Diana Krall Has Left Her Mark On The Jazz World...And She Has Only Just Begun

The voluptuous, elegant, and extraordinarily gifted Canadian born Diana Krall has left her mark as one of the finest jazz vocalists of her time. The jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals, has sold more than six million albums in the US and an abundance of over 15 million worldwide. In a time period stretching between the 1990s and 2000s, no female jazz artist has sold more albums than Diana. Her magnificent legacy as one of the most prolific artists of her time was further established in December of 2009, when Billboard magazine named her the number two jazz artist of the 2000-2009 decade. No other jazz singer equal or amass Diana’s eight albums debuting at the top of the Billboard Jazz Albums. Her trophy case includes three Grammy Awards, eight Juno Awards, nine gold, three platinum and seven multi-platinum albums.

Krall was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. She was from a musical family, as her father played piano around the house while her mother sang in a community choir. By the age of four, Diana was already playing piano and by 15, she was entertaining locals at the neighborhood restaurant playing jazz. She attended the Berkley College of Music in Boston on a scholarship before heading out to Los Angeles to play jazz. She returned to Canada to release her first album, Steppin’ Out in 1993.

Krall’s mother Adella passed away from multiple myeloma in 2002, within months of also losing her mentors Ray Brown and Rosemary Clooney. Diana's only sibling, Michelle, is a former member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Krall and British musician Elvis Costello were married on December 6, 2003 at Elton John’s estate outside of London. They have twin sons, Dexter Henry Lorcan and Frank Harlan James, born in December of 2006 in New York City.

Diana Krall earned her highest ever chart debut with her album Quiet Nights, landing at number three on the Billboard 200 in April 2009. With 104,000 scans, this is the musician's second largest sales week of her career thus far and her fourth consecutive studio album to place in the top 10. Released in March of ’09, under the label of Verve Records, Quiet Nights is the Canadian jazz singer-songwriter’s ninth studio album.

The release of the album marked Kralls reunion with arranger Claus Ogerman. Ogerman is inarguably one of the most fruitful 20th century arrangers, having worked in the Top 40, Rock, Pop, Jazz, R&B, Soul, Easy listening, Broadway and Classical music fields. It is yet to be determined the exact number of recording artists for whom Ogerman has either arranged or conducted during his stoic career. Krall and Ogerman last teamed up in 2002 for Live in Paris, and before that, in 2001 for The Look of Love. Billboard ranked that album at number five on the magazine's Top Jazz Albums of the Decade.

In 2000, Krall was awarded the Order of British Columbia, followed by an honorary Ph.D. in Fine Arts in 2003 from the University of Victoria. In 2004, Diana was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.

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