Diana Krall: ''The Very Best''

"I wanted to make these songs sound like they were written yesterday," Diana Krall says of the 15 essential performances that comprise The Very Best of Diana Krall, her first-ever best-of release. The collection distills highlights from Krall's first decade and a half as a recording artist, during which time the Canadian-born singer/pianist's cool, expressive vocals and sensitive, soulful piano work have won her international stardom.

While Krall's unprecedented commercial success has redefined the rules of the jazz market, she's remained true to her deep roots in bop and swing. Drawing upon a deep well of material from America's pop and jazz traditions, she's created consistently compelling, distinctive music by infusing time-honored songs with her own abundant musicality and charisma.

The Very Best of Diana Krall includes personalized interpretations of timeless vintage standards by such essential composers as George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, Van Heusen and Cahn, and Bacharach and David. The material encompasses the lush romanticism of "S'Wonderful," the playfully seductive humor of "Peel Me A Grape" and the yearning balladry of "I've Got You Under My Skin." Krall also demonstrates her versatility with musical settings that range from the playful swing of "Frim Fram Sauce" to the intimate bossa nova of "The Look of Love"

The collection also features three previously unreleased performances, a moody, evocatively orchestrated reading of the Frank Sinatra classic "Only the Lonely," a pensive reading of "You Go to My Head," a standard popularized by Sinatra and Billie Holiday, and an inventive reworking of Tom Waits' "The Heart of Saturday Night," the latter demonstrating Krall's ability to apply her interpretative abilities to contemporary material.

Born into a musical family in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Diana Krall began her musical journey during early childhood. While her mother sang in church, her father, a stride pianist with an extensive knowledge of jazz and Tin Pan Alley standards, had a massive record collection that introduced her to many of the jazz and pop greats that would inform her own musical development.

"I was immersed in music growing up," Krall recalls. "My father has a vast collection; he collects 78 records, and that's how I first heard Fats Waller, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. I connected with music on such an emotional level that it wasn't 'This is what I want to do,' it was 'This is what I have to do.'"

Krall began studying piano at the age of four, and subsequently played in her high school's jazz band. At 15, she began playing regularly in restaurants and bars around her hometown. At 17, she won a scholarship from the Vancouver International Jazz Festival to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Meanwhile, Krall's playing attracted the admiration of legendary bassist Ray Brown, who suggested that she move to Los Angeles to study with seminal pianist Jimmy Rowles. It was during that period that Krall began singing as well as playing. In 1990, after a three-year stint in L.A., she relocated to New York, where she began performing with her own trio.

Krall began her recording career in 1993 on Canada's Justin Time label, releasing her first album Stepping Out, recorded with bassist John Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton, a pair of jazz heavyweights who would remain longtime Krall collaborators. The debut disc reached Number Three on Billboard's jazz chart and caught the attention of noted producer Carl Griffin and veteran producer and label exec Tommy LiPuma, who signed her to GRP Records and produced her sophomore effort, 1995's Only Trust Your Heart. That album teamed Krall with a prestigious musical cast that included Ray Brown and Stanley Turrentine, and marked the beginning of a long and productive association with LiPuma, who would continue to produce Krall's albums for GRP, Impulse! and Verve.

Krall's third album was the acclaimed 1996 Nat "King" Cole Trio tribute All for You: A Dedication to the Nat "King" Cole Trio, which spent 70 weeks on the Billboard jazz chart and won the artist her first Grammy nomination. 1997's Love Scenes, recorded with guitarist Russell Malone and bassist Christian McBride, was an even bigger hit, reaching the top slot on the Billboard jazz chart and making unexpected inroads into the mainstream market.

Krall achieved both a musical breakthrough and a commercial watershed with her 1999 release When I Look in Your Eyes. The album broadened her sound, employing an expanded instrumental ensemble as well as orchestral arrangements by Johnny Mandel. When I Look in Your Eyes became an international sensation, going platinum in the United States and spending an entire year in Number One position the Billboard jazz chart. In addition to winning Krall a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, it also became the first jazz album in a quarter-century to receive a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. Krall's crossover success was further reflected in her participation in the historic Lilith Fair tour in 2000, and the prominent presence of her songs on the soundtracks of TV's Sex in the City and such films as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Krall maintained her expansive musical approach for 2001's The Look of Love, a lush collection of ballads and bossa novas featuring arrangements by Claus Ogerman and tracks recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra. The album confirmed Krall's status as a pop-culture phenomenon, achieving platinum status and reaching Billboard's pop Top 10. Her 2001 performance at the Paris Olympia was released as her first live album, Live In Paris, which once again topped the Billboard jazz chart and earned Krall her second Grammy award.

In 2004, Krall released The Girl in the Other Room, the first album on which she added her own compositions to her repertoire of standards and covers. Krall wrote half of the album's dozen songs, with lyrical contributions from Elvis Costello, whom she had married in December 2003. The move towards original songwriting was motivated in part by the death of Krall's mother, as well as the losses of her mentors Ray Brown and Rosemary Clooney.

2004 also saw the release of the concert DVD Live at the Montreal Jazz Festival, as well as Krall joining Ray Charles on his bestselling Genius Loves Company for a duet of the Charles standard "You Don't Know Me."

In 2005, Krall released the holiday-themed Christmas Songs, a collection of spirited seasonal standards. Recorded with John Clayton and Jeff Hamilton's esteemed outfit the Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, the album marked her first venture into big-band arrangements.