PRACTISING WHAT SHE TEACHES
Diana Panton strikes a balance with teaching and singing jazz
Diana Panton may be a high school teacher by day and a jazz singer by night, but she’s anything but a musical dabbler.
Not only has the pure, gentle-voiced singer made eight albums, but two of them have won Junos. While Panton is based in Hamilton, she has toured across Canada, Mexico, Japan and China.
She performs with some of Canada’s best jazz accompanists, including guitarist Reg Schwager and bassist Neil Swainson, who join her Saturday at the National Arts Centre’s Azraeli Studio.
Below, Panton discusses how music became such a huge, if not all-consuming, part of her life.
Q: Tell me about your earliest attractions to music.
A: From a young age it was typical to hear me humming or singing as I went about tasks. I wasn’t much of an entertainer, but vocalizing was usually a sign of contentedness and my mom would say she knew when I wasn’t feeling well because the melodies would stop.
At six years old, I would improvise melodies and lyrics on my way home from school. These stream-of-consciousness explorations were inspired by the world around me, by nature in particular. I came up with melancholy lyrics lamenting all the concrete that was gobbling up the green space.
At home, I heard classical music on my dad’s stereo. He liked Bach and Mozart. I heard surprisingly little vocal music, except through musicals I saw on TV — I particularly liked the songs from My Fair Lady.
Q: When did the jazz bug bite?
A: It wasn’t until I was about 16 when my dad put on something entirely different that caught my ear right away. It was a record by Ella Fitzgerald and it had my immediate attention. It turns out that my dad had been quite a jazz fan in his younger days. When he saw my interest in jazz, he opened a sliding drawer in the living room containing some LPs that he had brought with him from Scotland to Canada, including Frank Sinatra, Horace Silver and Miles Davis. I was like a kid in a candy shop. I quickly went through his collection and moved on to the local libraries, taking out the maximum number of CDs and cassettes I was allowed at each branch. I was probably listening to about 30 recordings a week. I had no aspirations to be a singer. I just loved the music.
Q: Tell me about your musical training.
A: I started taking classical singing lessons and my teacher encouraged me to try out for the Hamilton All- Star Jazz Band since she knew I enjoyed listening to jazz. I was eventually selected as one of the band’s singers. We opened a show for singer Trudy Desmond, and Don Thompson was playing bass in her group. He found me backstage and recommended I audition for the Banff jazz workshop.
I had never even heard of it, but I sent in my cassette tape of a few songs. I was 20 years old when I first attended Banff — my roommate and I were the youngest ones there, fresh out of high school, while most of the other musicians were finishing up studies at Juilliard, Berklee or other international equivalents. There was a lot to take in as I had only been singing jazz for about a year at that point. Some of it was totally over my head, but many of the instructors, including Norma Winstone, Jim Hall, Kenny Wheeler and of course, Don went out of their way to encourage me. Even though I didn’t have the same musical vocabulary as the more schooled musicians, the instructors still invited me into the musical conversation.
Q : What does it mean to you to be an artist?
A: I think the word “artist” equates with a journey into the self. I believe the more authentic I can be, the better artist I will be. I have to accept the voice that I have and try to showcase its qualities to their best effect. My voice seems to enjoy songs with strong melody that allow for sustained notes. I also like to sing lyrics that tell a story. I favour songs that have not been over-recorded because so many great tunes get overlooked or forgotten as the years go by.
Q: You’ve sung in Asia and your new album sold very well there. Tell me about the Asian market and appreciation for your music.
A: For one thing, there is still a good physical market in Asia. There are wonderful music stores with dedicated jazz sections, in-store displays, listening posts and informed staff to help make recommendations. There are avid collectors who are still interested in owning an actual album, as opposed to digital downloads. I invest a lot of time into the conceptual aspect of my music, and in Asia they are more likely to listen to the complete package than a few isolated tracks. As an artist, it makes me happy to know that people still put value in the format of the album as a narrative or theme.
Q : Have you thought about pursuing music full-time?
A: I’ve never considered giving up my day job, since as an independent artist I depend on that revenue to finance my artistic pursuits. Teaching also provides more freedom to select musical jobs which are truly of interest tome.
Q: How do you balance teaching and singing ?
A: I never really think of myself as a “teacher” or a “singer,” but rather as a person who practises both of these skills. I hope I can model to students that they don’t need to follow a single pathway, but rather they can develop their multiple interests. Finding balance is a constant challenge, but I think the effort has been worthwhile from the returns of both professions.