A Conversation with Diane Schuur – HuffPost 6.10.14

Mike Ragogna: So you just did an interview with Jazz Is. How did that go?

Diane Schuur: Oh it’s fine, it was okay. I hope I didn’t speak out of turn!

MR: [laughs] Well, I’m imagining you talked about I Remember You.

DS: Of course!

MR: So…I Remember You: With Love To Stan And Frank?

DS: Well, my manager Mary Ann Topper and I came up with this concept, she knew that I had collaborated with Stan Getz several times on different projects and knew about doing Frank Sinatra’s benefit in 1988 and all that stuff. We just came up with a thing about, let’s do a concept record which touches upon the fact that they both recorded all of these songs that we did on the record, plus it touches upon my own life as far as things that were happening at the time, love gained and love lost and so on. I just figured it would be a real cool thing to do.

MR: Let’s go over some of these songs. All of them are real classics. Some of these songs must have memories attached for you, do you have any particular childhood memories with these songs?

DS: “I Remember You” I really have an attached memory because my grandmother got me a vinyl copy of the album What A Difference A Day Makes by Dinah Washington and on one side “I Remember You” was the first track and she also did the first verse. I just always remembered that. I heard her version long before I heard Frank Sinatra’s version of it.

MR: She must have been one of your inspirations, wasn’t she?

DS: Yeah, absolutely.

MR: And there are songs like “Nice ‘N’ Easy.”

DS: “Nice ‘N’ Easy” I remember listening to listening to on my way home from this school that I went to, the State School For The Blind in Vancouver, Washington. It was about a two hundred mile drive and one of the songs I remember listening to–I remember listening to lots of songs on the way, because we had AM radio in those days–so “Nice ‘N’ Easy” was one of those songs, along with “El Paso,” that song by Marty Robbins, I remember that one so well. [laughs]

MR: There’s your next project!

DS: [laughs] Yeah, right!

MR: Jazz Variations On Marty Robbins And Other Cowboy Songs. I’m sorry, go on.

DS: That’s okay, I don’t mind laughing a little bit!

MR: Okay, Stan Getz. In our society we think of “Girl From Ipanema” and things like that, but I think about how he and a handful of other artists taught America about latin jazz, and Frank Sinatra’s a whole other banana, but how influential was Stan’s latin jazz in your formation of your flavor of jazz?

DS: Well, it was important to some extent because I loved Brasil ’66, it was very much an influence, I loved it.

MR: And with Sinatra, did you ever have any sort of crush on Frank Sinatra or any of the Rat Pack’s machismo?

DS: No. Not really. When I was a kid I wasn’t really exposed to that as much, all I knew was that I loved Frank Sinatra’s music and I loved Sammy Davis Junior’s music, too.

MR: What do you think about how they might have consciously or unconsciously influenced your choice of material over the years?

DS: I do think it influenced my choice of material though, absolutely, no doubt.

MR: Of all of these songs on the new project, were there any that you just couldn’t wait to do?

DS: In this project? “Here’s To That Rainy Day” was one of them, “Didn’t We” was another one, but they all represented something very special to me and very magical.

MR: Cool. How do you feel about jazz these days? Where is it going?

DS: I don’t know where it’s going! To be perfectly honest I think the thing that’s going to keep jazz alive is going to be the live touring. As far as recording and everything, that’s what ‘s going to keep it alive, too, because of the fact that even after I’m gone my music will still live on, which is really cool. I love jazz, I love to do it, it’s such a powerful art form, and of course people overseas still love it, I do a lot of work overseas.

MR: That seems to be the life of a jazz artists these days, it’s more global than just hoping to play the Blue Note every once in a while.

DS: Exactly.

MR: You have a couple of Grammys, many nominations, a catalog that’s pretty endless. You have a lot of albums out there.

DS: I do, I think this is number 24.

MR: That’s amazing! How do you look at that? I’m sure you’re not keeping track, but how does it feel to have recorded 24 albums in your career?

DS: Oh I keep track. [laughs] We’re gonna get a lot of chuckles from that one.

MR: And well you should.

DS: I don’t mean it in an egotistical way, I just mean that I have a photographic memory. In fact, this album release thing that we’re doing at B.B. King’s in New York, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to look at the website, but it’s the first album launch celebration that I’ve had since 2006 when Live In London came out, that was eight years ago.

MR: Which I imagine seems like yesterday.

DS: Yeah, in some ways it does. It’s such a trip. It was just a small get together for this release of Live In London which came out–I can tell you the exact date–Tuesday, June 6th 2006. 6-6-06, that’s when Live In London came out. And we did the Blue Note that night, the sixth through the eleventh, and on the tenth we went to Carnegie Hall and did this stamp event for Judy Garland, it was her birthday and I performed for that and met Dick Cavett and other people. That kind of stands out in my memory. The tune that I did was “Mean To Me.”

MR: Twenty-four albums later, do you feel like you’ve gotten this jazz thing out of your system? On to your cowboy album.

DS: Well, I did a country album in 2011.

MR: That’s right and I interviewed you for it.

DS: Oh right! Wow, has it been that long? The album came out on the seventh of June 2011.

MR: Look at that! We have an anniversary!

DS: [laughs]

MR: This is a themed project, do you have any other themed projects you want to get to, other than the Marty Robbins thing?

DS: [laughs] No, I’m not going to do that but what I would like to do, especially because she’s still alive, is a tribute to Nancy Wilson. That’s the next project I want to do.

MR: Oh, beautiful. Are you friends with her?

DS: Yeah, we’re very dear friends.

MR: Are there any people whose new projects you just have to get when they come out?

DS: I remember on some of my own projects when they’d be released my former husband Rocket and I would go to Tower Records and look for the CD.

MR: For those who have been in the music business or who cared about collecting records or tapes or CDs over the years, it’s such a blow to the lifestyle to not be able to run to the nearest store and pick up the CD.

DS: Yeah, I don’t get CDs anymore much. I’ve gotten so many and it’s just as easy to download it from iTunes. My albums are on iTunes now, this album’s going to be on iTunes, too. Mikey, I predict within the next five to ten years CDs will be a thing of the past.

MR: Yeah, I don’t even know if that’s sad or not, but the CD as a musical delivery system has been the longest-running format of all.

DS: People still play vinyl records. I collect the vinyl of albums myself.

MR: And it’s nice when people put new projects out on vinyl, it’s a nice exploration of the music.

DS: The Gathering was on vinyl, too.

MR: Right on. What advice do you have for new artists?

DS: My advice, and I guess it would be unsolicited advice [laughs]

MR: I’m soliciting it! I think that’s the best setup I’ve ever heard, other than “I don’t give advice, but…”

DS: [laughs] I would say don’t lose the vision, keep the dream, whatever the dream and aspiration and desire are. Follow the muse and try not to get discouraged, because it’s pretty competitive out there. Everything now is so specialized. Listen to lots of different music, if you’re into jazz, listen to classical. I do a lot. Keep on keeping on and don’t give up.

MR: Do you find that listening to the other kinds of music opens your mind creatively to ideas you might not have had otherwise?

DS: I think so.

MR: It’s almost a shame because as music education goes away from schools, it’s almost like you’re depriving somebody of an essential education. I think it’s not good to allow just talk radio to teach kids what music is.

DS: Yeah, exactly.

MR: I think the way we grew up with music benefitted us.

DS: Oh, it did, absolutely!

MR: All right, I’m off my high horse. What is the future for Diane Schuur?

DS: Touring, basically. Promoting this record. You can look on the website, it’ll tell you exactly where we’re going as far as the June tour. Basically just touring and keeping it alive.

MR: And collecting the songs for the cowboy collection, right?

DS: That’s right! [laughs]

MR: Is there anything we left out?

DS: I can’t really think of anything except that tunes like “The Second Time Around,” and “For Once In My Life” I’ll probably live into. They’ll probably come to fruition in my life.

MR: You’ve probably had that experience already with some of the other songs, too.

DS: Oh yeah! When I met my husband I was singing “Louisiana Sunday Afternoon” and we left on a cruise from New Orleans on a Sunday afternoon.

MR: So in a way music becomes your script.

DS: Very much so.

MR: And I’m imagining that also plays into your choice of songs, projecting where you’d like to go with a lot of this.

DS: Yeah! Exactly, that’s exactly the way it’s been for all of my life. A friend of mine said, “Deedles, enjoy your freedom, it won’t last.” I’m not through falling in love, in fact like that song by Tammy Wynette says, “I’ll just keep on falling in love ’til I get it right.”

MR: That’s beautiful. That’s a great way to look at music and your life. Profound yet simple.

DS: Sometimes profound is very simple.

MR: That is gorgeous. Every time I talk to you I love it, you’re so inspiring and so energetic, it’s just fun.

DS: Oh, it’s fun for me too, I really mean that.

MR: All the best. I hope the next script that comes along is even more immense and intense for you.

DS: I think it will be. I think this album, the launch of it, everything gets in alignment and comes together in exactly the way it’s supposed to. It’s kind of like Occam’s Razor.

MR: I love the Occam’s Razor reference. I’m such a sci-fi geek.

DS: Well I’m a sci-fi geekette.

MR: Thanks again Diane.

DS: Thank you my dear!

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne