Diana Krall’s Concert at Jazz Festival in San Sebastián

Diana Krall is a Canadian jazz singer and pianist who performed a dozen classical and beloved compositions at the 2008 Festival in San Sebastián. The concert was filled with smooth and rhythmic melodies based on the essential jazz sounds. Krall’s vocal and piano are accompanied by a small orchestra of bass, guitar, and drums. The combination of all instruments and the singer’s voice was complicated but classical for the jazz compositions.

The concert was watched online, and the type of listener the student belonged to was the evaluative one because of the requirement to assess various aspects of the played songs and performance. The compositions played by Diana Krall during the San Sebastián Jazz Festival were: “Let’s Fall In Love,” “The Look Of Love,” “Do I Love You,” “I’ll String Along,” “Someone Exactly Like You,” and other pieces from her album The Intimate Night (Musicarb, 2017). The singer paused between the songs, thanking the orchestra and sharing the stories about songwriting and inspiration. In the concert, the most dynamic compositions were played in the middle, and the lyric ones closed the performance.

The orchestral accompaniment of Krall’s concert contained three musical instruments that provided perfect jazz sound for the played compositions. Anthony Wilson performed the guitar, the bass musician was Robert Hurst, and the drums set the rhythm by Jeff Hamilton (Musicarb, 2017). The arrangement of the tiny orchestra was organized behind the singer: the guitarist took place behind Krall, and the bass seated behind the piano. The drums were set between guitar and bass, creating the acoustically decent symphony without interrupting the main sound of the piano.

Analysis of three compositions performed by Diana Krall and the orchestra during the Jazz Festival in San Sebastián can help reveal the concert’s central themes, rhythms, and sounds. The pieces can be identified as songs by their form, and their historical period is modern jazz because Krall’s music addresses the most recent trends of the genre. The first composition, “Let’s Fall In Love,” is the most extended, ten-minutes piece with solid unity of lyrics and smooth repeating of guitar and piano elements. The song begins from the guitar and bass intro supported by the drums, and then Krall starts singing in a relatively slow manner with small rhythmic piano pieces (Musicarb, 2017). The tempo is andante, and the volume is mezzo-piano, which is typical for jazz compositions. The melody is harmonized, and the balance is achieved via alternation between the lyrics and piano solos.

Another composition that reveals the jazz sound created by Krall is “Devil May Care,” played the seventh during the concert. The seven-minutes song is divided into four pieces with a slow beginning, dynamic, lyrical part, piano solo, and the closing combination of the orchestra’s instruments’ symphony. Krall sings steadily and tells the story of self-reflection, asking if the devil may care about the struggles of life (Musicarb, 2017). The tempo varies from andante to allegro, making the volume increase from piano to mezzo-piano. The harmony of the composition is achieved by combining the vocal with the orchestra when all instruments do not disturb one another.

Lastly, the third song to analyze is the “I Don’t Know Enough About You” song that closed Krall’s Festival performance. The eight-minutes long composition is based on the vocal part, yet it begins and finishes with piano-leading pieces (Musicarb, 2017). The song’s tempo is andante, and it does not change within the elements. Similarly, the mezzo-piano volume remains the same throughout “I Don’t Know Enough About You.” The unity and harmony are reached by alternating vocal and piano pieces, both supported by the steadily played basses and drums. The purpose of all of the compositions analyzed and included in the concert is to emphasize jazz sounds’ unique nature and praise the love people strive to have in their lives.

Reference

Musicarb (2017). Diana Krall (Festival de Jazz de San Sebastián 2008) [Video file]. Web.