ABSTRACT
For the cover story of the June 1999 edition of Jazzwise. The author wrote what turned out to be quite a controversial piece on Diana Krall. It provoked a significant reaction from several quarters, and not least from my good friend, and professional Canadian, Gene Lees, who reprinted it in his Jazz letter along with his own spirited defence of the way she was being marketed to the public. You get the impression after talking to her for a while that it's a relief for Diana Krall to focus on her musical career. Johnny Mandel's no slouch when it comes to providing an orchestral platform for a singer, and his work for Frank Sinatra put him in the very highest echelon of arrangers. The Johnny Mandel of today is not so much the man who played brass in the Boyd Raeburn and Jimmy Dorsey bands, or arranged for Basie and Artie Shaw.
