CD release if the moon turns green ... (Convocation Hall, McMaster): with Reg Schwager & Don Thompson
Excerpt from Mimi gives the new CD the paws up by Suzanne Bourret
[...] jazz fans can get their own sneak preview of If The Moon Turns Green on Sunday night when Diana appears at McMaster University's Convocation Hall. The CD won't be officially released until the end of next month because she is negotiating with a potential distributor, and the concert will be one of her rare performances. [...] There's a reason important people are knocking at her door. Her first independently released CD, Yesterday Perhaps, now into its second pressing, came out two years ago to rave reviews. It was named one of the top 10 releases of 2005 by Len Dobbin of the Montreal Mirror and Tim Perlich of Toronto's NOW Magazine. She was nominated in [2006] for four Hamilton Music Scene awards and won for Best Jazz Recording and the People's Choice Award for Best Live Performance.
CD Release …yesterday perhaps (Studio theatre): with Don Thompson, Ted Quinlan
Excerpt from Our best-kept secret by Leonard Turnevicius
“Diana Panton sets herself apart in jazz traditions. […] Small on patter, but sweet on ballads, jazz chanteuse Diana Panton launched her CD …yesterday perhaps before a supportive crowd in Hamilton Place Studio Theatre on Saturday night. […] Mellow tunes like I’m a Fool to Want You, and This is Always, saw Panton, eyes closed, pouring out her heart, tapering long held notes into thin air. […] Panton, who by her own admission sings infrequently in public, is surely one of Hamilton’s best-kept musical secrets.”
Ooh la la concert: with David Braid, Pat Collins
Excerpt from Panton trio heats up cold winter night by Leonard Turnevicius
“ […] Diana let loose with a solo rendition of Ella Fitzgerald’s A-Tisket, A-Tasket that brought down the house. The audience called for “More!” And there was. With references to jazz artists, the lyrics of Peggy Lee’s I Love Bein’ Here With You appropriately summed up the evening. But the audience insisted on an encore and the Diana Panton trio obliged with Irving Berlin’s Isn’t This A Lovely Day. Diana, David [Braid] and Pat [Collins]: even though it was an Eskimo winter outside, as long as we could be with you, it was a lovely evening.”
Au Revoir Diana Panton concert: with the Hamilton All-Star Jazz Band
Excerpt from Jazzy sendoff for a great ballad singer by Hugh Fraser
“ […] She has always, from the very beginning, been a magnificent ballad singer. Give her something like Duke’s first big hit, Solitude, or the ever-unwinding, never-ending musical thread of Rodgers and Hart’s Little Girl Blue, give her enough room behind the beat to tuck in a sensitively managed accompaniment and you have tiny masterpieces created before your very ears.
The limpid yet lambent mastery of the gently bent phrase and the chiseled and beautifully sustained logic of the melodic line are all things that have given immense pleasure over the years.
Paradoxically, for such a sensitive and musically exquisite ballad singer, it is when she really cuts loose that she seems most truly, uniquely herself. The blues-drenched Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me, the positively rowdy and raunchy Deed I Do and the encore, the famous, fabulous, fire-eating Doctor Feel Good are all totally transformed each time she does them. They mark Panton as a big band singer supreme.”
Duke and the First Lady Concert: with the HASJB
Excerpt from Young all-star jazz band leaves audience smiling by Hugh Fraser
“[Diana’s] singing now simply floats anywhere she wants it to and she has a touch that is unequalled with a ballad. Imagination, Solitude, In A Sentimental Mood and I Got it Bad (And That Ain’t Good) were all exceptional in elegant phrasing, precise intonation and a wonderful sense of just-behind the beat dramatic timing. Equally good were the gently swingers like Squeeze Me […], Cheek to Cheek, Can’t We Be Friends […] And no one, in my experience, except Ella herself in the Imperial Room in Toronto, has ever done an a cappella Mr. Paganini better.
Billie and Basie: with the HASJB
Excerpt from A thrilling evening with Diana Panton by Hugh Fraser
“[…] The library of songs [Diana] sang were what I like to call American lieder –just to give them the dignity that the classical side of the music gives to its songs, and I do because they are the same thing – moving poetry set to lovely music. Duke’s Solitude, Keeps on Raining,You Better Go Now, Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone, I Love You Porgy, St. Louis Blues and a really stunning acappella Strange Fruit were but a few of the numbers she sang with the big band, the Farrugia trio or just with guitarist Dan Cross.
In them she proved she has become a great practitioner of this art form and I say that without qualification. What she did Saturday she could have done in any of the world’s great halls or famed jazz clubs and caused the same awed reaction in her listeners.
She brings to each song that perfect combination of words and music. Words so naturally phrased they seem as easy as conversation, music so deliciously supported and coloured by a voice that can do whatever it wishes to express the deepest emotions. Emotions all the more potent for being subtly understated, yet profoundly understood.”
Diana Panton with the David Braid Trio
Excerpt from Musical conversations by Hugh Fraser
Each [Panton and Braid] multiplies the other’s art, and when they hold their conversations in music it is with an understanding, flair and profundity that makes listening an enthralling experience […]
“I’ve always enjoyed her interpretation, and where she likes to sit within a tune is where I like to be a lot of the time as well,” says Braid. “It’s like a compatible conversation. And when this concert came up, I immediately thought of my trio because we are all on the same wavelength. [We also have] a compatible love for the same repertoire,” Braid says.
We Remember Ella: with HASJB
Excerpt from One Ella of a show… by Hugh Fraser
“The other benefit, Saturday, was the Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald featuring vocalist Diana Panton, pianist David Braid and Russ Weil’s Hamilton All-Star Jazz Band. A usually reliable source phoned to say “it was better than the three tenors” and it was also hugely successful.
We had to turn away about 200 hundred people,” said Weil. “And we had to start late in order to seat everybody who could get tickets [in the 700 capacity theatre plus 200 temporary seats added to accommodate numbers], because some people queued for an hour.”