Diane Schuur is a Midnight kind of gal
'Deedles' joins forces with Barry Manilow on latest album
by Michelle Nikolai

Diane Schuur says her life is like the skydiving expedition she took in 1998 after the death of her beloved cat Weedle. Though blind, she made the jump in tandem with her instructor and experienced the free fall - an intense wind howling in her ears, her cheeks puffing way out like Dizzy Gillespie's - and a minute later, the ultimate quiet as she drifted towards the earth. She says the experience was a metaphor for her life.

"I think that's the way life is sometimes, or even the transition from life into another energy form is just that way - the cacophony and suddenly the stillness," she explains. "But you know, we landed on our feet."

That's what's so amazing about "Deedles," as her friends call her: she has time and again defied amazing odds. Born six weeks premature in Tacoma, Wash. in 1953, she was placed in an incubator and given too much oxygen, destroying her optical nerve. When things got overwhelming in her life, she assuaged the pain with alcohol and drugs, but has been clean and sober now for over 14 years. A two-time Grammy winner, Schuur has made her career as a jazz singer-pianist by mining her private feelings, and this vulnerability has been both her strength and her detriment. A wellspring of emotion is at the heart of her latest album, the eclectic Midnight, written and produced by pop icon Barry Manilow with his long-time collaborator Eddie Arkin.

Recorded in historic Studio A at Capitol Recording studios in Hollywood, it features 13 original songs including duets with R&B artist Brian McKnight, jazz vocalist Karrin Allison and Manilow himself, who closes the album with Schuur on the feel-good gem "Anytime." Manilow, who records for the same label as Deedles, conceived of the project with her three and a half octave range in mind. "The people at [Concord Records] asked him who he wanted to work with, and he said me," Schuur says.

Midnight has many musical colors from swing to sultry, Brazilian to Bossa Nova, but ultimately it evokes a 1950s-era jazz club in the afterhours. "I'm a midnight kind of gal," Deedles concedes. "That's when I'm the most awake and alive, and it's partially because of my lifestyle in music. Most of the time, I can't just shut it off when I come home."

Manilow has produced Grammy-nominated albums for Bette Midler, Dionne Warwick and Nancy Wilson; Schuur first met the man she affectionately calls "Bear" in 1988, and she says he put his heart and soul into the album. The surprising cache of songs took an entire year to craft. "He just brought a lot of wonderful memories, a feeling of warmth, and we just had a lot of fun. He's very creative, very heart-felt, very emotional."

Most of the project's tracks were recorded in one or two takes, and the lush string sections were added later, giving it a refreshingly live sound. Her biggest creative challenge, she said, was convincing the Bear to let her play the piano on the track "Life Is Good." "I had to let them know I wasn't happy about that. There were quite a few chord changes, but I was able to do it and it worked out fine."

Schuur's love of music began early - she started teaching herself to play piano at age 3 on her grandfather's old upright, and her aunt had a Hammond organ with multiple motors that she practiced on. She also had a Wurlitzer spinet that her sister now keeps. Currently she owns two Baldwins, an upright and a grand, and is in the process of having them moved to her new three bedroom house near Dana Point in Orange County, Calif. "I really like Baldwin a lot, I love the grand here," she says. "For the action and lightness of touch, I really like my upright."

She grew up listening to her mother's and grandmother's records, including distinctive jazz vocalists like Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington - a controversial singer because of her versatility, who Schuur still considers to be a kindred spirit. Deedles (her mother's nickname for her) studied at the Washington State School for the Blind until she was 11 and got her first professional singing gig at age 9 at a Holiday Inn in Fife, Wash.

She learned classical music using Braille notation, which is composed of the same six dots as the Braille alphabet, but the dots are arranged to signify the notes and their values. When she started singing jazz she focused more on ear training, but she still has lyric sheets done in Braille so she can read and sing simultaneously.

The venerable tenor saxophonist Stan Getz heard her perform at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1979 and was a mentor to her until he passed in 1991. She has released albums for several labels over the past 25 years, and won "Best Female Vocalist, Jazz Category" for her albums Timeless and Diane Schuur and the Count Basie Orchestra.

Like her cat "Bubie" (the name means sweetheart in Yiddish), who's purring into the phone during the interview, it would seem she has nine lives. She nearly died of double pneumonia when was two. Besides the addictions in her adult life, she attempted suicide at a very low point, and recently had a risky neck surgery that could have impaired her voice permanently.

"It was really scary," she says. "They took my vocal chords and moved them out of the way so they could perform the operation, and they had to cut on of the little branches leading to the laryngeal nerve, and that's what was so dangerous."

She and husband Les Crockett, who she calls Rocket, are in the process of moving to a new "Rocket Pad" located just 15 minutes from the beach. Moves are rough, she says, and she chokes up a little when she recalls the past eight years and the neighbors she's grown to love, but her new place is larger and has a serene Japanese garden. She hopes being so near to the ocean will promote her newfound feelings of serenity.

"I tell ya, it sure has been an interesting journey, my life has, but I don't regret anything," Schuur concedes. "I flirted with death a lot and didn't even know it, but it made me into a stronger character today. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Schuur will embark on an all-woman tour with Concord labelmates Oleta Adams, Sara Gazarek, and Karrin Allyson in April. Dubbed the "Concord Jazz Festival," dates will added throughout the year and into 2005.

"It'll be interesting, I hope the men can stand it," she laughs heartily. "I just hope we don't all have PMS at the same time!"