It has been quite some time since we have heard Diana Krall, queen of sultry jazz and one of the best-selling jazz artists of the past decade, at the North Sea Jazz Festival. Born in Nanaimo in the province of British Columbia in Canada, Krall grew up in a musical family. Her mother and father both played piano so it was fairly logical that the young Diana would start piano lessons early. She learned her first jazz notes in the school band and at the age of fifteen she had her first gig in a restaurant. A scholarship awarded by the Vancouver Jazz Festival allowed her to study at the famed Berklee College Of Music where so many jazz musicians have begun their careers. Ultimately, it was the bassist Ray Brown - he heard her singing in a club - who encouraged her to continue and introduced her to the right people. In 1993 Krall released her debut album Stepping Out on Justin Time Records. Later she signed a contract with Verve. The talented singer and pianist has been dubbed 'the white girl from Canada'. However, she has laid all talk of her skin color and her preference for standards to rest by delivering rock-solid quality on her lovely recordings. No easy thing when apart from your own quartet you also work with orchestras of the caliber of The London Symphony Orchestra, with whom Diana Krall has recorded the album The Look of Love. She worked on the impressive, singer-songwriter style album The Girl in the Other Room with her husband Elvis Costello.
