Diana Krall und Festival De Jazz De Montreal

Diana Krall learned to play piano at the tender age of four. She developed a taste for jazz in her early teens, playing in a Canadian jazz group for restaurants in Nanaimo. Jazz musician Don Thompson was her teacher while in Toronto. At age seventeen, Krall won a scholarship to move to Boston to pursue her passion at the Berklee College of Music.

While in the U.S. Krall produced her first album “Stepping Out” with Jeff Hamilton and John Clayton in 1993. Her fame continued to grow with her second album “Only Trust Your Heart” in 1995 and “All For You: A Dedication to the Nat King Cole Trio” in 1996 which was nominated for a Grammy.

Diana Krall became a household name in the jazz music industry and she collaborated with legends like Tony Bennett on a 20-city tour in 2000 and on Ray Charles’ album “Genius Loves Company” in 2004. Also in 2004 Krall released “The Girl In the Other Room” which charted in the UK and in Australia. She continued to be successful academically as well, earning an honorary PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Victoria in 2003.

In all, Krall has released eight albums, which has won her five Grammy Awards and eight Juno Awards (the equivalent of the Canadian Grammys). She is happily married to British musician Elvis Costello. Krall is an advocate for multiple myeloma research, dedicating her spare time to helping fight the illness that both her mother and mentor Ray Brown battled during their lives. If you asked Diana Krall who her greatest influence in music was, she would say her former mentor and jazz pianist Jimmy Rowles.