Carter, the Carnegie Hall audience might have briefly wondered whether Sharon Stone had wandered onstage. Smashingly glamorous, with lavish golden hair and a smoldering glare, Krall could easily have been mistaken for a big-screen starlet. But appearances aside, the moment she launched into the opening notes of Carter's classic heartbreaker, Fresh Out of Love, it was clear that this compelling new singer has more in common with Ella Fitzgerald than with any Hollywood actress.

Krall's stage presence and her romantic vocal style have been creating ripples of excitement in the jazz world. Although she performs infrequently, she has the conspicuous gift that marks many an up-and-comer: the knack for rising to an occasion. She first drew note last summer at the Montreal Jazz Festival, where, using the tug of her bluesy, mahogany-grained voice, she parlayed a handful of jaunty Nat King Cole Trio tunes into a set of languid, open-hearted meditations with unexpected emotional impact. Accompanying herself on piano, she also showed that she knows how to swing--pounding out driving, rock-solid rhythms with her trio; when she soloed, she created patterns of brilliant, light-fingered notes that evoked Cole's easy, vibrant style. Audience appreciation for Krall always seems leavened with astonishment--as if it is difficult to believe that so much soulfulness and glamour can be in the same place at the same time.

The path that led to Carnegie Hall started off in the Vancouver suburb of Nainamo, British Columbia, where Krall was born 30 years ago. Canada might not be New Orleans, but its native jazz greats include Oscar Peterson and Gil Evans. Nevertheless, Krall sought her muse south of the border. While still in her teens she left home to study jazz piano at Boston's Berkelee school, then moved on to Los Angeles, where she befriended the great bassist Ray Brown, a veteran of Peterson's band. Brown taught her the Zen of swing--"You just feel it, " she says. "They can't teach you that in school." Through most of the 1980s she played in small hotel lounges: "When I'd show up, they'd ask, 'Where's the piano player?' I'd say, 'I am the piano player!'"

In the early '90s she made two slow-selling albums. But buoyed by the buzz from her live shows, her newest album, Only for You--a set of her Cole interpretations--has leaped into the Top 10 on the jazz charts. Next month she performs at New York City's Algonquin Hotel, the Carnegie Hall of jazz lounges. Krall is on her way to proving, as Benny Carter said in affirming the Carnegie Hall audience's praise that night, that no one will forget that "she can play too."

--By David E. Thigpen