She's not soulless; she's Canadian
A critique of the critics
This morning, as I browsed casually through a newspaper on my way to work, I was surprised by a large picture of Diana Krall, the jazz artist, in one of her trademark sleek black dresses, accompanying a review of her last concert in our country. The surprise was pleasant, that is, until I started reading the article.
Let me clarify that I’m not a jazz expert. But I have had my share of travelling, meeting, working with, and befriending people from all around the world. I have been exposed to various different cultures and I am aware (as I think any professional journalist should be) that any form of expression varies according to the culture that frames and beholds it.
Here’s an example. Anyone who has seen the same play or musical both in New York’s Broadway and London’s West End knows that the ways in which the audience responds externally in both locations could be described as opposite. The fact that americans tend to be “louder” or more enthusiastic in their reactions does not mean they are having a better time than the english do. They are simply expressing themselves in accordance to their own background.
It seems this simple fact of humanity escapes some of Spain’s Arts and Entertainment journalists. I am sick and tired of Mrs. Krall being described by spanish critics as technically pristine but cold, soulless, heartless, passionless. Apparently, in their opinion, anyone who communicates in a subtler, more gentle way than they are accostumed to is an android deprived of feeling.
A silence can be louder than a cry. A tiny, almost imperceptible crack in the voice at the end of a phrase can say more than an ocean of tears. Mrs. Krall might be perceived as smooth, sophisticated, elegant, pristine, as they say. But all those qualities do not imply that she doesn’t infuse her every note with her own emotions.
“She’s grown too comfortable in the well known standards.” Mrs. Krall is a pianist and a singer. She’s not a composer and she doesn’t pretend nor intend to be so. She imbibes songs that have already been written and she makes them her own through her unique interpretation. Comfortable? Her songs never sound the same way twice. And guess why those songs are called standards? Because they are good material, worth being rediscovered by those who can give them new layers of meaning.
Maybe if those same critics who accuse her of lacking emotional depth could, just for the duration of a song, go past the superficiality of their own minds and the sleekness of her dress, they would actually hear the rough emotional edges that she truly has to offer.