Diana Krall Is Too Cool for School🧊

Salut !

You know what? I saw Diana Krall play jazz live this week! Which means that I literally breathed the same air as her for about an hour and 45 minutes. How cool is that!😜

What's even cooler is that the concert was at the legendary L'Olympia music hall on Boulevard des Capucines here in Paris. It's the oldest music hall in Paris still in operation today and quite an impressive array of stars have graced its stage over the years, like Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Juliette Gréco, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, even The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and what counts for me the most : Ella Fitzgerald and Caterina Valente. Check out for example this legendary concert of Michel Legrand and Caterina Valente at L'Olympia that was televised in 1972. You can see all of Caterina's impressive skills on display in this concert and I love how she's having fun scatting with Michel Legrand in the beginning.

Diana Krall mentioned it too right off the bat what a privilege it is to be able to perform in that hall. And she truly was worthy of that stage. She opened the night with Almost Like Being in Love, then I also remember that her arrangements of I've Got You Under My Skin, Let's Face the Music and Dance and Just You, Just Me were great too. What surprised me the most was that the concert was essentially a great jazz trio performance with some Diana's singing on top of it. After all, Diana is first and foremost a jazz pianist. She is a great singer too of course, and I love her almost whispering style of singing, but she has never positioned herself as a grand jazz vocalist.

Now I regret I didn't write down the names of her bassist and drummer, because they were both extraordinary. The songs and their solos were just the perfect length in my opinion (because sometimes jazz solos can bee too long), and the set with two encores lasted from 9pm to 10:40pm, which felt like the perfect length because I was already home by 11pm. Overall it was a very simple, but complete concert. No gimmicks, just deeply masterful jazz playing and singing.

When it comes to style lessons that I learned in the concert, I would sum it up that Diana had a very fashionable air of being "too cool for school". Her outfit choice, her low-key singing and speaking and very understated demeanor and body language made her just very cool.

She was clearly well-informed on trends, because she wore an oversized black suit with wide-legged slacks and a tailored, quite deeply cut black vest under it as a shirt. I didn't see her accessories very well, neither her golden shoes with rectangular low heels, but I must mention that she had just perfect hair.

I don't often rave about long hair because I understand short hairstyles better as I have short hair myself, but this time I couldn't take my eyes off of her hair. It was parted at the middle, stick-straight with a perfect wheat color and an unbelievable shine. Her open hair was just a perfect compliment to her modernesque, laid-back look and made a great contrast with the age-old classics that she performed.

So yes, I would recommend you get tickets to see her in action if she happens to be in your town at some point. And we'll see if I'll see her next year again at the Olympia!

Have a stylish week!

Bisous,

Elle

❣️Recent delights

• I got to eat tapioca pudding this week for the first time in my life and it was great! Also, it reminded me of one of my favorite scenes in Julie Andrews' funny movie Thoroughly Modern Millie, where they dance a Tapioca tap-dance.😆
• I went to see the building at 36 Avenue Georges Mandel where Maria Callas lived for the last years of her life here in Paris, and it made me think that it would be great to live in such a beautiful building and a calm area. But for now, I'll continue to enjoy the buzz of the 6th arrondissement.😄