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Diana Krall was just a few notes into “Devil May Care” at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga on Sunday, Sept. 22, when a loud car alarm began beeping away from the parking lot, causing the jazz star to momentarily bring the song to a halt.
“I love playing outside,” Krall commented. “It’s my favorite thing.”
Knowing that the comment might have come across a bit sarcastic, Krall was quite to add the clarification: “Seriously. I’m from British Columbia.”
Yes, it was the type of night that would make basically anyone glad to be in California.
Here we were, just a week and some change away from October, and yet the weather was still nice enough to enjoy music at one of the most beautiful outdoor venues in the country.
And what a night of music it was, delivered by arguably the jazz genre’s most popular current artist and her esteemed band of guitarist Anthony Wilson, drummer Karriem Riggins, bassist John Clayton and saxophonist Joe Lovano.
The Mountain Winery show was one of several Northern California stops for Krall and company, who also performed on Sept. 21 at the Fox Theater in Oakland. They also have shows scheduled Sept. 26 at the Green Music Center in Rohnert Park (https://gmc.sonoma.edu/) and Sept. 27 as part of the Monterey Jazz Festival (www.montereyjazzfestival.org).
The musicians were clearly feeling it as they took the stage and began to twist and turn their way through the 1926 standard “‘Deed I Do,” making room for plenty of impressive solos and otherwise stretching the numbers out in satisfying ways.
They’d stay a similarly complex course with the Frank Sinatra favorite “All or Nothing at All,” a masterwork of different musical moods and highlights.
Those two songs alone would eat up nearly a quarter of the 100-minute main set.
Krall then entered into one of her favorite places — the world of Nat King Cole — and delivered a cool double shot of Cole classics. First up was a solid run through “L-O-V-E,” followed immediately by the slowly mesmerizing “You Call It Madness (But I Call it Love),” which also happened to be the first ballad of the night.
Krall sounded great throughout the evening, wowing the capacity crowd equally with her fearless vocal work and topnotch piano playing. Yet, the ballads — such as sobering take on Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate” — definitely were the big fan favorites.
That seemed especially true for the non-jazz fans, who might’ve been drawn to the concert by Krall’s more singer-songwriter-sounding material and not anticipating exploratory, 12-minute takes on standards.
“More vocals, less jazz,” one fan could be heard complaining.
Sure, Krall could tone down the jazz a bit, drop the ultimate Starbucks-friendly album and make even more money. But, thankfully, she’s shown no interest in going down that road.
Why would she when the road that she’s already traveling is just so fascinating?
Krall kept right on mixing ballads and up-tempo cuts as she approached the finish line of the main set, softly gliding through the 1933 classic “Moonglow” and Tom Waits’ “Take It With Me” as well as twisting the throttle on the standards “East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)” and “I Was Doing All Right.”
